Is There Such Thing As Riding The Wrong Board In Great Waves?

It seems silly to ride this board in these waves. But like alternative facts, alternative crafts are here to stay. Does it sting a bit to watch Derrick Disney slide down the line on this single fin? Or can you appreciate how well he’s riding it in these ill-fitting conditions? 

“I love the fact that Derrick, for the most part, rides boards that he had hand shaped from start to finish,” says Jack Coleman, the director of the Zone, where this segment comes from. “This one board, in particular, was a seven-foot single fin that was very versatile and a great board to have on a trip. Whether it was one foot or 10 foot, this board seemed to be his go-to.”

“It was a prior trip to Baja I began to notice that there was something more that this board had, but what was it? I couldn’t figure it out. Derrick surfed the board extremely well, and after multiple surfs it seemed as though none of the clips were that exciting to me. At that time I was just starting to experiment with finless surfing, it was fresh, new, and exciting to me. To hug the water and stay compressed throughout a ride was a new rush, a completely different high to wave riding.

“On this trip I had seen Diz do a couple swooping bottom turns that caught my attention, but right after he would return right back up to a full vertical traditional approach on the wave. Then it hit me, maybe if Diz stayed compressed while going through these turns the effect might be something different. I brought up the idea after a couple surfs, kind of like a surf coach, enthusiastically explaining my idea to Derrick, he agreed, and gave it a spin the following day. This was it! We were just laughing at how much fun it was, Diz really enjoyed it, and I felt the board just came to life that session! Because of three points of contact on the deck of the board, that was the beginning of what we coined, ‘Tripoding.’”