Work and kid sports have kept me busy lately, but I finally got back in the garage after a month to make another pig. I’ve been fascinated by the Velzy story the past few months. As a San Diego kid who’s now in LA most likely permanently (realizing it only after 18 years, two homes, three dogs and two kids haha) I’ve been enjoying learning the local history near me, and as it turns out, the southbay of LA has a bit of surf history to dig into 
Anyway, here’s my latest pig. Very slight roll through the entire body, 3.25 nose rocker and 3.5" tail rocker, very flat rocker through middle on a flipped usblanks 9’3Y blank. I cheated the traditional formula and put a box fin and a nose concave in the first 36", somewhat modeled after the huge 4’ concave in my Tyler Hatzikian 9’8 Noserider. I used the same Weber template as my earlier pigs for some consistency, but widened the nose to 17.5" by pivoting the widepoint. I also stretched the widepoint a bit to lengthen the line to accommodate a wider 5.5" square tail.
I’m 6’1 and about 200lbs, so I wanted extra foam but still a shorter template for beachbreaks, and some additional turnability, so I tried out a step deck in the last 36" this time the step drops off about 6-7" ahead of my chest when paddling. It drops about 1/4". The board is 3 1/4" thick and 23" wide. I tried to keep it pretty full volume through the deck but tried to foil the rails a bit. They’re pretty full but no edge front to back.
Looks good. With a Stepped Deck, I probably would have gone with a shallow concave. A rounded pin tail would have fit in nicely. Maybe next time?
The stringer really shows the change in the center contours for both the bubble and the step. The board looks really good.
Thanks Gdaddy and McDing! I got it in the water this morning in chunky low tide feeling thick beach break, and it worked well - paddles well, gets in easily, turns well - enough that within a wave or two I was comfortable stalling then pushing rides pretty far into the shorebreak zone because I trusted the board to kick out late and quickly. Pretty cool to try a similar shape multiple times and feel each result get closer and closer.
McDing - the step deck/concave area does get a little thin; ah well, each board gets a little better. I started that nose area quite thick before cutting the step and concave though, so it doesn’t feel too flimsy in the hand. I also tried to get the laps really far around the rails and brought the inner deck layer most of the way down the rail as well to try and add strength.
Bill Thrailkill kindly let me trace his Wayne Land Velzy Pig Template, and I have an early 60’s 9’0 Velzy Pig myself, both with round pins, so I have been intending to try one. For this board, I wanted to feel a definite change from the long pintail of my Weber template, thus the square tail changeup. The board seems to have a faster pivot action and stepping on the tail to lift up and stall seems a bit easier. We’ll see after a few more sessions on it.
I think the red color trick worked as well, the board does seem faster than my earlier ones. 
Five inch tails became a standard during and thru the longboard resurgence of the 90’s thru the 2000’s. More responsive turns for the average surfer. Shapers settled in on the five inch tail as the best width for the general public. I have seen a trend the last few years toward wider (7" --8") tails. At the end of the 60’s the Surfboards Hawaii Model AAA was probably as refined as any longboard had ever been. It consisted of a thinned out step nose, slight V thru the fin area, rounded pin tail and a pinched rail. Very turntable,fast and the flex nose would flatten for noseriding.
