Re: [Nico_SB] Still feeling the keels...

My first fish, circa 2001ish... shaped by a buddy. He laid up all of the glass panels, cut out and foiled those keels himself. You can't tell in the photo but they had a neat smoke-colored tint to them. I rode the board with those fins for a few years. They've got a pretty wide base and they're set pretty far back, parallel to the stringer. It gave the board a lot of drive but it tended to feel a little stiff. I think it allowed me to push the board into conditions it probably wasn't meant for (think well-overhead point surf). At some point, maybe a year ago or so, the same buddy knocked those fins off, incorporated them into some kind of art project and glassed on some of the wood Geppys from True Ames in their place. We moved the keels up slightly and gave them a slight toe-in. I haven't had the chance to ride it much since then (because it's been on long-term loan to the shaper) but the general consensus is that the new fin set-up works really well!

All the same, I thought this shot that I took of the old keels when I was in Australia back '03 came out bitchin'.