I remember having to take my Tommy Pieterson Fireball fish 5'8" out at Desert Point as I'd broken my proper Indo' boards in the swells before and no one was wiling to share their quivers. Man you had to think fast and I copped some brutal beatings and scored some rash. Picking off the right ones it was a real eye opener. Yeah, trying to get the first bottom turn nursed out before the lip came down or your water skate span off out from under your feet and across the flats was 'interesting' but it made you ride different, use different part of the wave, find speed, realise how far you can actually come back from etc. Kinda like a Hard tail to some degree... shakes up your riding, make you think about the terrain differently, what line you need. Bottom line, with both a small board on a large wave and a HT on a black run, I'm that little more glad with that I've ridden and to be drinking a beer at the end of a day in one piece and not having lost bark to reef or gravel.
