My first short board was a Bombora Tri-fin. It was a nightmare to gybe. They are so wide in the tail and have those massive double concaves it's very difficult to initate the turn. I found myself flare gybing it like my longboard in non-planning conditions.

I then went to a Mactavish 9' custom pintail slalom - very narrow by today's standards and my gybing instantly improved. I was able to initiate the carve which I couldn't do with the Tri-fin. Of course it still took a LOT of practice to perfect the transition of the rig and get through the gybe but the thinner, lighter, faster board made a huge difference.

lol,

i couldn't even get mine to turn. you approach the gybe, you sheet in, you weight the downwind rail and.

nada, nothin, zip!

the board rails up and you keep going in a straight line.

if i did manage to turn it i lost so much speed exiting the gybe it just wasn't any fun. and forget chop hops. it's easier to jump a formula board.

take the chainsaw to the board.,

like cheeky monkey i stepped onto a custom epoxy board and yahooo!!!!

i got that board around the same time some monkey (no offence cheeky) tried to sell me a 9ft asymetrical wave board while telling me it would be good to learn shortboard sailing on.

lucky i got a 2nd opinion.

oh, and the hi fly would be 10 times better to learn to gybe on.

sboardcrazy said...

I was wondering if he got his old Trifin going whether that would be a good board to learn to gybe as a stepping stone to something like the Hifly..

If you have a Hifly 666
I'd say ....maybe no!

AUS1111 said...

From what I recall, anyone who can carve-gybe a Bombora Trifin is probably looking at a career on the PWA World Tour.

Maybe my board won't be so bad for him..