Board-Rack Briefing (Ep. 10): The 6’2” Swift Wooden Surfboard

Video transcript:

“Hey everyone, welcome to board rack briefing with me James Otter of Otter surfboards. Today I’m going to talk you through our Swift model, which is six foot two long, it is 21 and a half inches wide and seven eight inches thick. And it sits at around 41litres in volume.

This board, we designed this having made a couple of short boards for people. And having ridden our two fish models, the fetch and the woodburner quite a lot. And we’ve tried to bring those all together where a shortboard might not suit those of us in the workshop here very often or very much throughout the year, we wanted a board that took the performance characteristics of a fish which is about paddling ability, speed and wave catching, and put it into something with a more rounded template to give us a more maneuverability and ultimately a board that we’re all really excited about and will take out in a really wide range of conditions.

You may notice that the wide point is slightly further forward than you might expect. So that’s something straight from those fish boards. And that gives you this volume and paddling speeds. We’ve got a nice concave through the middle here. And it’s a fairly relaxed rocker line that’s all about paddling speed. And then it pulls into this Swallowtail, we’ve got a fair bit of width across here to generate lift. And we use it as a thruster for a twin fin. If you want drive and manoeuvrability, we’ve decided to go for the thruster option. But if you want the speed, and kind of looseness, that’s where the twin fin really comes into it.

When we come through here, you’ll notice that rounded template gives us that wide section. And then it calls into a fairly standard kind of pointy nose, which is about engaging rail earning. So if you’re in more critical waves, you can set that rail nice and early, get that engagement with the water and you know where the board is in the water. We look at the contours through the bottom we’ve got a flat section through the front running into that concave, like I mentioned through the middle here, and it goes into a double concave at the back. And that’s all about kind of pulling the water through the thin section, giving us some speed through the middle. But also once you set the board on rails, it allows the rails to engage with the water really nicely. And that double concave means that once you’re set on one of those rails, it’s just putting the water through that the fin on that side really nicely.

We have a look at the rocker line on this you’ll notice that it’s got a fairly relaxed rocker line much like those in our fish boards. But it’s probably got a little bit more nose lift so that when you are in those critical waves it can handle those late drops a little bit easier. It’s also got a little bit of lift through the fins here. And that means that when you put your weight back over those fins, you can pivot the board really quickly and really, really nicely. Much like you wouldn’t be here when you’re short board.

We take this out in waves from kind of, I guess a couple of foot anything up to kind of head and a half really this is a board I can say for us is what we think will be certainly an awful lot year round. This one was made by Sophia on one of our five day surfboard making workshops which you can find more information about below or you can always commission us to make you your dream board.

I think that’s about everything you need to know about the Swift, if you’ve got any questions just fire them over and we’ll see you next time!”