David Weber Academy

Lesson 15 - Tail

In the last class we saw how the shape of the nose influences the functioning of the board, and now, in this class we will talk about the tail of the board.

You may have already seen that there are a multitude of shapes for tails on surfboards. What does this have to do with how the board works?

The shape of the tail defines how the water ends its journey along the bottom of the board and this directly influences the board's operation.

In the last class we saw that the shape of the nose influences paddling and acts mainly at low speed. In the tail it is totally different. The shape of the back of the board comes into play when the surfer stands up and runs the wave. At this moment, most of the weight is shifted backwards and with the gain in speed and support, the rear part of the board is the main part that is in contact with the water at high speed.