I realize there are preferences and varying opinons; but wanted some feedback. I’m getting a relatively small twin keel fish shaped. I’m going 4’10 x 20.5 x 2 1/4 poly. So it’s small and a little fat. I’m pretty light weight, I weigh around 135 soaking wet. I can’t decide what kind of glassing schedule to choose. Since it’s small and I’m small, should I keep it light and glass it double 4 deck and 4 bottom (shaper recommends)? Or do you think it would lack glide? Alternatively I’m considering 6+4 deck and 4 bottom, or 6+4 deck and 6 bottom. Would the weight difference be that big on a 4’10 board? Flex difference? I can’t decide between the trade off of durability and performance. This will be a keeper for me, but also don’t want it to be so heavy that I end up always grabbing a different board.
I will be doing resin tint, and sanded gloss finish. I think if I do go with 4x4x4, I’ll go with S-glass. Hoping for some guidance, thanks!
Lighter is better in small fish from my experience. It is a trade off between performance (fun) and durability. S glass is a good choice to make it light and durable.
I think it depends on whether you’re trying to surf a fish like a fish or like a high performance shortboard. If you’re trying to actively surf it and do repeated hits off the lip then it’s easier to do that with a lighter board. If you’re trying to do the long carve and make the board do more of the work then that’s where the glide comes in.
If you’ve chosen the twin keels instead of a quad then that’s working against the use of a shortboard style approach to the wave. IMO
…looks ok; but do it a favor an split those big useless keel fins into canard quads. Do an ultra thin tail and S deck so put more than 2 1/4 in the middle; much more; if not will be very difficult to float and paddle right no matter 135 pounds. I have a 5 2 fish.
Reading the original post in this thread, I was more distracted by the length of 4’10". That strikes me as exceptionally short, even for a fish. Reverb is the fish expert, so I would be curious to see his input.
My concern is that you can easily end up with an outline with so much curve to it that you kill the glide of the fish. Am I off base here?
I agree with that. For the traditional design and 5-6ish length, going much shorter or longer changes the curve unless you change the widths to match. That curve is what you’re surfing.
I’m only 5’5, I do have a fair amount of 4’10-5’0 fish/simmons type boards. I’ve actually never tried a fish in the 5’6 range as it would be huge, so maybe I have no point of reference for what I’m losing out on at that length?
Cool. If it’s working for you, then I’d not be in a hurry to “fix” it.
I’d be curious what nose and tail widths the shaper uses, as well as whether the nose is pointed or perhaps rounded (a la Roberts Brofish) or chopped (a la Tomo).
There will be some disagreement on this but IMO the Simmons variants work better in the super short lengths than an actual fish. And the reason is because you can connect the wider nose and tail blocks with a comparatively straighter line than when the nose is pointed. It is for the same reason that I don’t think the Mini-Simmons shape works as designed when you stretch the lengths.
Perhaps easier if I show you a pic. Below is a background pic of a Hank Warner-shaped Hydrodynamica 5-1 Mini-Simmons, with a scaled down version of the 5-5 Steve Lis template overlay. When scaled to a 5-1 length the wide point for the Lis template us under 20" wide, compared to 23" wide for the Simmon’s shape. You could bump the wide point to 21" on the fish and it still wouldn’t have anywhere near the volume of an actual Simmons shape in the same length.
But more importantly is the curve in the template. The shorter you go on the fish - and this one is still 3" longer than you are proposing - the more curve it takes to connect the pointed nose with the wide point. Then you’re exagerrating that situation even more if you widen that wide point relative to its length.
If you want to get a stronger board then start with epoxy. After that you can dial the weight in to suit what you’re trying to do.
One time I had a board that I built that was too light for what I was trying to do so I went back afterwards and added another layer of 4oz to get the weight right. It turned out just the way I wanted it.
As I said before, with a fish some glide can be a good thing if you intend to surf it that way, or you might opt for lighter if you don’t want the glide.
Your shaper is stearing you in the right direction - Do double 4s top and bottom. For flex - for a board that short, its basically non existent. Especially at your weight.
