Board-Rack Briefing (Ep.9): The 7’10” Clipper Wooden Surfboard

Video transcript:

Hey everyone, welcome to the board rack briefing with me James otter of Otter Surfboards. Today, I’m going to talk to you about our 7’10 shape called the clipper. 7’10” Long 21 and five eighths inches wide, and three and a quarter inches thick.

This is a board made for some serious waves. So we’ve had it out in surf, shoulder to head high, and it’s quite comfortable in that surf. But really, it comes alive once you get a head and half double overhead and beyond. And the reason that it works so well in that bigger surf is that this template, it’s got all this volume under your chest to paddles quickly and easily. And then it draws into this pin tail at the back here. And what that does is when you’re in those bigger waves, it sits down in the water and gives you some hold. So no matter how big the wave, you’ve got that control of the board, really securely, which is essential, when the surf does get bigger. It does a similar thing has it has this pulled in nose. And what that allows you to do is set that rail early. Through the bottom contours, we’ve got everything that helps you with that as well we’ve got the V in the nose, which allows you to rock onto that rail so you can get engaged early, flat through this midsection is all about speed. And then it goes into a V at the tail. And that again lets you set that rail, sets up rail really, really securely and gives you that hold this one here you’ll see as though a single fin is originally designed as a single fin and kind of looking back at boards from the from the 70s and 80s. And what that does, again, is it’s just all about that directional stability that ability to set a line and believe that your board is going to follow it and because we find when the surf is a bit bigger, you want to rely on your equipment. And this is a board that will allow you to do that.

We have had customers ride it as a quad as well. But when they want a little bit more speed and potential control over those over some turns where they might not favour a single fin, so it works well as a quad as well. You’ll notice if I flip this on its side, you’ll notice the rocker line is actually for a board of that size, relatively relaxed, and it’s got a little bit of flip in the nose. So a little bit of lift in the nose, and a little bit lift in the tail. And those lift is going to make sure that you don’t dig that nose in when the waves get quite critical. And that tail lift means that when you lean back over that single fin and you want to turn the board, it’s easy to get the board out of the water and create that turn.

The rails, despite that volume that’s brought almost all the way out to them, they have this roll in the top which frees you to have pinched rail and that pinched rail is going to allow you to engage with the water, sit in the water a little bit more easily and just give you some added stability and control. From above, you might actually be able to see how that volume. In fact, I run my hands across that volume through the middle. What that does is, all that volume is all about paddling speed. So you can get into waves nice and early.

This board here was made by a chap called Nick on one of our five day workshops where you can come and make your own surfboard and he brought along a few bits of wood from home. So we managed to make these lovely little nose and tail blocks which accentuate that coming to a point at the nose with the contrasting wood we think is a really, really lovely detail for him. You can of course commission one as well. But if you’d like to know any more about either of those, there’s some links below. I think that just about sums up our 7’10” Cipper. But if you’ve got any questions just get in touch and we’ll see you next time.