Firewire volume calculator7/12/2023 I found 80% of my rides felt amazing, with effortless pivot and flow. All of those serrated edges from the wings through to the bat tail give you less drag and more grip on the wave surface. Having caught a few hundred waves on the board here are my top four observations: The challenge is that you need to learn how this board will latch onto the wave face so that you can optimise your surfing and not disappoint yourself by braking too hard, or losing control. The board does claw, and you’ll find yourself able to kill your speed and execute dramatic, powerful top turns, with more precision than you’re used to. The challenge is that after you’ve projected up towards the lip you’re going to come swivelling back down – and herein lies some unique behaviour. You’ll have absolutely no problem generating speed and driving down the line – in fact. All of those tail “claws” make it somewhat cat-like in critical sections. In the beginning I found the board unpredictable, especially compared to a traditional shortboard. I think it’s a real step forward in performance bottoms and I’m definitely going to be using it in most of my work in future.” Tomo and his creation – photo Firewire How does the Sci-Fi surf? Once you’re on rail it scoops out the edge and you get increased sensitivity through your turns and a general sense of lift when you’re on the board. Running forward the quad concave is located within a single concave… basically what that does is allow the rail to be planing on the rail portions of the board, so it almost acts like little water skis. That’s accentuated with a quad concave running into a channel out of the bat tail, and that helps with the grip. The double bat tail is a low drag template that pulls the tail in from being ultra-wide and gives it a real clawing effect in the water, so the board holds through radical turns. The tail of this board features a flyer into a double bat tail and that gives you a release point for the straight rail, so you have a pivot point from your back foot. “This board has more of a straight rail, high-performance fish outline and then we break it into a really tech tail. The double bat tail: an aggressive approach to reducing drag From the shaperĭaniel Thomson describes the Sci-Fi as follows: It’s futuristic, developed based on proven scientific principles and, unsurprisingly, a collaboration with the master of progression, and the best surfer of all time, Mr Kelly Slater. Yet, by enhancing the fish design and adding high-performance characteristics, Tomo has brought modern hybrid surfboard design into interesting new territory. In my books that is a pretty cool evolution, because a fish is usually a step down – something you reserve for substandard days, or for when you get a little older. The Sci-Fi, however, takes design complexity to a new level, with straight rails, an aggressively jagged tail, a broad outline and a quad concave within single concave that runs way up the bottom deck of the board.īased on Daniel Thomson “Tomo’s” modern planing hull concept, this board is essentially a fish, which has been augmented to match, or even exceed, the surfing potential of a performance shortboard. My favourite boards of all time were the Stretch F4, which also sports a bat tail, and the Firewire Potatonator, which has an unorthodox diamond tail. Now don’t get me wrong – I’ve surfed unconventional hybrids before. I had moments on the Sci-Fi where I felt I was re-learning the fundamentals of flow and weight transfer, unsteady in such simple manoeuvres as a cutback. It’s strange when you spend almost all of your life chasing waves, yet sometimes feel like you’ve landed back close to where you began. In the process I learnt a lot about the board – and about my own surfing. I surfed mainly with a quad setup of FCS medium fins, but also experimented using the board with thruster and twin fin configurations. I tried a 5’10” Sci-Fi in a range of conditions, from fun-sized Cloudbreak in Fiji to the saddest of onshore mush in New Zealand. What about Sci-Fi surfboard technology?.
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