It's easy to inflate any model to larger dims, but another thing altogether, for it to remain nimble, responsive and forgiving. For me, this board does just that. Like so many of us, I've long since felt relegated to riding hybrids, or fishy, wide nose, lower rockered boards.Crowds, getting older, a little too much good living (along with a few too many extra lbs) as well as the fact that I never was a Pro, or a hot shot surfer, have combined to make it difficult to continue riding modern Pro-formance-shortboard designs. With the El Patron, I feel I can once again enjoy riding this type of board. El Patron allows me to confidently navigate a crowded lineup and surf at the best of my personal ability.El Patron is primarily based off of a couple higher volume (wider/thicker) quivers built for Kolohe Andino, where he demanded they "still carve and turn like a thinner board". Featuring a very conservative, low entry rocker and generous, accelerated tail rocker, but blended with a no concave nose area to the shallowest of a single concave, fading to a slight vee through the fins, and back to flat out the tail. This bottom contour allows effortless drive, and glide, while importantly negating the high volume, and lets the rail easily engage and roll into the water. Less concave/more volume. This is the 'magic' of El Patron. Because El Patron is designed thick, we employ another trick... a 1/3 thinner stringer! By using a 2ply stringer, instead of 3ply, we retain similar flex patterns of a thinner board. This keeps El Patron feeling flexy and forgiving... and breakage is not much of an issue with a board up and over 2.75" thick.Other details include:- Heavily blended rails, that belie the overall thickness, and feel really good in your hands, and in the water- Thin, boxy rails from the fins back through the tail, allowing control and feeling loose- Forward thickness flow, for drive and extreme paddle-ability
