Surfing Waves

hey guys

I did a lot of pondering after my thread about a small wave board and decided to not jump on the 5'6 potatonator afterall.
Instead a 5'10 dominator came in my area yesterday that I managed to get for $380 inc. fins and leash.

It's 5'10 x 20 1/4 x 2 1/2 and 33.5l. It's the first time i've held a rapidfire firewire board before and the bottom glassing is really thin!
The top feels very solid though so will be interesting to see how it goes!

Coming in to summer This board should be a heap of fun in 1-3.5ft waves and I imagine should paddle in to waves very easily and also be very agile.
I'll probably tend to run it as a thruster but will play around no doubt!

It's surprising to see how fat the tail and rails are!

forgot to also mention that this should finally compliment my quiver!:

I've got my 7'2 torq (love it) 47.2L
6'1 x 19 x 2 3/8 shortboard (also love it but needs clean faces to get going) 29.1L
Small wave / performance grovellor: been trying to find a board of this genre that suits me for awhile!
Now looking like the 5'10 dominator 33.5L

Hey congratulations with ur Dominator. I'm just back from a very nice surf on my Dominator 606 FST. They are great boards! I've got a big one for my 165lbs, it has 45 liters and that helps my 52yo shoulders to paddle well for some time.

I had some troubles some time ago that I couldn't control it in powerfull waves from shoulder high. But I played around with fins and now it goes like a dream. Easy paddling and catching, instand speed (a lot!!) and great for turns.

I also have an Addvance 606 in LFT, that construction is even lighter then FST maybe that's comparable with rapdfire, it also has that bamboo deck? It's way too weak for my liking. If u look at it hard it dings

Let us know how it goes!

Wicked dude! Yeah I've kind of only read good reviews on the dominator and seems like the kind of size and style that i want for those size of waves.

The forecast looks like Thursday will be about 2m faces and clean so should be perfect to test it out!
Luckily I've got a medium,
Medium-large and quad fins to play around with. What fin changes did you make to get it to handle size better?

Yeah I think the rapid fire is probably
Similar or the predecessor to liner flex. Apparently rapid fire is lighter,
Springier and softer than fst. I figure that I'm only 65kg and don't plan to surf it over 3-4ft so hopefully won't ding or snap too easy?!

Keep us updated....want to hear how it works out for you.

benjl wrote:What fin changes did you make to get it to handle size better?

Personally, on a board that size/shape, on larger waves I'd be going thruster. It'll tend to hold more tightly onto the face than a quad, and will give a better pivot at the beginning to get you onto the face without needing to bottom turn.

Go with the large fins to start with, but then you'll probably soon shift down to the mediums

drowningbitbybit wrote:

benjl wrote:What fin changes did you make to get it to handle size better?

Personally, on a board that size/shape, on larger waves I'd be going thruster. It'll tend to hold more tightly onto the face than a quad, and will give a better pivot at the beginning to get you onto the face without needing to bottom turn.

Go with the large fins to start with, but then you'll probably soon shift down to the mediums

What makes you think a thruster would be better on larger waves or hold the wall better? Pretty much that is what I heard quads do (hold better on a wall and better on bigger surf)

drowningbitbybit wrote:

benjl wrote:What fin changes did you make to get it to handle size better?

Personally, on a board that size/shape, on larger waves I'd be going thruster. It'll tend to hold more tightly onto the face than a quad, and will give a better pivot at the beginning to get you onto the face without needing to bottom turn.

Go with the large fins to start with, but then you'll probably soon shift down to the mediums

Thanks DBB. Yeah after I had the 'quad only' option on my other 6'0 hypto shape board (also very similar to this), I plan to run it as a thruster. I am literally trembling at the seams to take it for a spin tomorrow!! My Shapers Mojo fins might be a good match for it with their long base to height ratio. Should help provide a bit of speed, hold and snap where needed

oldmansurfer wrote:What makes you think a thruster would be better on larger waves or hold the wall better? Pretty much that is what I heard quads do (hold better on a wall and better on bigger surf)

Experience. On my shorter boards*, the thruster definitely outperforms the quad set-up in larger surf.

To clarify slightly - a thruster will turn on a face better, while a quad will have the straight line drive high along the face, so yes, you're right in that sense. However, quads are skatier, and on stumpier short/wide boards (rather than big wave boards), the quads sometimes feel like they're slipping out or across the wave when you turn from one rail to the other on a large face. The thruster has the middle fin to stabilise things as you go from one rail to the other and is a pivot point to turn around, rather than slide around like on a quad.

Someone more interested in straight-line speed on the face of a big wave on a big-wave board may well prefer a quad, but I like a) stumpy boards, and b) to throw my board all over the shop no matter what size wave I'm on.

* See below.

Interesting. I learned originally on a single fin and the second time around on a 1+2 thruster sort of longboard then went to a quad. So I haven't noticed the shortcomings of a quad yet but I still need to experiment a bit. I can see that maybe my style of surfing has evolved for a quad. Need to go back to a thruster again and try it a bit more. My original fungun has a 5 fin configuration with the fifth fin being also single fin box. I finally got a converter to FCS fins in and need to go try it as a thruster. I need to go change that out and see how it works. I got a slightly shorter fatter board and it has a typical 5 fin set up and I have tried it as a thruster and a quad. Truthfully I never noticed much difference but as a quad the board made an awesome fast zipping big arc cutback that felt really great and was amazingly fast....but then it was pretty decent as a thruster too....so I need to try the thruster a bit more I think

benjl wrote:What fin changes did you make to get it to handle size better?

I started with fcs-pc7, those are large, as adviced by the guys at Firewire themselves. But the board felt horrible from my first surf.. First I thought it was me, so I tried different foot positions and I got it going a bit. But in more powerfull stuff from shoulder high the board felt out of control and very hard under the feet. Like stomping on concrete. Enter the Addvance.

I wanted to sell the Dom but decided to give it another try in smaller waves as a quad. I used the pc7 as fronts and bought a GX-Q rear set. That felt much better but the turns where too drawn out (too wide) for my liking. Then I just tried something crazy, a thruster setup with the GX-Q's as sides and a Glass Flex medium sized center fin. That was it! I felt it from the first surf, the ride was buttery and the turns super loose and easy also in overhead waves now.

As far as I know the G-XQ's with their 80/20 foil and increased sweep are not meant for this, also they are much smaller than fcs-pc3 the small sized thruster fins. But I haven't had any problems with hold, so this is it for me now.

Offcourse a 510 is so much smaller than a 606, probably u'll end up with a complete different fin solution. Just experiment with it, it's great fun to feel these changes in the same board and learn what works and what not.

All waxed up and ready to go tomorrow!

It's got a touch of nose rocker but really flat and full back end!
Also compared to picking up my 6'1 short board which is also epoxy, it is incredibly light

Well guys, I just came back from my frist test ride and the verdict wasn't great although probably the wrong conditions to properly test it. To be fair though, the conditions were 3-6ft (primarily 4-5ft / 1.5x overhead) and heavy, howling offshore, hollow waves where this board would be out of its depth for starters. I saw people getting overhead barrels and also saw a dudes minimal get snapped so the conditiions were not easy. The waves were also quite wobbly and didn't have a clean 'push' down the face.
It's the first time in quite a while that i've been generally scared by the size of the wave when they would double up and all of a sudden have a 2x overhead wave about to break on low tide banks! = steep, hollow dumpy wave.

I knew my normal shortboard would've been a better choice but I was too frothed to give it a try!

I was out there for probably 1.5hrs and literally could not get a single wave. I had paddled and got to the face a couple of times but the strong wind would blow me off the back and the super-light board would just skip around the top and not go down. It was too light to sink through the foam ball at the lip and It just seemed to have too much volume in the nose with my weight for the conditions today.
Paddlewise: it seemed ok, not as good as I was expecting and strangely felt less than a 33.5l extra light epoxy board for my weight. Once again though, due to the ocean force and rips sweeping across the beach it wasn't exactly calm or flat conditions to really see how fast it paddled but seemed ok.
Outline: I struggled a little with trying to find the right positioning on this board. To get any chance of catching the waves today I had to be lying so far up the front it felt like a liability for when the drop did happen. When I did pop up this far front, I noticed that my back foot wasn't on the pad and only when I moved it back down did it feel like you could jam and control the board as desired. But on a big wave, it was too skatey to be messing around with foot placement.
Wave catching: I was quite disappointed with this boards ability to work in small mush. I had to paddle really hard to get it going and had nothing like the glide of my 7'2 (considering it's low rocker, dense volume and light weight i thought it would've cruised a long a little better in the mush). It didn't feel much better than my 6'1 shortboard in the small choppy waves near the beach front.

It wasn't until I had basically called it a day and was half heading to shore that I saw a chance with a 3ftr coming my way. I paddled hard and managed to finally get the nose and weight down enough to grip on to the face. The wave got steep quickly and I had to really work hard to just solidify my position to enable it to hold a line. I could feel the board skating a little under my feet and immediately I could feel that it wasn't the right time to try and do any sort of turn. I rode the wave out until it crashed behind me and engulfed me in its whitewash (maybe it was bigger than 3ft, it was a big wall of whitewash..) It was a great feeling to finally have gotten one!
I got the feeling like I really needed 3-4 of these waves to start dialling in my timing and positioning on the board but these conditions were not condusive for that.

I rode it as a thruster and with some decent size drawn-out fins. I was surprised at how skatey it felt with this set up and also felt like it needed some more weight added to it to sit better in the water.

Overall, I think if the conditions had been 1ft less and not such a strong off-shore wind, it would've been fun. It's supposed to be 1-2ft on-shore messy chop in the weekend so at least i should get another chance to try it out in something smaller very soon!

benjl wrote:I felt like it needed some more weight added to it to sit better in the water.

Nuh, you just need to eat and drink more.

Lightweight boards are notoriously difficult in windy conditions and, personally, I find difficult in bumpy conditions (not that I ride them that often). And the first time you ride a board is always a disaster. So pretty much you managed the trifecta of making it difficult for yourself...

haha! Thanks DTC, in hindsight i'm pretty happy with nursing a full ride on that last wave

I've been reading some reviews that say hollow and barelling conditions are not well suited to the DOM regardless of size let alone in the head + range.
Might try some bigger fins for my weekends surf and see what i can do with it!

Windy choppy conditions are hard with an epoxy board....those conditions sound hard period....I went out recently on a similar sounding day and dropped into a wave only to find myself hung up on lumpy waves of chop going down the face....was no smooth drop in, rather felt like I was on a rocky hillside and was picking my way down boulder to boulder....strange slow motion ride on a pretty big wave....didn't care for it and went in directly after....


Give it some time....also try waking up early and getting into less choppy conditions.

benjl wrote:Well guys, I just came back from my frist test ride and the verdict wasn't great

My first experience with the Dom was a big disappointment, I rode a head high wave in choppy conditions and didn't feel any control over the board. It was just too high in the water and I felt every little bump.

Now I only use it in clean conditions with the smaller fins and I'm completely in love with the board. On non surfing days I skip in the storage to look at it and throw it a little kiss..

I find grovelers a bit of a nightmare in hollow jacking surf. Too much tail volume and low rocker mean that the takeoff is super hectic. When the wave starts to pick you up whilst paddling, the high tail volume makes the back float up high, meaning that you end up pointing very steeply downhill. If you stick the drop, you have massive speed but when you come to bottom turn, again the big fat rails don't engage very deep, and you spin out easily.

Don't lose faith.

Lebowski wrote:I find grovelers a bit of a nightmare in hollow jacking surf

^^^^ What he said.

...and super lightweight grovellers even more so.

I got to take the dominator out again yesterday for round 2. of experiements!
It was 4-6ft (big!) waves and wrong conditions but was worth a crack. The photo doesn't do the wave size justice but bear in mind that the waves up the very front are 2-3ft and the ones wayyyy out back are probably double overhead and are impossible to get to without a jetski.

Second thoughts: I managed to paddle for about 20mins straight and got out half-way out back once, only to have a double set of 5-6ftrs come breaking right in front of me and smash me half way to shore!
I tried to ride the white-wash waves closer to the shore and it was a nightmare on this board. It is just soo light that it gets bucked around all over the place when on white-wash. Definitely not a board that you can take off in the foam ball and try ride your way out of it.

After awhile i decided to flag Maori Bay and head round the point on the right to Muriwai beach. It was probably bigger and cleaner there but breaking even further out.
In the end I decided to just settle with the 0-1ft and 1-1.5ft reforms that were a mixture of semi white-wash / clean face.
In a nutshell, the board could grovel; although it was hard work. I had to really stamp on the front of the board to keep it planing in weak surf and didn't glide on it at all. There was a bunch of learners on 8ft minimals struggling to catch the same waves that i was getting so I guess it can work on tiny stuff, but requires a lot of paddling and pumping.
A couple of times I got the drop on a clean face and the board really started to come alive there. It is just so light and 'twitchy', it's very different to any board i've ridden before. It really feels like it needs more weight, like the FST model of construction has.
I did manage to do a couple of really sweeet little carves once I slowed down my turning movements and tried to pick a point on the wave to turn from, as opposed to just turning.

I think it could handle some size, once you get used to the timing of turning it and its 'twitchyness'.

I can't wait for something in the 2-3ft size to properly test it when it's not just massive or tiny!

I also still haven't tried it quads, perhaps that will reduce it's twitchy feel