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Met Gary from Xtreme Boards on Sunday and picked up two boards to test and demo. His 5’4” Fish and his Skate. I haven’t ridden them as yet, but found the design of the Fish rather interesting.
Currently, most of the ‘surfstyle’ board manufacturers use a very flat bottom, even though the majority of shortboard shapers are using a single to double concave bottom. The Xtreme Fish is shaped like most modern shortboards. A VERY pronounced single to double concave exiting through a diamond tail.
Theoretically, the single concave offers more surface area than a flat bottom, and so will speed a board up, but that additional area negatively affects turns, because you have more force to turn against, so…again theoretically, the shapers add a double concave at the tail to loosen things up.
This Fish would appear to be the truest to it's shortboard roots of all the surfstyle boards currently available.
Further, the board has a double wing. There is a substantial amount of theory as to why this works or doesn’t, but I think most users of a winged surfboard suggest it offers a more decided pivot point. So, my guess is that this board will offer a nice combo of drive and rail-to-rail responsiveness.
I can’t wait to give these boards a rip…and I’m impressed with the fact that the Xtreme boards aren’t just another “me too” offering.
(Message edited by surfdad on April 10, 2006)
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