My Favorite Board

This is a pretty special board. Its made of cedar that is probably 40 years old, and has been drying on a house in Encinitas, just waiting for me to come along! This wood was given to me from a builder doing a remodel on the house. I took as much wood as I could strap on the top of my car and it saved him from having to take it to the dump. It was originally milled as 1x6 tongue and groove siding. I remilled it as 3/16x2 boards, glued up as a skin. Using old wood is great...the wood lives on with a new use and its history is imprinted into it. This wood is full of nail holes, when bookmatched, gives it a really cool pattern.



I tried to keep the rails fairly round, pretty much 50-50 for the nose and mid section going to probably a 60-40 at the tail. This has worked out really well. There is plenty of speed and enough suction on the rails to make it a pretty good nose rider. The bottom has two channels which I think gives it good speed.

I copied a pretty famous fin and am really pleased and surprised at how well it works. I made the fin from cedar with pine accent strips. The pine came from pallett I found at the office. It's full foiled and is a maximum of about 3/4-inch thick, with the max thickness at about 1/3 of the chord length. Surprisingly, this fin makes the board super loose, and not surprisingly, gives lots of bite, even when up on the nose. It only seems to lose its bite just after takeoff, if I turn to early and am high on the wave, then it kind of shimmys around and quickly bites in as I pick up speed. I did not add any reinforcing to the bottom skin only because I did not even think about it! The skin on the bottom is only 3/16". So, with the fin glassed on, the whole thing flexes a little from side to side. I don't know if this has any effect on anything, but there are some people who believe that flexy fins give lots of drive off the bottom turn.