The sweet spot.

I recently had Sage make me a 9'6 "Vice" log as I was after something that would be super easy to nose ride in a mmajority of conditions. This vice is a little different as the rails, nose and tail have all been slightly modified.

The board is epic. It's a deep marone tint with a rather large white circle on the bottom. It's super easy to ride as it paddles like a dream and trims across a wave effortlessly. My initial thoughts were to ride this beauty with a 10" hatchet even though I have been riding Greenough style fins in most of my recent logs. The hatchet went well as it allowed nice transitions and drew sweet lines. Although every time I went to nose ride through a critical section the tail kept letting go and has been driving me crazy.

This morning I was logging at this fun little beachie just near the "Big Banana" when I realised that my beautiful marone hatchet that I paid good moolah for was about to sink into "Davey Jones' locker". I went in and decided to use this opportunity to try out the 10" Greenough just to see if it made any difference to this little tail sliding problem that I've been having. I paddled out and waited a few seconds and then stroked my way in to this little sucky right hander. I approached the section from behind and optimistically ran towards the beak. I instantly felt a feeling that I hadn't felt on this board yet as it locked in and lifted through the section. I was pumped it didn't skip out. I'd already surfed for about 2hrs prior to the fin swap but after that wave I knew it was going to be awhile before I went in. The sweet spot had been found.

I surfed for about another hour before the hunger pains kicked in and got over a dozen sweet moments of tip time. I was stoked, problem solved. Who knew that a simple fin swap could deliver such subtle variations to the performance of a board.