The New Reverse Vee

In 1990 Tom Curren and Maurice Cole began a surfing / shaping relationship that resulted in Tom winning the World Title from trials to World Champion on a quiver of surfboards that Maurice shaped ranging from 6’- 8’3”. Tom went on to win his first and only win in Hawaii on a logo-less, yellow railed board.

To celebrate these boards and the design break-through which was the Reverse V, Maurice Cole and Tom Curren launched the Reverse Vee Project - a limited number of collector edition surfboards. From the interest in this he decided to revisit the design in a modern context, and is now releasing boards, from fish to shorties, hybrids and guns, with the reverse vee bottom line.

Nick Carroll, possibly the most analytical judge of surfboards alive, recently sent his take on his first two Reverse Vee’s. Trip Forman from RealWaterSports has also released a review of the range as it stands which really adds to Nick’s take on a design that, as Trip says, 'seems to have Tesla Auto Surf'.

Modern Re-Vee Tests by Nick Carroll

1. 6’0” x 183/4” x 23/8” roundtail
2. 5’10” x 187/8” x 23/8” square/squashtail

I got these two boards separately. The 6’0” was part of the first run of new reverse vees made in Torquay around April, and is just a pure rv bottom, vee tapering back to flat just ahead of the fins with standard modern tail lift. The 5’10” was a second run board, shaped in May in the US from a US red blank, and is slightly tweaked from the first run with a rv entry and a slight concave bleeding in and out a bit up from and through the fins. I was a bit wary of the 6’0” because I’d been riding concaves for years and years and had a little struggle in my mind about how a true single concave blend like a Metro type board could be matched by a vee-to-flat. But as soon as I surfed it I had an instant memory of how the reverse vees had felt in prior times. Instantly flashed back to a couple of the boards I’d had around the start of the 2000s, really clean free-running power surfing boards.

First thing I picked up on was how beautifully the rv “felt” its way into waves. I put this down to the vee’s straightening effect on the front foot or so of the rail rocker. It meant that when you paddled into a wave, specially on a slight angle, the rail would instantly engage and draw the board into the wave with very little effort from the rider. A lot of modern boards, especially concave-built, will sorta catch a little bit of water on that front rail in a takeoff thanks to the rocker curve, and it takes a tiny moment to shake the board loose and find speed. The rv had none of that, it rolls in from the outset with great ease and immediately puts a surfer into the driver’s seat.

Second thing I felt was the simplicity of the lines the board likes to draw, it doesn’t build to crazy speed off the inside back edge like a deep concave, instead it holds speed from any point on the wave to any other point. This makes it fantastic to surf at a range of angles, it loves to be surfed vertically off the wave base and feels really calm when surfed tight to the pocket and in steepening parts of the wave. I found those qualities especially shone when surfing backside and/or in bowly waves with a curve coming back at you from the shoulder, both these boards love to run that curve and set into it for big carving moves, fades and shorter snappy type ripping turns.

Both boards encourage a relaxed physical action from the rider, they don’t need to be pumped for speed, instead they like to be turned, so the tempo of the ride feels a bit more effortless, and little weight shifts can accomplish a lot, especially at speed. Recoveries follow the same pattern, they feel pretty easy and uncomplicated. The lowered overall rocker line of the 5’10” made it even more of a power carving board, it throws massive chunks especially off the top in steep angles and really doesn’t take any shit from a wave at all. I’ve had to relax even more on it than on the 6’0” and let it find its line at times, it knows what it wants to do, and when we’re in sync it’s a bit scary. It’s probably given me the best opportunities for feedback to Maurice about how to take this design to another stage.