THE BABY BAT

 

This model is my most fishiest fish. The shortest, widest and flattest of them all. The Baby Bat has evolved from the Mini Simmons twin keel design and still has the same rolled bottom and very flat forward rocker. I have narrowed the tail to give it more bight and added 5 fins and shaped in a bat tail also to add more bight. The tail rocker I flipped a little more to give the board some vert and added a sudden deep vee with a double concave to add squirt. I have been riding the Baby Bat in waves from 1 ft to 5 ft using various fin combinations and even five at one time. The board at 6.0 paddled better than my 6.9 and allowed me on my feet early which is a huge advantage for someone my age riding such a short board. These are design properties of the Baby Bat.

BOTTOM
Gentle roll from nose to front fins then suddenly becoming an acute vee with double concaves inserted.

DECK
The deck is a classic S deck which keeps the thickness on the stringer back to the tail allowing the surfer to float when running slow. The deck is very rolled.

RAILS
The rails are what we used to call high rails – meaning they roll up from the bottom more than the norm where they roll down from the deck to meet the bottom- let’s just call them very soft. Just in front of the front fins however they drop down and become low sharp. This is where the double concaved vee is situated.

PLANSHAPE
The nose is very broad – 17 1/16 no less which forgives the very flat nose rocker altogether making it easy to paddle in. The Baby is very wide for its length and pulls into a narrower than normal tail area punctuated by a gnarly little Bat tail.

ROCKER
The tail rocker is average – 1 3/4’” but the nose rocker is very flat – 3/12” but as stated above is very user friendly into a wave because of the extreme width.

FINS
It will not come as any surprise that the Baby has 4 fins but in fact it has 5 and quite a few options

CARBON BAT
Because the tail is very fine out the last 6” in order for it to bight better I have reinforced the bats with carbon so they can deal with some punishment as they are integral to the design.

PURPOSE
You know when it’s the golf course or surf and the golf wins because you know that even your fish is going to struggle in the shit you are faced with. Well you can turf the fricken clubs now, coz the Baby Bat is going to have you frothing when it gets that ridiculously small. It is a fact that small waves still require a good paddler because you have even less time to get to your feet before you are at the bottom of the wave and expected to do something and this little “baby” with the wide flat nose fills the bill in this department. Since the board is so wide it will have good planning speed in the weakest wave so in order to have a forgiving bottom I have ignored the complications of using a concave. I have even shaped high soft rails that should forgive that flattish rocker in the chop. The sudden sharpness in the last 12” of the rail, the double concaved vee and the bighty little bat tail is the bight squirt mechanism that will give this little saucer some positive forward motion.

We all know however that 1’ to 2’ waves no matter what you are on will eventually bore the shit out of you so I have designed in a bunch of fin options to keep you interested in finding new frontiers. They are all relevant and have been well thought through. Obviously there will be a variety of opinions of what combo works the best but that’s life – one man’s trash will be another’s treasure. Attached are some examples of some of the positions.

RESULTS
This summer I busted this “baby” out on a day I should have been playing golf. The wind was a light North Easter and the waves were a low tide 2ft Snapper with choppy faces. My very first impression was total dizziness – the board turned before I turned and just took off and was flying uncontrollably all over the place- but I made the wave. Remember it was only barely 2 ft. and I had unconsciously done about 50 turns. Also remember I have not ridden a board this short flat and wide for (if at all) for a very long time so maybe this will not be the same sensation experienced by others . At the end of the session I was looking forward to the next to try and get it sorted coz it seemed to have potential and my golf swing is screwing with my lower lumber. The next day however was bigger and I did not have my go to board, so I put the big front fins in the back and the small rear fins in the front ( H2 quad set) and launched it in 4 to 5 ft. Snapper. The thing paddled in like a mal and took off like a fish on acid, I could have put it anywhere that day. It high lined across the steep faces like it was a narrow Indo Gun but turned on a dime- pity I could not keep up with it. Still I thought it could have done with a tad more stability so the next day I dropped in a MR centre stabilizer between the quads and launched the baby again and it gave it that little more punch off the bottom. There are another 10 fin combinations I want to try and will get round to it when the waves get small again but the point I want to make about this experiment is that you are never going to get bored with this board coz it will take you a year to figure out which fin combo suits the most. They will all work; some just better than others for particular people. Overall I would have to say from my own experience that this is a board that is not really a brick of foam (that is- simply just too much foam – anyone can make that) and can be ridden extremely short opening up opportunities for those who for one reason or another turn their backs on small waves.

This little excitement machine just may be the catalyst to relegate those clubs to the shed once and for all.

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Hi Murray
I picked up the board from Sydney airport Thursday night. The board arrived well packaged in one piece. Friday went out in 2ft slop  shit on shore conditions.  I wasn’t expecting much as I haven’t surfed a sub 6ft board in 25 years.  However I was catching waves and doing little reos like it was  1981. I ended up having a  2 hour surf. Saturday the surf picked up to head high onshore waves. Again I was catching waves I normally wouldn’t  surf.  I  tried the board with the quads & nubster fin and like you said I wouldn’t recommend it. Just didn’t feel right. However today I put the little Darc drive fin in, and for me this helped the drive of the board. Maybe it’s like having training wheels on a bike. Anyway I found this to be the right combination of drive and turning ability for me. I highly recommend it. Today I surfed 4ft offshore waves and I couldn’t believe the speed of this board. Overall you have made another quality product. Money well spent. I look forward to trying all the different fin set ups over the next couple of months. I am one very satisfied customer Thank you.

Kind regards
John Dignam

 

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Hey Muzz

Firstly thanks so much for your personal attention and advise, at 94 kilos coming down to a 6’2 surfboard that I would be able to catch small waves with I thought would be difficult but as usual with you guidance the board is spot on and suits me perfectly.

I have now taken the board out several times and had a chance to test it out, it does everything you said it would, paddles great, catches pretty much anything that is on offer, its fast, maneuvers easily and I must say I am really loving it!

I can honestly say this has now become my favorite board to  take out on anything up 4ft to really carve up those waves and to think I still have all those fin combo’s to play with, I don’t think I will ever get bored of the Baby Bat.

The Baby Bat has made surfing on the smaller days so much more fun for me and I would recommend it to anyone who want to inject some life back it to surfing on those smaller days.

I will be in touch very soon for another addition to my Bourton collection.
Thanks again
Kirk

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Hi Murray, 

I have ridden my Baby Bat Twice at Snapper/Greenmount since
picking it up yesterday and I absolutely love it.  Over the past 4 to 5
years I have been looking for a fish style board  to surf small point
break waves with varying degrees of success.

I have tried Twin fins, thrusters and quads, mainly retro styles with alot of volume,
The Baby Bat smokes them all.

It took a couple of waves to get used to width especially doing cutties,
but today I pulled off a couple of full round
house cutties on it and it flew out of  the turns with loads of
speed.  The board is a gem to paddle, it picks up speed incredibly easy
and flies down the line (thank god there were no speed cameras), and great for
doing floaters.

I haven’t tried any vertical turns on it but I don’t
think that’s the point of this machine.  I  never ridden a fish with
the rails as low as the one on this board and with such a fine tail but it
works and doesn’t feel corky like alot of other fishes I have tried.

The first two surfs I’ve had on it is the most fun I have in small waves in
years.  If you’re looking for a fish to surf small or full waves grab a
baby Bat you won’t be disappointed!!!!!!!!!!!!!  

Thanks again,

Matt J