Surfing Waves

I am a semi ok nose rider. Been surfing about 20 years or so. I have been on the same nose rider for about ten years. ( 10 foot, Volan, heavy, 19 x 23 1/2 x 16 1/4 x 3 1/4 with with 7" wide square, ash tray tail. 50/50 rails turned up little in rear. Lots of kick in the tail and some in the nose with concave, wide point slightly behind center) Board generally turns on a dime and was made purely for nose riding in florida beach break.
Everyone always says to put the fin all the way back in the fin box for nose riding. I mostly use a raked out squrill tail type fin but have several others I switch to sometimes. I find that putting my fin back in the box force's me to do all drop knee turns and I can not do real quick cut backs to set up for nose rides in fast beach break waves. Question : why is it so important to keep the fin in the back of the box on waist high beach break for nose riding? Is it supposed to keep the board from pearling during a nose ride?
I don't have to worry about sliding sideways ever so that is not an issue. Never even had it happen in steep hurricane waves.
You can see the board on the following link on my shapers page. It is the brown tiger stripped one with wood fin. A "Tipparillo". That wood fin is a local hand made Justin quintel shape.
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id ... riends.all

CheaterFiveSurfBum wrote:Question : why is it so important to keep the fin in the back of the box on waist high beach break for nose riding?

That is a general consensus but more like an old wives tale. FIn further back in the box is stiffer while further forward is looser ....... Yes, if you're standing on the tail. But if you're standing on the nose and the tail is sticking out the wave, the fin at the back of the box may not be engaged anymore. Best to put the fin in the position that lets YOU control the board. The position that lets you bottom turn, trim and set your rail. But also one you can stall.

Especially on a new board, I recommend putting the fin in the center of the box and working from there. The center is where the shaper designed the fin to be. But due to shape, profile, inch size we need to move it around a bit.

CheaterFiveSurfBum wrote:Is it supposed to keep the board from pearling during a nose ride?

The fin doesn't keep the nose from pearling. It is the wave wrapping over rail and holding down the tail, that allows you to be on the opposite side.


behind the back foot you can see the thin sheet of water wrapping over the tail. That "locks" the tail down. Not the fin.


and the board didn't have a center fin in the box anyways.

Simple answer the best place for the fin is where it works best for you!

If you want to nose ride don't fail to engage the tail and the rail.

There is a maneouvre you can do on the nose, I call it a woggle, where you can side slip the fin and tail enough to re-engage the board a little further down the face without turning, and still maintain the nose ride.

Thanks guy's, Excellent replies. I have been on this particular nose rider for about 10 years and changed many fins and fin positions many times and see many of the Pro level nose riders around here still putting their fin all the way back. I kept mine halfway or all the way forward if using a huge Justin Quintel type or pivot fin because it enabled me to set up for the nose ride much quicker but I kept thinking maybe I was missing out on longer nose ride by not having it back. I just switched back to a "Harbor hp-1" fin for the hurricane swell because ya can't go wrong with that fin. It's just a little on the wobbly side when up on the tip.
One fact Id like to touch on is many nose riders have a ton of kick in the tail as mine does and Id think that changes that rake of the fin considerably from it's original design intent.

I wanna know if waikikki turned that guy into roadkill or not

Let's just say he's lucky I didn't have the center fin installed. If not he might have gotten a Reverse-Mohawk hair cut.