Bottom Contours

The flat surfboard bottom is the original bottom design that all surfboard’s were manufactured with. As the name implies the bottom of the surfboard is completely flat with no contour making the surfboard extremely fast. This design is therefore often used in small wave surfboards like grovellers and fishes for when the waves are weak. A flat surfboard however becomes more and more difficult to turn as the waves get bigger and is therefore not ideal for big wave surfing. So not a bad choice for Guernsey really and although a flat bottom might be a step too far you should probably make sure the board you are going to use to grovel in slop at Vazon has minimal bottom contour. Certainly If you are a beginner surfer now starting out this is the best surfboard bottom design for you.

A surfboard that features a single concave bottom will have a concave shape, curved towards the deck of the surfboard. This concave runs along the length of the surfboard. What this does is it creates a channel through which water can flow. This pushes the water from the nose of the board down towards the surfboard’s fins expelling it from the back of the surfboard’s tail. This surfboard bottom contour very fast and is tends to suit surfers who surf with a lot of power through the back foot and like surfing in the pocket of the wave. This surfboard contour however likes a clean wave face and will not perform well on those mushy days.

The double concave bottom design is ideally a single concave on either side of the surfboard rocker. What this does is creates two channels for water to flow down to the fins of the surfboard and out the back of the surfboard tail. A double concave generally does not run the length of the surfboard is often found near the surfboard tail. This makes the surfboard looser and easier to throw around.

This is the most commonly found surfboard bottom contour on high performance shortboards. The top half of the surfboard bottom will have a single concave leading into a double concave in the bottom half of the surfboard down through the tail. This creates a surfboard that is very fast under your front foot while still being easy to turn in the tail. The likelihood is that you have probably surfed one of these if you’re on a JS, Channel Islands, Webber or similar top shaper.

The V surfboard bottom as the name implies is shaped like a V with the stringer in the center of the surfboard being further in the water than the rest of the surfboard bottom. As you can image what this does is it creates a pivot which the surfer can use as leverage to turn the surfboard. This surfboard contour is almost always used at the very tip of the surfboard tail and is very commonly found on surfboards with a swallow tail to add stability to the surfboard. A tail V bottom is also a common bottom design for guns to allow the surfer to make quick directional changes while riding big, powerful waves.

Shapers like the late great Al Byrne became synonymous with shaping of boards with deep channels. There can sometimes be as many as 8 channels found on the bottom of boards and allows for the quick “channeling” of water through the tail. This can make a surfboard extremely fast, all that speed comes at a cost however as it’s very hard to convert that straight line drive into a turn, in short manoeuverability suffers.