Muzza's Trippin' - THE BOURTON BAT FISH
 By
Murray Bourton
The Purpose of the 6.0 Bat Fish
 A
simplified plan shape coupled with a complicated fin arrangement
to strive for more instant speed in small waves.
 Board
Specifications
MODEL DIMENSIONS: 6'0 x15' ½ x 20'
x 15' ¼ x 2
IDEAL WEIGHT: 70 to 80kg
Muzza's Ramblings
Yet another candidate for the "Bourton Fun Fish
Series", the Bat Fish, is another extension of
the Con Deck and Moon Fish. I have not broken the plan with
any flyers this time because being a Quad fin
it will be loose enough anyway. The rocker is 4 3/8 in the nose
and 2 1/16 in the tail, so pretty flat compared
with contemporary rockers. The bottom shape is a 3ml concave
up front running to dead flat in the centre running into an
ever deepening vee into the tail and in this
vee is a 4ml double concave which sort
of acts like a duel carbies for that extra squirt when you may
need to over take some gumby on a church door. The bat tail
is nothing new but to explain how it would feel I would say
like a swallow but with a little more
claw and punch and one thing you don’t want to
happen is to have this board flying back at you tail first cause
combined with the three tail prongs and the 5 fins you would
end with more holes in you than a crumpet.
All the other fishes are twinnies or thrusters or combos, so
I decided to give the Quad fins another burl
cause around the time the big fella came up with the thruster
I said up yours mate quads are the future and got right into
‘em and learnt a lot. The most noticeable negative with
the quads I was making is that when not on either rail that
is in between turns they had a blind spot because simply they
did not have a centre fin so they only felt secure when on rail
where all the fins were. This begged the question why don’t
twinnies act in the same fashion since they don’t have
a centre fin too. The answer to that is that because there is
only one set of fins with perhaps 5 inches of base on either
rail they pivoted much easier and quicker and therefore the
blind spot was not noticed. Anyway the long and short of this
is that a good friend and well known quad shaper Bruce Mckee
put me right on the rear fin positions so to eliminate the blind
spot.
Simply he has worked out if you bring the rear fins
in from the rail a lot more than the front fins, then the board
tracks less and the blind spot feeling disappears.
There is no doubt the quad is the quickest from 0 to 100,
cause they go on rail real quick due to the
absence of a rear centre fin, add to that they have more fin
area to drive the board to higher speeds. With the Bat Fish
I have shaped the concave up front so I can put the vee around
all those fins which should mean I can bully the board on rail
easier. I have also included a centre plug so I can experiment the Bat
Fish as a thruster or even a 5 fin-ner if it fails as a quad.
Prediction
I reckon this will go like a Bat out of hell, excuse the pun. Flat rocker, concave and double concave, parallel plan
shape and all those fins adds up to speed. The fin
choices will play an important part in balancing speed with
maneuverability and drag.
Results
I am going to rent a cop with a speed camera sit
him up on Greenmount point and paddle into a bomb off snapper
and see if I can lose my license!
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