In whatcha ridin we’re checking out what the umi boys are riding and why. Thomas Traversa tells us all about his tiny Fabien Vollenweider Tabou shapes. Over to you Thomas!
‘This board measures 218 x 52 cm and has a volume of 60 litres. It’s my smallest board, I use it from 25 knots and up. It’s the same shape as my bigger quad, just a bit smaller. I work on my boards with shaper Fabien Vollenweider, we start from the volume and shape the board accordingly. Sometimes I have an idea about a board and we talk about it, sometimes he wants to try out some things. We meet on the beach, or talk on the phone and he goes and shapes the board. I then try them out and we talk again, just until we find the board that is right. For the quads we started from the twinfin shapes that I already had before and modified them to work well with four fins. We made the board a bit smaller, changed some small details, but didn’t even change that much. We always start from our previous shape and then take small steps.’
What’s so good about quads?
‘Quads enable you to make tighter and faster turns, especially when the waves are steep. Besides that they go upwind really well, better than twinfins. I use quads all the time now, we want to develop them as much as possible. In stronger winds or when it is onshore I still prefer twins, because they are less physical to sail. Quads can have a bit too much grip in the turns, twins are easier to move around.’
Do you always use prototypes?
‘In waves I do, because the smallest production board of Tabou is 67 litres, and my boards are between 60 and 64 litres. That said shape wise my boards are really close to the production boards, which is normal cause they come more or less from my prototypes. My boards are just smaller and generally have a bit more tail kick, because I’m light and don’t have any problems getting on the plane. In freestyle I use a production board, the 80 litre Twister twinfin.’
Your boards are always very thin, why is that?
‘Well, because I am light, this enables me to manoeuvre well. The rails are also really thin from the tail to the mid section. This goes with the size of the board as well; you can’t put thick rails on such a small board, it just wouldn’t work.’
What kind of fins do you use for this small quad?
’I use 11 or 12 cm at the back and 9 for the front ones, but at the moment we are trying out some 7 and 8 cm ones in front to see how that goes. We have placed the fins quite close together. The larger fins at the back are at the end of the strap, and the smaller ones in front are close to the front of the back strap, all really centred around the back foot. In the beginning we had them spaced further apart, but now we are trying to get them closer together, to make the board livelier, less sticking to the water.’
Do you have a fixed distance between the straps?
‘Yeah, I always space them quite far apart to get a better control, I think it is 47 or 48 centimetres.’
Will Tabou bring out a production quad next year?
‘I don’t know, but we have been making a lot of prototypes the last six months, so it may well be!’
© Action shots by John Carter. umi 2009
