A variant of the fish.

It's been an awesome last 4 days here for Oahu surfing.

The North Shore was firing some arrows on Saturday. There was a lot of water under the break at Chun's/Piddlies.

On Sunday, Diamond head was going off with some fun 3-5' sets with ripe cherry conditions. There was a Breast Cancer walk that day that shut down the Kapiolani park and the entries into Diamond Head, so the crowd was light. Monday had a nice little hana hou serving of 2-3' waves, perfect for any board.

And today, had some fun down the line 2' chasers at Shallows, which was groomed by a fantastically smooth NE wind. I'd like to share with everyone this neat little board that's been in our possession for a couple years, the Pescado by Scott Anderson.

It's a displacement hull with a swallow tail and a Red-X thruster set up. I haven't had so much fun projecting off the bottom to the top with full rails buried in a long time. Cheater fives, scoots to the front to trim, S-turns resets were all in this board's repertoire.


The incomplete hull bottom and extra width make this thing a joy to paddle and a thrill to slide!

I bagged this description from some guy. Sorry about not giving you props: "Scott Anderson shapes the Bojorquez pescado. Scott is one of the most versatile shapers around and runs Aquatech in the Venice Beach/Marina del Rey area. The pescado was first designed/shaped by Estaban Bojorquez (aka Steve Krajewski) who was one of the Liddle guys from the late 60's to the 80's.

The board is a modified or updated hull (low rocker, pinched rail with a very subtle convex bottom) with a shallow swallow tail. It was initially designed with a standard thruster set up. The idea was to keep the best features of a hull (highline trim, banked rail turns) with the snap of a thruster. Scott updated the shape by thinning it, adding edges to the tail rails to work with a cluster fin set up and tweeked the rocker, also to work better with a thruster fin set up.

I have a 6'8 but he can shrink the shape down to 6'2 or bump it up to 7'+. I had Scott put Futures on the rails with the normal cant and toe in but added a 10 inch Bahne box for a stabilizer. That way I can run it as a thruster or a single fin. With the right fins (5.5" custom Halcyon carbon fiber "driffta") the board works just as intended...stand in the middle and it draws nice rail turns, trims and drives like a single. Move your stance to the rear and it cranks as vertical as you'd like. My set up and slightly heavier glass job likes waves from chest to well overhead best. It would be a great transition board if you want to get into the whole hull thing and you are currently riding a standard thruster. I ride all kinds of different designs and the pescado is definately the most versatile board I've ridden."

For some eye stimulus about displacement hulls, check out the trailer video for Alex Kopps' film, 'Displacement,' or read about one man's firsthand experience here.

Additional reading (very worthwhile):
Swaylocks "Post Hull Pics" thread with over 25 pages of this stuff.
AllAboutSurf.com "Six Feet to Fit" article with quicktime videos.