Hi guys.
I have a question that need your feedback seabreezers, when you go out in really choppy waters (and i mean choppy ! ) , what board is more adapted to chop? more like a flat rocker board or the opposite a banana kind of rocker ? my experience is that the flat rocker template make me struggle way more ...but maybe it is nothing to do with the rocker of the board ? Just curious about your feedback/experience. Thanks
flatter rocker and wide nose and tail imo.
Not a corky high volume board though... so many guys oversize this style of board and it ends up being a nightmare in chop as the rails sit high in the water... i'm thinking bodyweight + 15-20L at most.
I find the more buoyant a board is, the more suseptable to chop it is. If a board sinks slightly, enough to have some of the rail line in the water then the chop can wash over the board.
I find wider more parallel railed boards more stable than a more high performance style board and these usually have a flatter rocker, but as Hoppo3228 said you don't want it a high volume corky board.
Once it is too windy I don't bother with my high performance boards and stick to either my 10Ft or my parrelel railed board.
Also, you don't want too short a board... you end up feeling like you're on a rocking horse, which isn't much fun.
Go a touch on the wider and thicker side, as the guys have said you don't want to go extreme. Personally have found smaller boards more frustrating and harder to get used to then bigger boards in wind and chop.
Where a board has the width and thickness is huge factor as well, a well made board has volume and width to make it easy but not a hindrance. I am just under 6ft and 85kg and a comfortable size that does almost everything I want it to do is 9'2x31 YOB SP, have had a ECS Wideboy that was 9'5x32 in the past and found that was ok as well.
More often then not the waves I surf have backwash, rips, lumps, bumps and wind on them so I choose a little bit of comfort, the above size have not given me any real grief.
Surface area on the water and how volume is spread seems the most logical consideration .
The Sunova Placid is supper stable in heavy chop. It's quite wide 31" for the 8/7 but has very low volume rails and sits deep in the water.
I've a Smik hipster twin Longboard 9'2" X 29 and it's very stable in chop (I don't have amazing balance either). I agree with the comment above about not too much volume. Corky is not stable. The board needs to settle into the water. I don't think a board needs to be especially wide if it has a Longboard styled round nose and the right volume. Less width also means less curve in the plan shape (in a longer board) which is more stable.
I've also also experienced too little and too much much rocker (particularly nose rocker). The board I had with too little nose rocker just dove into the back of the chop and was impossible. The one with too much just pushed water and was a dog to paddle.
Short answer is get a Hipster Twin Longboard. Your time on water will double!
