LEVI ON BOARDS
JC: I see you are riding thrusters now, how do you like them?
LS: It’s been an evolution of wave boards. It’s kind of a circle because we have gone back to thrusters and twinzers. Both these concepts were invented a long time ago, but I don’t think the shapes were developed quite right for them to function at the level they are now.
Part of the progression has been to get the boards to work good in any configuration. For a long time we were so locked into single fins, where we were so narrow minded on ‘this is how a board has to be’.
Now we’ve opened up the door, we have a huge, wide range of different board set ups that actually work. Some of the best guys in the world don’t like thrusters. Some of them don’t like quads. Robby Naish would never ride one. It’s kind of cool.
Right now there are a few different ways to go. They all look a little different on the water, but everybody makes it work. For me there’s a sense of relief, because I’ve finally got back to the single fin aspect of my sailing. I feel that was always my strength.
Having a single fin in the board. I felt like when I was on quads and twinzers they took a little bit of the power out of my sailing. I felt like they were putting training wheels on me.
I like to really attack the lip. I want to go faster and deeper into the bottom turn. I like wall-to-wall windsurfing. That’s where it’s at for me. That’s what gets me excited.
I feel with the thruster, it’s so radical to ride because it gives me the whole package. I learned to wave sail on a single fin, but now I have those two side fins it feels like the progression of everything we’ve been working towards is complete.
I like having the single fin back in the board. There is a constant drive and directness to the feeling when you turn. I think it throws more spray too.
I looked at some photos of me on a quad and the top turn was committed all the way round but it kind of threw a dispersed spray. If you look at a thruster shot there is a thick band of water that fly’s through the air.
When I saw those new shots of me I was like ‘Wow! I think we’re going to sell some boards!’. I’ve been pushing Jason Polakow to get back on the thruster.
His sailing was pushed hard on the single fin and he always liked that direct, full-speed, deep bottom turn. I really feel like the thruster would complement his sailing.
Don’t get me wrong, he sails well on a quad, but I think just a bit of that sparkle and power is missing since the days he was on a single fin.
Not everyone likes the thruster. It’s taking a while for people to come back around. You have to have the fins and the shape right.
It’s amazing how the popularity of the thruster is growing, in the last year, it seems like. I see them everywhere now. Quads were all the rage a few years ago.