New board for $60?

I'm glad that even though I don't surf for a week, I'm still able to hop back on the board with some amount of confidence. Saturday, I was pleasantly surprised by the waves that came through. From shore they looked like close-outs. From the water, they still looked like close-outs, but there were also the surprising shoulders that peeked out. Nice amount of wave energy and I felt like I was really getting to understand how to hug the face of the wave... at least going frontside.

Somewhere amid the fun, I snapped off the left side fin in my 2+1 set-up on Doc. I don't know when I could have done it. I didn't kook out that day and run it into the ground.

Sunday I decided to take the other side bite out and try surfing Doc as a single-fin -- 7-inch single fin. Hmmm. I had my doubts. I tried not to make judgments on the first few waves and wait instead until I had finished my whole session. In the end, it was a fun time, but I could feel the difference and I didn't really like it. This is not a single-fin board... at least it's not a 7-inch single-fin board. There was no drive into the wave.

Walking back up to the parking lot, I ran into Johnny who encouraged me to take on a thruster set-up on the performance longboard. Whaa---? Hmm. I've always said that Doc is a long shortboard, so I figured why the hell not?! Sensei J has a bright yellow 9'0" Hawaiian T&C performance board with three tiny fins -- it's a board he reserves for waves with big faces. So, hell, why not? I bought a FCS center fin converter and a set of G5 fins (on Johnny's suggestion). I haven't tried it yet, but there's some waves coming. This could be fun. 9'0" longboard thruster. Wacky.

If this works, I theoretically have a whole new board for $60... and I'd be interested in playing around with fin set-ups and seeing how they work. Brave new world! And cheaper than buying a whole board.