Wide spot behind center is really the design element of the pig. Velzy could only answer the true reason he used "pig", but seeing how he was a "womanizer", it most likely reminded him of some women he had "known", kind of wide below the waist. My rep Andrew was chatting with Hap at Dale's house when he and Dale were doing the balsa pig reissues and recalls Hap telling a story of Dale calling him into the bay where he was shaping. Dale asked Hap what he thought of the board, the first pig Dale had shaped, and Hap said it was about the ugliest thing he'd seen...the outline looked like pig. Hap added that he thought Dale was designing the board but also was trying to figure out a way to shape less, not having to take the meat out of the whole blank, if he just left the ass wide then he'd be done.
The Malibu chip held width nearly all the way to the tail and though still a point and shoot board, the Chip was leaps and bounds easier to ride than the planks and kook boxes. The chip was on the road to pig but it lacked the ability to be put over on a rail. Once the pig came along it was bye bye chip.
The pig outline stayed as the standard for surfboard design until 1967 when nose widths started growing and the nature of the pig started to be lost in a parallel looking outline. Signature models and purpose specific models came out and it was bye bye pig.
The pig has a short turning radius which lent it's self to the inception of "hot dog" surfing.
Dale used to take the guys out try the boards and they were wowed by how much easier they turned.
Today it's just really purposeful. Like most all the boards I shape the more pulled in nose keeps the rail out of the wave for more than a quarter of the boards length and helps the board surf more responsively without getting pushed out straight towards the beach. The action is from almost mid-point back to the end of the tail where the design elements of the outline effect the ride.
Then of course the rail shape, bottom contours and fin placement are where all the shapers really differ. I like a 50/50 rail to a 60/40 rail, depending on the surfer, and on the bottoms I like to play with a combination of flat, belly or roll. Then the rocker I use is something gleaned from working with Dale which I smoothed out to create great board entry, silky trim and intuitive action off the rail-to-rail and tail. I mainly use one fin design but we're open to using really anything we can come up with. The one thing I really don't like to do is slap the fin right on the tail block. While it won't replace your nose rider, most people are surprised by are how easy the pig nose rides and how much fun they have on the board using it as their go-to board.
I have templates from Florida that I used faithfully going back tothe mid to later 70's, they all had the wide spot behind center, thisis what Tinker showed me and I knew he knew what was up. When shaping the first board that Tinker had me shape for myself, wI drew the wide point at center and he said "what the fuck are you doing?"
The pig never died. Lance Carson, Tyler, Takayama, myself and countless others who understand theconcept continue to incorporate it into todays modern surfboard.
in, Surf a PIG
