Dave Rastovich reckons they're fun, Andy Campbell has been riding them at Ship sterns.and icons from Kelly Slater to Bob McTavish say they may be the key to the future of the surfboard.
Flex has been around for more than 30 years - ever since the '60s. when George Greenough carved up Lennox on his  flextail spoons. But. despite its potential, flex remains an unknown attraction for most surfers.
LESS IS MORE
Rasta first rode a flextail eight years ago. "Dick van Straakn made it... he did it out of curiosity. I was only 15 or 16 years old It went amazingly, but it was just built with normal glass and it deteriorated fairly quickly. The next time I got on one was when we were filming Blue Horizons with Jack McCoy and Jack had a couple"
"One of the reasons I like them is because sometimes when I'm surfing I like to do less. I don't have to do as much on a flextail." Rasta continues. "I like a board that gives back to me I like my board to respond. One turn can load it up, and you let it go and it just creates its own speed. You don't have to push it all the time. You just load it up like a spring and let it go. They're a part of my quiver. On different days and in different moods, I'll pull my flextail out"
DISCIPLES OF FLEX
Flextails haw never really captured the imagination of the mainstream
surf community. Derek Hynd says it might have something to do with the fact that just as flex was starting to progress into a functional stand up format in the mid Seventies, pro surfing took off and Simon Andersen's versatile and functional thruster design took the surfing world by storm. "Flex missed the boat slightly back then, when the thruster standardised everything." Hynd contends.
Derek is a disciple of flex. "I could see how flex operated when watching Mike Stewart getting three barrels through Rocky Point on his bodyboard which allowed him to get flex and release without drag. A 7’4" Outer Island flextail that I rode in six foot Jeffreys Bay gave me the same sensations. The board flew along the flat and rocketed off the top."
OUTER ISLAND FLEX
Quite a few shapers, Dick Van Straaler, Mark Rabbidge, Chris Brock, Gary Keyes and the early Yamba crew to name a few, have dabbled with flex, but Outer Island's Mitchell Rae is the man when it comes to contemporary flextail design. He's been making a range of flextails for a limited but appreciative clientele for more than 30 years.
Originally from Dee Why, Mitchell was a stand-out teenage suffer in the '6os. Abandoning the contest scene, he was among the first wave of surfers to populate the North Coast in the early '705. Teaming up with boardmakers Glenn Ritchie and David Chidgey, first in Brookvale, a Palm Beach boatshed and then Nana Glen near Coffs Harbour. Rae was the test pilot for the other two's radical designs. Concaves, pintails, hard rails andflex were the Outer Island teams domain. Mitchell has continued to pursue many of those design directions in particular concaves and flex. After many years on the NSW Central Coast he moved his business to the North Coast and has just built a new factory at Urunga
The Outer Island crew was into concaves long before anyone else an Mitchell has developed a highly refined approach to them. He was doing deep concaves • singles and doubles in the mid-'70s, and the current tripple concaves he's doing now are very sophisticated and speedy craft
WHIPLASH AND TRACTION
Rae was introduced to flex by George Greenough. "I surfed with George in the '60s and '70s, and watching him on his flexible kneeboards was inspiring. He was prepared to swim with the boards but I wanted to be able to stand up and paddle them.’
Since Those early days. Rae has refined the ftextail concept through a  range of lengths, but the flex puts a real boost into the shortboard. i like the boards to be relatively stiff under the front foot for drive, but under the back foot I like them to be whippy and flexy, and they twist as well. So you can reach different parts of the wave because the flex melds the board to the wave."
But the real beauty of the flextail is its reflex action When you come out of a turn the spring is loaded. When it springs back you g« a retail of energy • the whiplash.
"When you ride them and you get them sorted." Mitchell says, V» can get into parts of the wave that some boards still can't access. They don't wash off speed because their directional transitions are softened.  the flex. It's like a car being driven fast on a racetrack. If you lose traction you go sideways, you're losing control and speed, That's one of the things  flex does in vacuuming power situations. It will hold the line for longer j because it can flex into the wave and it doesn't break traction. Rae reckons his flextails are pretty versatile. "They work really in any kind of wave that's got a bit of power, even two or three foot as long it's running and got a bit of shape. And they work in big waves. Once get really powered up they release pressure at certain points. They allow you to come down the face of a big wave and jam it really hard straight away, where normally you have to settle your rail and get the board in the water and then draw out a run. I think flex offers big wave the opportunity to go beyond the current parameters.”

STERN STUFF
Andy Campbell agrees. He's been riding an Outer Island flextail at Shipsterns for more than a year, and he's full of praise for the board. "After talking through some design concepts with Mitchell in Ball I ordered a couple of boards," says Andy.
"The key topic I was discussing with him was tackling the issue of finding the balance between needing length and thickness to paddle into bigger waves but requiring a board that was still maneuverable one riding the wave," he said.
"We now know that a smaller narrow board (like a towboard) performance
best in big waves. But they air physically impossible to paddle in to the big stuff. There are two ways you can look into this. One, you can forget paddle surfing and buy a ski and tow surf when it gets big. Or two tackle issue head on and find the equilibrium. The flextail was Mitchells answer to finding a balance for riding big hollow waves. The 7’2” flextail I ride at Shipstems has the thickness to paddle into waves up to 10 to 12 feet But it performs in a totally different way to a conventional board The heavier and hollower the wave, the more I felt I could harness the power and release and pivot in the right, critical curves both coming off the bottom and turning under the lip. The harder you push with your foot at high speed on the flex, the more projection you get from the release. The only downside I found was that it didn't seem to agree with fat waves." Andy concludes.

 

CARBON IS BEST
Rae's original flextails were made with fibreglass and polyester resin.
The composites that are available now like carbon fibre are for racquets and golf clubs. It's got a certain spring but it's very stiff." to increase buoyancy, Rae uses thermal plastic foam. "It's watertight and it's got a similar density to regular foam. It's similar to the materials used in boogie boards. Its fairly inert. It doesn't create flex.
With the use of carbon fibre and thermal plastic foam in the tail, the flextail is now a highly durable and functional unit. But they come at a premium. Rae says his flextails go for around $1200 due to the fact that it takes twice as long to make one.
"It's a really viable concept," Rae concludes. "Flex creates marked differences in the way boards ride. I'm surprised that people haven't
Rewarding for surfers and flex is definitely one of them.’

 

FLEX DYNAMICS
Flex generates propulsion, like a dolphin's tail, producing forward drive. Flexible forms can also change shape while in motion. It's the closest possible thing to a living creature, like a sea bird, which will extend its wings to soar, tuck them to dive at speed, and half extend them to perform a high speed turn. A fish will alter its shape to perform turns and power drives on the hunt for prey. Jet fighters change their wing form in flight and so do jumbo passenger planes.
Using flex in surfboards you can get a whole range of drive lines, from short and vertical to long, extended acceleration. Flex acts like suspension, smoothing transitions as a shock absorber and enhancing hold in a very late takeoff situation.
Different materials offer subtle variables in the reflex action. I'm using carbon fibre to generate whip and reflex, coupled with a soft, sealed cell rubber to balance the buoyancy and give a slight 'dampening' effect to the suspension feel. With flex, a big board can ride small waves, a small board can have long projection and boards can be fine-tuned for a specific wave and power range.
I like a board that's whippy and flexible under the back foot, stiff and with more drive under the front foot. In my current designs the whole tail and rear fin twists, as well as bends, generating torque as well as flex.
At present I'm working on fine-tuning the torque/ reflex action to match the body weight of the rider to the power of the wave. Big waves need a stiffer action, so do heavier riders. Springier flex is great for vertical moves in medium range waves.
It's like tuning a race car's suspension to a certain track.