The Trimcraft brand/project has become a little bit of an outlet for some new and old designs that haven't gotten enough of my attention due to how busy my shapign scheudle has been the past year or so, and I was excited to lend the re.Bowls design to the shapers as a bit of a technical challenge, and a really good design to master a few difficult curves that I've found extremely useful.
So with that all said, its important to note that the re.B was designed as a compliment, not as a substitute or replacement for the v.B and hopefully the following notes are helpful in learning the differences and why they exist:
Deck Shape:
v.B: Super dome from the center to tail, long flat nose (this is where a lot of the extreme foiling of the shape comes into play).
re.B: Flatter under the back foot, slightly more nose rocker (more forgiving, less ball bearing feel).
Bottom
v.B: Mellow belly/roll from the nose through the middle, with the curve apexing into a panel vee or spiral vee in the last 1/3 of the board (super fast in trim, lots of smooth and long projection off the bottom).re.B: Mellow roll in the first 2' of the board, transitioning quickly into a triplane bottom with double concave through the back foot (quicker release when 'pumping', quicker transitions and better trim speed on flat sections of a wave; again, this plays into the lessening of the magical narrow-stance ball-bearing effect while adding to the shapes useability for beginner/intermediate surfers).
Rails
v.B: High in the nose, pinched 50/50 at middle, low/down in the tail with hard edge (important for the super fast trim they are known for).re.B: High in the nose, transitioning quickly into 70/30 down rails through the rest of the board, down rail with hard edge in the tail (good speed on flat waves, quicker to release the rail from the face of the wave, more forgiving for beginners/intermediate surfers).
Rocker
v.B: Long and low, with accelerating curve in the last 1/3 of the board.
re.B: Same base-line rocker, slightly more nose flip, and slightly less tail kick.
Outline
v.B: Narrow round nose, widepoint back, round-pin or round/thumb tail (more extreme penetration in the pocket, more 'round' feel of the back foot).re.B: Narrow round nose, widepoint centered, narrow round tail (more neutral handling, responds better to mistakes for beginners/intermediates).
If I had to sum in up, I would say the re.Bowls is going to be a better board for all around "eggy" surfing - its slightly more conventional, and lends itself well to a really wide audience of surfers - whereas the v.Bowls is more difficult to master in your first few sessions, but holds an extremely unique mind-opening ability in the long run which is why its developed such a cult following. Hopefully they are gateway drugs into each other, as any good pairing is!
-Ryan
