TORE Wide Nose Rocket Fish: 5’5 x 19″ 1/2 x 2″ 3/8
www.toresurfboards.com

It’s funny how influential pro surfers can be, especially the greatest surfer of all time. The recent surfboard trend has been towards shorter, wider, thicker, flatter boards with quad fins thanks in large part to the funky/stubby boards Kelly Slater rode at the beginning of the year in Australia. While fishes and alternative designs have become increasing popular over the past few years, Kelly’s extreme change in equipment from flip tail potato chip to stubby quad has influenced stubborn elite level surfers open their minds and their equipment and thus has helped all the rest of us.

Wider, slightly thicker, and flatter rocker boards help all surfers who aren’t on surfing elite CT tour surf better day in and day out. As Rusty put it in his recent design article, most surfers ride potato chip boards which only work in 10% of the time. Why not ride a board made for the average surfer’s home break which probably isn’t a roping overhead machine like right/left in the Mentawais or Indo. The majority of us surf garbage waves more often than not, side/on-shore, knee to waist high, less than perfect shape, and not much power. Why do we still surf a stock 6’0 x 18″ 1/4 x 2″ 1/4 shortboard when only pros can actually ride these boards in these conditions? Probably because we always see our favorite surfers riding these types of boards which is why it’s great that Kelly broke the thruster trend and helped a bunch of us out by showing us that even the best surfer in the world can have a crap load of fun and draw new lines on something other than thruster.

As I always complain, the waves I surf everyday on the south shore of Oahu typically consist of strong side shore winds, weak waist high waves, below average shape (semi mush), and very short wall. I’ve only seen a few surfers ride stock shortboards really well there and most everyone rides some type of fish. I’ve been experimenting a lot with equipment this year and being that I really liked my TORE Rocket Fish, I decided to tweak it by widening the nose and overall width to help this board work better in mush burger surf. The original Rocket Fish worked great in good waist to overhead surf, but it didn’t have quite enough volume to power through the flat spots in the weak stuff.

We shortened the Rocket Fish from 5’9 to 5’5, widened it from 19″ 3/8 to 19″ 1/2, increased the tail rocker slightly, added a pair of wings to narrow the tail, and widened the nose area. I could instantly tell the difference in the changes we made on the first session out with the board as it planed and carried better speed in mushy surf and the board maintained enough speed for the slow sections and when it found a little wall it accelerated with one quick pump. I would bet that a lot of it had to do with the increased nose area. The minimal length also helped the board fit in the pocket better which is ideal for short waves where quick maneuvering is critical. All these changes combined with quad fins made this a super fun small wave destroyer.

This board is perfect for the surfer looking for a high performance fish for less than ideal surf…especially those who don’t like riding retro fishes when the surf gets better. It handles well in waist to head high and works way better backside than even your best retro board. We’re currently tweaking this design with thoughts on increasing the nose area a tad more and adding a bit more volume for those really crappy days. I’ll update this post when I get my new board.

The Mule Surfboard Transport is a simple yet useful accessory to help transport your longboard or stand up paddle board using your bike or by towing it yourself. The Mule consists of a durable fabric for nose and tail pieces which strap your board to the two tube tires. Assembly takes about 5-10 minutes (I did have a little accident **see below) and it took me a bit to figure out how to assemble it the first time but once you figure it out, it should only take a couple minutes to strap your board in the future.

The Mule Transport is perfect for people who bike to the beach and works best with larger longboards. I think a stand up paddle board would be too bulky and heavy for bike racks and if you live a ways from the beach, the Mule is perfect. We all know how heavy those stand up boards can be…I dread carrying my SUP from the parking lot into the water let alone carrying it on my shoulder for several blocks and windy days are a whole different story here in Hawaii. You’d be surprised how much easier it is being able to tow a heavy board compared to carrying it over your shoulder and having to stop every five minutes to rest and let the blood flow back into your arm.

You’ll want to be aware of where you take your Mule as you won’t have anyone watching it when you’re in the water. I’m not sure how it is where you surf but here in Hawaii, people will steal anything you leave on the beach even in popular areas like Ala Moana and Waikiki. I’ve had people steal my shirts, $3 rubber slippers (flip flops), and I’m sure if they had a chance they would steal the Mule. If you live in an area like this, make sure you have a good hiding place or as an extreme you can try locking up the Mule with a bike cable lock.

Caution: Problems Assembling the Mule

I ran into some problems when I tried to add the nose and tail straps to the axle bar. I didn’t know it at the time, but the axle bar is made of fiberglass and for some reason the wheels were stuck and I couldn’t get one of them onto the bar to lock it in place. I kept trying to push the wheel on the bar and before I knew it I had a hundred fiberglass splinters in my hand. Ouch! As I was pushing the wheel, it had scraped the end of the bar and began shaving off the edges of the bar. It didn’t take much for those splinters to become lodged into my hand and I spent the next three hours trying to get all of them out. Mule Transport told me this had never happened but be careful not to jam the wheel on if it isn’t fitting properly. If you do get splinters, use duck tape to gently remove loose splinters. You can also use Elmers glue (wait for the glue to solidify and peel the glue from your hand) and use tweezers for the ones that don’t come out. Be careful not to lodge them into your skin.

The Mule is a cool and nifty surf accessory but I would recommend they change the material of the axle bar to heavy duty plastic or anything that doesn’t have the potential to splinter.

You can buy the Mule Surf Transport online for $89.