Rain, Future Fins, and Surf Log Excel Spreadsheets

It's been raining a lot, and there's been not much swell lately, both of which suck.  It's means "it is" or "it has," while its is the possessive.  I keep forgetting that or switching them around.

So, I got some new Future Solus fins, a thruster set.  They look pretty awesome with their carbon fiber bases that lead into a material called texallium, and then into fiberglass.  They are really foily all over the place, and seem really high tech and cool.  The center fin is hatchet shaped, and the tip is really thick and weird, just how Sonny likes his tips.  I got suckered into buying these ultra-expensive fins because they offered me 20% off...  Right now I'm excited about trying them out, but at the same time I feel like a poser because I spent so much on fins, when I should just improve my surfing instead.  But I'm going to ignore that for now and concentrate on remaining stoked.  Peter also got a set of fins, Rasta Quads!

BEFORE: 5F as a quad.

AFTER: 5F as a thruster, with Peter's foot dance.

Peter's brand spanking new CI Weirdo Ripper with Rasta Quads.

I noticed a few tiny flaws on the fins though.  There are little scratches or bubbles in the right fin's trailing edge.  And the center fin's texallium weave has a damaged spot.  I really doubt either of these issues are issues at all, but since I paid so much, I expected perfection.  I contacted Future Fins, and let them know what's up, and emailed them pictures.  They immediately responded by offering to replace the fins for me!  So that's cool, so far I've found the surf industry to be really good about doing stuff like that (them and Ripcurl, with their loaner wetsuit exchange program and such).  So I'll be going into the Futures HQ manana am to swap.  I'm going to pitch my idea of signature Chris Hu fins too (block off plates for the fins boxes with no fins in them for all the new boards with 5 boxes... there's gotta be some drag there right?).

 In other news, I created a surf log sheet in Excel that I'm kind of proud of.  It's not very complex, but it was fun doing it during work, rather than doing work.  I was inspired because I was sick of Surfline's inaccurate conditions assessments.  So, I tried to include the basic elements that affect the surf: swell height, period, and direction, wind speed and direction, tide in, tide out, break, comments, and rating.  The parts of the sheets I was particularly happy about is the addition of the drop down menus for the Ratings column, with color-coordination!

Dings... !!!

Am I a ding machine or something?  I'm not sure if it's normal to basically put some kind of damage into your board about every 2-3 sessions.  Someone tell me yes or no.  It could be my skill level is too low, and that I must level up.  Or maybe I'm in that weird zone where I'm good enough to be trying stuff that has ding-potential, but not good enough to not be falling on top of my board with my knees and elbows all the damn time.

Today was small and weak, 1-3 feet, but fairly clean.  We went at the right time, just before the tide bottomed out and before the wind messed it up.  I was totally snaking Daniel, paddling around him to position myself for a left, while even telling him "Daniel I'm snaking you!"  I managed to eat shit, flip my board over, and drive my left knee into the bottom, right were the "North Shore" Griffin emblem is.  I have good aim, because I've dinged the Griffish in the same place.  Twice.


I was considering selling that board too.. now it's got a dent in the bottom.  Karma for snaking Daniel "the Honey-Badger" Lee.  It's still water tight, so at least I don't have to fix it.  But it's still an interesting board that is super fast and pumpable.  I always manage at least some kind of pumping practice on that thing, no matter how shitty and small it is.  But the fact remains that it still feels weird to me.  I tried standing farther back, putting my rear foot between the fins, but it just feels like it's WAY back there.  And when it's there, the board doesn't feel stable.  I dunno.

I still want a mini-simmons for small days... Infinity Tombstone 5'2".

Griffin 5-Fin Modfish Session at Orange Street, Newps

Do all my boards have 5 fin boxes?

Took the newly cleaned up, repaired, and rewaxed Griffin out today, not really knowing what to expect, swell-wise.  Either it was gonna be huge and gnarly, or not.  It was not, but it was fun, a lot of fun.  More fun I had expected.  The board was fun too.  Funner than I funning thought.

That damn Modfish is a really good board.  It's fast.  I don't think he makes anything that's not super fast.  Faster than five fins would suggest.  Faster than___  ok i'll stop with this.

Here are some pictures of it, and the repaired ding.  Don't judge me on my ding repair job please.  You can judge me on other things though, I give you permission.

I took this board out instead of the Infinity because I'm really dreading dinging it, and trying to prolong the time I have it to getting a ding ratio.  Anyway today's session renewed my stoke for this board.

I got some good lefts today, and maybe one that if I were a better surfer would've been able to get a little barrel.

More surf tomorrow, although the swell is dying down..

Infinity 5F in HB

Klaude inspired me to keep a surf blog, so here we go...

Surfed today, alone.  It was bigger than i anticipated, maybe 3-5 feet with the occasional 6+ monster.  Took out my 5'6" Infinity 5F today.  Setup was the fins it came with, Infinity-branded EA quads.  The board felt good on the rights I got.  Maybe the best I've ever felt on my backside, really nice and stable and easy to control.  I tried to get a good left, and tried to force a few, but I just couldn't find one.  Tomorrow...

Things I'm working on: try to keep my back foot farther back, and more weight.  I've fallen into the trap the English dude from Surf Simply talks about, where I just trim, and haven't properly learned to carve.

Recently picked up a Griffin twin as well.  Kinda going nuts on the boards, maybe out of a Third Life Crisis.  That's a thing right?  If there's such a thing as quarter and mid-life crisis, why not other fractions?  For my next board purchase rationalization, I shall use the 2/5 life crisis excuse.  Rolls off the tongue right?  Nice.

If I'm about to turn 32, times 3 would make me die at age 96.  Not bad!  I don't think I'll live that long though, so maybe my fractions are off.  Anyway, I figure I need to get this surfing thing going before my body decides to decompose into poo.  That's the gist of my crisis, if it wasn't already clear.

Back to the Griffin.  It's fast.  It's a twin.  It's unstable feeling to me.  I've read Griffins need to be surfed with a lot of weight on the rear.  Like I stated above, that's something I need to work on.  I also read that you shouldn't have to adjust to a board, but the board should suit how you surf.  Who to believe?  I'll default to the Initial D theory of, "it's not the car, it's the driver."  It's a far stretch to apply that here, to surfing, but I'll try:  "It's not the surfboard, it's the surfer."  Hmm... maybe that was too subtle...

I cleaned up and fixed all the dings on my other Griffin, the 5'9" modfish 5-fin.  It's super clean again.  Well as clean as it can be with all the ding repairs.  But I revitalized the stoke for that board.  So it's good to go.  Fresh wax job and all.

Also, I recently found out Firewires are not indestructible.  They are resistant to pressure dents though.  I managed to buckle the nose of my 5'8" Dominator.  That's what started this whole new board search.  It was a good board.

Surf tomorrow again, hope the swell hangs on and the conditions remain clean, and the crowd thin.  Maybe I can get some lefts and try some turns frontside on this new board.  Maybe I'll run it as a thruster?

Music tangent- heard some of the Crystal Castles (III) album today and was pretty blown away.  Are ALL the songs on youtube?