Speaking of fishes, who makes your favorite and why? I rode an old mabile twin keel a lonnng time ago and hated it. Didnt jive with it at all. However, I had a long love affair with one if his twinzer fish. Thats the board that got me into twinzers. I will say, it was a bitch to surf backside though. Probably the archer...
Looking at getting a trad SD fish al la christenson, mitsven, michael miller etc... to try again, but part of me thinks I should go with something more "modern".
If by “modern“ you mean traditional outline with modern rails/bottom then Christenson is what I would call modern. It’s just disguised as retro with the glassed on wood keels.
Here’s what I’ve ridden…(all with single foiled fins except where noted)…
All boards were 5’8.
Steve Brom: TKF with glass-on 60/40 foils, no toe. Flat bottom, thick rails - not my favorite.
Steve Brom: TKF glass-on with toe. Flat to vee, pinched rails slightly. Very good board.
CI Even Keel: TKF lock box keels. Worst one I had. Slip slidy out of control, directionless.
CI Skinny fish: quad with AM1 sides in all four boxes. Surfed 3 of these things to death. Probably the best fish for die hard HPSB riders. Crazy speed, drive, hold. Single/double/vee. Super user friendly.
CI Skinny fish: TKF with TA Hobie toe side and AMK heel side. WAS my all time favorite. Faster than quad version with better performance/turns. Also rode it with Futures ENs which was super fun in peaky beach break.
CI Fish (their latest version): TKF. piece of sh!t. Fins too far forward (thanks Dane).
CC Fish: TKF glass on. All time best. Deep single concave which I believe makes it magic. Single concave boards are “sticky” and can be hard to initiate turns, but once on rail they turn sharply. On a HPSB they pivot. In combination with fish outline and big keel and “pontoon” design I mentioned earlier this sticky/pivot thing is calmed down a bit. So what you get is single concave/twin keel/fish down the line speed with the ability to turn on a dime. I’m a big dude and wouldn’t be described as a finesse surfer but this board never slides out nor does it “high side” as some single concave boards do.