One Surfboard to Rule them All ?

Firstly let me apologize about my reference to 'Lord of the Rings', I am not a Warhammer geek that enjoys painting Orcs in my spare time, I just thought it might fit with what I have to say.

I have just finished watching the WSL's J-Bay 2017 event and I find myself admitting that, although my interest was waning in the (now confirmed Bobby Martinez prediction) WSL Tennis League, I could not take my eyes off the waves and the results. I am not sure where to start reviewing the actual event as so much went on, in fact you probably watched it or heard about it already, so I will get on with the bit that I want to focus on. The Lis Fish at J-bay.

The Lis Fish was invented by a chap called Steve Lis in 1967, the design worked straight out of the doors and is still one of the most popular selling surfboard shapes in 2017. Rob Machado has just re-released the same shape(ish) in the not so acclaimed 'Go Fish' disaster board that managed to make the 60's design worse. Steve still shapes for mates and some lucky people that catch him in a good moment, lives in Hawaii and shreds waves in places that allow no cameras. He is like 'the dude' if 'the dude' ripped.

So back to the J-Bay event I have just watched, and I see the Expression Session is 4 CT surfers on Fishes that look a lot like Lis Fishes from the 60's. And it looked outrageously, implausibly jaw dropping. Those four guys were having extensive amounts of enjoyment, almost as much as me from my now frothed up office chair. The surfers were Conner Coffin, Jordy Smith, Seb Zeitz and Matt Wilkinson. If there where such a thing, the stoke-meter in the water looked like it would have been at an 11 out of 10. There were smiles, high fives and all that hippy shit that we don't do in surfing any more.

While ALT - TAB ing the event and my work screen all day to keep the boss happy I heard the commentary of Sean Thompson and Martin Potter duo mention that Sebastien Zeitz seemed to have a different, smoother style on the Lis-style Fish. They seemed surprised and impressed, and went further with their analysis to say if Seabass (nickname for Seb Zeitz) could bring that approach to his normal heats he might be more successful. One of them said that maybe he should incorporate a training regiment that some of the other competitors do which includes riding all sorts of different surfboards in good waves. I am not talking about riding a 5'11 instead of a 5'9 but more about a single or a twinny in good waves then switching back to a performance board and noticing what you can take from one board to another.

I feel lucky that I perhaps have had a very open mind to any surfboard design since I was small, and find it hard to comprehend that you would limit yourself to one style of surfing, to one type of surfboard. I think I had a good mentor from the beginning, thanks Mr Miagi. While I understand I am not the norm it still astounded me that some of these guys were limiting themselves and essentially missing out on different feelings. Sorry, back to that enjoyment hippy shit again.

The object of this toil, to get back on track, one that I hear echoed a lot among my peers. There seems to be a consensus that people are scared of riding a board that is too different from their everyday board as it will ruin their surfing. Not enhance it, but ruin it. Myself, I have had the opposite experience, that by surfing all sorts of boards you can take different aspects from your experiences and apply them to alternative boards. Below is an example of a very competent surfboard reviewer and surfer Noel Salas who is trying to surf something different (the above mentioned Go Fish) but as it would seem, ends up trying to make his board exactly like his old surfboard.

So I guess what I am saying is that there is no one surfboard that works in everything. If you want to surf more and have more fun (that hippy stuff again) then you need to surf all sorts of different boards and all sorts of different waves.To put it simply, I am saying that you should surf more.

While I have your attention, I am just going to throw out the idea that perhaps the WSL should think about having one of these Fish Expression Sessions in every spot. How cool would that be?  I can see it now... Kelly drops into 10ft Teauphoo and makes it on a Lis inspired Fish.

Viva la Fish, viva la revolution. That is all.