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My board, which is really beginning to show its age, has never seen new fins. I feel like a bad parent. So, like many bad parents, I tried to redeem myself by shelling out. In honor of its premier voyage to Cali – or should I say, return home – I bought it a new bag (which, hopefully, will protect it from disgruntled luggage handlers) and a new set of fins.
Buying fins is a seriously confusing endeavor. I mean, I guess not if you buy them all the time. I Googled something along the lines of “find best surfboard fins” (that is an embarrassing admission) and what I came up with were a bunch of sites that didn’t make it much easier. You’ve got to consider the system first, right? FCS. Then the flex, depth, sweep, surface area… too technical for me. I ended up just looking at the different features and benefits of each type.
I decided on FCS K-3 Glass Flex, mostly because if Kelly Slater says “you should be set for pretty much any sort of waves you find,” well, that sounds like a safe bet. They’re also reasonably priced, but should be a definite upgrade from my 10-year-old plastics. I’ll let you know how it goes…
‘Cause without it, you wouldn’t be able to rodeo flip. Yes, that’s right, it’s the wax that makes it possible.
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…Looks fine to me.
Swiped Carmen Vicari’s awesome video from Transworld : Sam Hammer, Balaram Stack & Clay Pollioni
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I was lucky enough to watch Rich Luthringer rough shape one of his beautiful boards a few weekends ago. It’s crazy to see a perfect, little swallowtail emerge from a pretty primitive blank. Luthringer has made thousands of boards- literally, he stopped counting at 3,000. Sawing and sanding are second nature to him now, and he can (amazingly) feel imperfections in the boards by running his hands over the foam. Then he simply smoothes them out. No big deal.
“I could probably shape a board blind,” he says.
“Really?”
“Yeah, I just wouldn’t use a planer blind.”
This is an actual petition against SUP, which I find hilarious. Then again, I haven’t experienced much trouble with stand-ups out here; maybe Cali is overrun with them? The petitioners want to designate certain beaches as SUP-friendly (and banish them from the rest), mostly for safety reasons. They have 51 signatures so far, and only 1,949 until they reach their goal. Are you going to sign it? Tell me why/why not.
Here are a few things I learned this week that I think might interest you:
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