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Summer Shortboards: Which is the best surfboard model for you?

Hey everyone! Hope everyone is having a great summer so far and been getting some good waves in with the fun swells we’ve had.

Rather than an in depth Board Breakdown of one of my models, getting into the details of the rails, bottom contours, rockers, etc – I wanted to break down the entire Summer Shortboards model line to help explain how they compare to each other.

First I’d like to say that the description “Summer Shortboards” is a bit misleading; while they’re designed to handle the typical waves we tend to get during summer, they aren’t by any means only limited to summer waves. In fact, many of my customers have switched to surfing these boards almost entirely and year round. They are quite versatile and tons of fun.

So the 5 current boards in the Summer Shortboard model line are the Reviver, MicroJet, Mango Pit, Coconut and Chia Seed. While there is some overlap between the models, they each have their own personalities and characteristics.

To give a little perspective as quickly as possible: The MicroJet and Coconut have the most rocker, the Reviver and Chia Seed have the most overall width, and the Mango Pit has the most surface area.

The Reviver and MicroJet were both designed with performance surfing and performance shortboard characteristics in mind, where as the Mango Pit, Coconut and Chia Seed were not designed with a performance shortboard heavily in mind – they were designed less around performance surfing and more around fun, versatility and ease of use.

So first to compare the more performance oriented boards of the Summer Shortboards: the Reviver and MicroJet . The MicroJet more closely resembles and feels like a traditional high performance shortboard – you’d typically ride the MicroJet a couple/few inches longer than you would the Reviver. The MicroJet has more rail hold and therefore naturally hold better in bigger conditions. Even though it’s technically above its wave range it was designed for, I’ve had customers that have had the MicroJet out in 1′-2′ overhead waves and it held and surfed brilliantly. The Reviver, while it has less rail hold at high speed (I give it a comfortable max wave height of about shoulder high [this is due to it’s shortness, width and ultra low rocker]), it is more agile than the MicroJet and turns and maneuvers more readily. The Reviver paddles and catches waves a bit easier especially on the lower end of the wave spectrum due to its lower rocker than the MicroJet. So for the closest feel and characteristics to a traditional high performance shortboard, especially in a touch bigger surf, go with the MicroJet. For extreme agility, especially in shoulder high and smaller surf, go with the Reviver.

Now on to the more laid back boards of the Summer Shortboards: the Mango Pit, Coconut and Chia Seed. Even though they’re not designed with high performance surfing or shortboards directly in mind, don’t be confused – these things can still crank out phenomenal turns and surf extremely well. The right surfer can surf these more or less just as critically as the Reviver or MicroJet.

The Mango Pit is fast, fun, a bit loose and energetic. Although you don’t HAVE to surf it this way, it really likes a lot of user input, hence the description of “energetic”. The Mango Pit was designed for the energetic soul surfer. It catches waves incredibly easy – possibly easier than any of the other boards in the Summer Series Shortboards model line due to it’s extremely high surface area and ultra low rocker. The Mango Pit likes bowly, almondly wave faces best – in really pitchy, dredging conditions it can feel a bit squirrelly due to its relatively wide tail – though it’s pulled in behind the fins to help stabilize it out a bit and fit more naturally into the semi-pitchy waves we always seem to get here on the U.S. East Coast. It’s really fast and keeps its speed incredibly well through the flats. It’s an awesome longboard alternative, as well, as long as the waves have a bit of punch to them. The Coconut is designed to feel flowy and consistent underfoot. It’s super curvy and has enough rocker to fit into most any spot on the wave naturally. In some ways a one board quiver, especially if you order it as a Quad+1 or 5 fin convertible. It turns really well and consistently, drawing flowing, connected lines and turns, is quick and – best of all – is designed to give you no surprises. It’s super reliable and handles a very wide variety of wave conditions. It’s an excellent trip board, too. The Chia Seed is the most laid back of them all – with its pulled in but wide pin tail, it’s designed primarily for down the line surfing, flowing from the top to the bottom of the wave making primarily forward motion, and having long, drawn out turns and projection. In some ways, you can think of it as having log/cruiser longboard characteristics as far as the way it was designed to be surfed – and I do have quite a few longboarders order the Chia Seed for that reason – who want a shorter board but maintain the longboard-esque style of surfing.

So there you have it! The Summer Shortboards model line breakdown! While they do have some overlap, the Reviver, MicroJet, Mango Pit, Coconut and Chia Seed certainly all have their own unique personalities and characteristics. Hopefully this helps to categorize that for each model a bit better and lays out where they fall on the design and wave spectrum and will help make the best model(s) for you jump right off the page.

As always, if you’re still not quite sure which model would be best for you and would like some feedback, have any other questions or are ready to place an order for your own custom surfboard, drop me a line at [email protected], call 732-701-7SKY (7759) or swing by any time during normal shop hours (though I highly recommend making an appointment so I can make myself personally available to meet and talk).

Thanks for reading everyone!

Go surf!

-Dave Kaminsky

Founder & Owner

Board Breakdown: Reviver

This Board Breakdown brings the Reviver up to the plate. The Reviver, like the Turbo Ripper, has consistently been a top 3 seller, and the last 2 summers was the stand out #1 seller.

The Reviver in one word? Agile. Agility is essentially the whole purpose of the Reviver. A generalization for surfboards is the longer the board the easier it is to catch waves (especially smaller, weaker waves) and the shorter the board the easier it is to maneuver. The Reviver is designed to combine the best of both worlds: incredible ease of paddling and wave catching in small, weak and/or slopey waves with extremely agility.

The Reviver was designed to be surfed pretty much as short as possible for a surfboard without sacrificing performance surfing maneuverability. And that’s an important point – the Reviver is designed around performance surfing!…in less than stellar waves, of course. It’s a tricky feat to accomplish, but after a number of variations and evolution, the Reviver nails it.

The basics are apparent: it’s short (super maneuverable), ultra low rockered and a wide outline (incredible paddle power and wave catching ability). So what’s so special? Well, when you start to go super short and wide (specifically shortening the rail line so much), the boards tend to get squirrelly and a bit out of control. Combine that with the ultra low rocker, and the effect tends to get even worse. And surfing a squirrelly, out of control surfboard is usually only fun for a few minutes. So it took some carefully calculated manipulation to exploit the pro list of the aforementioned characteristics while minimizing and/or eliminating the con list.

The first reason the Reviver taps into the pro list are the outline curves. Appears to be simple, but it’s more complex than it seems. Many of my board models, and probably most surfboards around the world, have fairly or very continuous curvatures to their outlines (excluding wings, bumps, etc, which is kind of a different category). The Reviver has what I call a staged outline curve. You may have heard rockers referred to as either continuous or staged; while not referred to commonly, I consider those characteristics to apply to outline curves, as well. So the Reviver has what I consider a double recurved staged outline. Sounds more interesting than it actually probably is, haha. From about a foot up from the tail up to about a foot back from the nose, the rail line is has a continuous large radius curve, maintaining a slight continuous curve. This allows for great speed production and rail hold when driving down the line. The outline curve then recurves in at a tighter radius to “recurve” into the nose and tail rapidly. At the nose, it pulls in the nose a bit. Why do that rather than just keep a round nose? Well, even in the summer when it’s tiny, somehow here in New Jersey and on the east coast the waves are STILL pitchy, so it helps keep the nose a bit more catch free – but the critical nose width is still there to make paddling just as easy as if it had a round nose. At the tail, it carries the straight rail line back a bit farther than if it were a continuous outline curve, creating more drive and rail hold that way. It’s also strategically places to create a subtle extra pivot point for the front fins to work with to keep the turns nice and quick. The outline really is key for the Reviver.

Second, the concaves/bottom contours. On almost any surfboard you’d find in a major surf shop in the Reviver category, you’ll find vee in the bottom contours somewhere – either in the tail or even through the whole board. While vee naturally puts the board off balance along the center and creates easier rail to rail flow and transitions, vee also detracts from speed, liveliness, drive and power. For those reasons, I left vee out of the bottom contours on the Reviver. Instead, a deep double barrel concave runs through nearly the entire board, deepening through the center and out the tail. The rail rocker and center/stringer rocker are almost exactly the same throughout the board, which – in combination with the wide round tail – enables the Reviver to feel both energetic and predictable from rail to rail. This helps channel the water more effectively to the fins on the rail since it’s such a wide shortboard, allowing you to have more control especially during your turns. In the smallest sizes (4’8 – 5’0 or so), I will sometimes include a touch of spiral vee either in the tail or vee through the whole board depending on the surfer’s weight and ability. For the groms or very lightweight surfers that don’t quite have the weight to muscle the wide board around, the vee enables the lighter surfers to get the board from rail to rail the same way a heavier surfer is able to.

Lastly, the hidden bevelled rails! The Reviver has a flat/semi flat deck with a hidden (soft transition) bevelled rail. This accomplishes two things: (1) reduction of rail volume to make sinking your rail easier (which is important because of the wide outline), and (2) lower center of gravity and quicker reaction time of the board compared to a standard domed deck (due to essentially preloading the deck into the balls and heels of your feet for a faster reaction to your movements), keeping agility of the Reviver of the forefront of its design.

So for the shortboarder that always wants to be on a performance shortboard, no matter how tiny the waves are, the Reviver is a critical board to have in the quiver. The Reviver is a constant passenger in my car during the summer whenever I’m headed to the beach. If the Reviver can’t paddle into the waves, then the ocean is flat.

Check out more at the DaveySKY Surfboards Reviver webpage.

Go surf!

-Dave

P.S. The Reviver is also an awesome high tide board! When the performance/performance hybrid/hybrid shortboard stops working easily because the tide got on it – it’s too deep and the waves are much softer and slopey even if there’s still decent size, the Reviver can probably paddle into those easily, allowing you to get into the waves early and set up for it to wall up and form on the inside during high tides. Another reason it’s a critical quiver board for the avid shortboarder.

Poly vs Epoxy Construction: which is better?

Hey everyone! I felt this was important topic to tackle for my first real blog post, because it seems to be a subject that carries a lot of misconceptions. So I’d like to take a moment to clarify some information about the two different construction types, the physical properties of the materials and my personal preferences/opinions regarding them.

First up: “poly” construction. Poly gets its name from both the resin AND the foam: polyester resin and polyurethane foam. Poly is the traditional surfboard building materials used since foam core surfboards were invented, and is still the most widely used construction method today. Poly is often incorrectly referred to as “fiberglass” construction – the reason this is incorrect is because the same exact fiberglass cloth is used in both poly and epoxy construction types, it’s the foam core and resin that soaks into the fiberglass cloth (and foam) that differ. While poly construction in general is a bit heavier and isn’t quite as strong as epoxy construction, it tends to have a more consistent and predictable feeling underfoot. This is due primarily to a slower flex pattern and denser foam than epoxy construction, which basically causes less “surprises” and more predictability while surfing, especially when making hard or sharp turns. Poly construction tends to be more naturally conducive to color work, especially translucent resin tints – though I tend to have almost equal success with both construction types with forethought. Poly is also a bit less sensitive to water infiltration and heat than epoxy construction.

The name “epoxy” construction is a little less specific. Epoxy refers to the resin only – epoxy resin. The foam used for epoxy construction boards is called expanded polystyrene, or EPS foam for short. Again, the same exact fiberglass cloth that is used for poly construction is used in epoxy construction. Epoxy in general is lighter and stronger than poly construction, though the resin is technically more brittle. Epoxy construction boards tend to be springier and livelier than poly boards due to an inherently faster flex pattern and less dense foam. This springiness and liveliness can be considered less predictable and consistent underfoot, as it can create more “surprises” and less predictability while surfing. EPS foam has a bit more of a natural ability to resist heel dents, etc, than poly foam, though any construction type will heel dent over time, more so with heavier surfers and/or lighter glassing schedules and is natural in surfboard construction. Epoxy construction needs a bit more attention, especially if it has any medium or dark color work. Epoxy resin has what’s called a glass transition temperature, which is the temperature at which the resin will soften and become pliable and malleable. This temperature for epoxy resin is approximately 120 degrees Fahrenheit (for poly, it’s a good notch higher) – a temperature that can be reached very easily within a matter of minutes during the summer in, oh, let’s say…the inside of a car (hint hint! [side note: heat is the enemy of all surfboard construction types. They handle cold very well, but not heat. For the best care and longevity of your surfboard, don’t leave it in the car especially during the summer and cover it with a towel when you’re not using it on the beach. And NEVER clean wax off with a hair dryer or heat gun!]). Once it drops back down below that temperature, the epoxy will fully re-harden, but to whatever shape it’s “melted” to. Also, the foam can melt from this, too. Sounds pretty harsh – and it is – but it’s also super easy to prevent with the aforementioned super basic care.

That’s the basics.

So which is better? NEITHER! They each have their own inherent pros and cons, and beyond that, even more important is your own personal preference. That’s VERY important to remember. If you haven’t surfed both construction types and have any preconceived notions about either construction type, push them out of your head. Many people have the idea that poly is better because almost no pro surfers on tour ride epoxy boards. This is simply absurd! Believe it or not, a lot of pro surfers really don’t know or deeply understand what they’re surfing. They just get boards that their sponsors give them, they work for them and they’re used to them and they stick to it. Also important to remember: they’re pro surfers. The other 99.999% of us are not, and we don’t surf the best, more consistent waves on the planet for 3 sessions everyday. We typically need different equipment. On the other side, other people have the idea that epoxy is the only way to go because poly is so much weaker. Again, not really true. While epoxy resin is in general stronger, as I said before it’s also, technically speaking, more brittle (however, when properly glassed [which I do!], it nets a nice, strong board). Poly resin has a bit more give to it without being brittle, which can be a good thing for surfboards, as well. The great thing about getting a custom board from me is that (1) you can choose your glassing schedule (strength vs weight), which I’ll get into further in a later post, and (2) it’s important to me to get to know you as a surfer so that I can make my best recommendation for which construction type will most benefit you with your new board. So neither one is better than the other, they just have different properties; pros and cons. They both certainly have their own place.

So what place do they have? Well, again I’ll preface this with the personal preference clause – every surfer is an individual, and their/your own personal preferences are what’s most important for you – there is no right or wrong. However, here’s my current personal preferences (disclaimer! which do change and vary over time):

I tend to prefer poly for high performance shortboards (The Dream and Pipe Dream), midlengths (Coconut) and longboards (Banana Leaf, Beach Cruiser and Magic Carpet). High performance shortboards tend to be out in bigger, powerful wave conditions and the consistent feeling, flex and slightly higher density are all factors that I find creates a better, more consistent surfing board for those types of conditions, for me at least. Sometimes I find the springiness/liveliness of epoxy to be a bit too much in bigger, more powerful conditions, personally at least. For midlengths and longboards, again it’s a nice consistency which you definitely want in a 7′ to 10’+ foot board, and the bit of extra weight compared to its epoxy counterpart is a good thing – it equals momentum on the wave face.

I really like epoxy for performance-oriented summer series boards (Reviver and MicroJet), because I find the extra springiness/liveliness of epoxy construction really adds some positivity here. It adds a bit of energy to your surfing, which is a good thing in mushy, gutless surf; making it feel like you’re surfing a slightly better, stronger wave than you actually are. Plus, you get a bit of extra buoyancy from epoxy (compared to the same exact dimensions of volume of the same exact board in poly), which is another good thing is mushy, weaker waves. For other other summer series boards that are a bit more laid back in design and geared more towards pure fun (Mango Pit and Chia Seed), both poly and epoxy are great options, though I tend to prefer poly.

For the hybrid shortboards (Jet and Hips) and performance hybrid shortboards (Turbo Dream, Turbo Ripper and Love), you can really go either way and I’m personally split 50/50 between the two construction types, and I find the same trend with my customers. Some like the added float of epoxy and the extra springiness and liveliness; others prefer the consistent feeling of poly. It’s really a pretty even toss up in this category. The last couple years I geared a bit more towards epoxy, but as of recent I’ve really been enjoying poly.

Hope you guys enjoyed the read and learned a thing or two! Certainly a bit lengthy, but an important topic to know about. There’s a lot more to it, so if you have any questions, please feel free to email or comment below.

Go Surf!

-Dave

P.S. – You can also order your board as poly foam and epoxy resin! This is somewhat untraditional and is more costly, but on occasion I do have customers order their boards this way, usually for high performance shortboards/step ups for VERY heavy conditions. So it is an option! However, most of the time, poly or epoxy construction will do the trick.

P.S.S. – You canNOT order your board as EPS foam and poly resin – the styrene in the resin will melt the EPS foam on contact…and I’d prefer not to hand you a puddle of melted foam goo when you come to pick up your brand new custom board!

New Blog!

Hey everyone! Welcome to my brand new blog, where I plan on writing personally to you guys and girls. I became inspired to create a blog from the conversations I have with my customers. As my current customers already know, it’s extremely important to me to help educate not only my customers – but all surfers – on surfboard shapes, construction materials, methods and options, physical properties, etc. One of my primary goals is to help surfers learn what they’re purchasing when buying a surfboard. For those who are used to walking into a surf shop and plucking a board off the shelves (99.9% of surfers!) that’s labeled as being able to be surf in “ankle high to double overhead” and having little to no options, it can certainly be overwhelming to learn about all the options and choosing what might be best for you personally. While I always take as much time as needed with my customers, I decided that creating a blog would enable to tackle one specific topic at a time, collect my thoughts neatly in one place about it, and would result in a great resource for you guys to read through to learn.

So stay tuned, as I’ll be writing as often as possible, including informative posts to how you learn and choose the best options for your custom board, new shapes and evolution of my current shapes, some of my personal favorite boards I’m current building, as well as some guest CUSTOMER TAKE-OVER blog posts where I’ll let a customer write a blog post about their custom DaveySKY surfboard and their experience with it – freely, openly and unedited by me.

And a really quick, huge thank you to all of my current customers. You’re all such awesome people, super supportive and you make all the hard work with it with the incredible feedback.

Go surf!

Dave Kaminsky