If you’ve been wakesurfing for awhile or have looked into which board would be good for you, you’ve probably noticed that some boards look like the nose or tail of the board has been cut off. If you’ve never heard of a snub nose or snub tail, then rest assured that cut isn’t an accident. It’s actually a design feature called a snub nose (if it’s on the front of the board), or a snub tail (if it's on the back of the board), and it has a pretty big effect on how a wakesurf boards gonna ride. If you don’t read any further into the nitty gritty of why these features do what they do, then you can just generally think of a snub nose and tail is going to increase the agility of your board allowing for quicker turning. The reasoning is a little different for each, so we’ll get into the why of it below

How Snub Noses Enhance Agility

If you think about what’s happening at the nose of a wakesurf board, a big thing to consider is that the nose is the farthest point in a wakesurf board from the center of mass. So, like a lever, any forces that act out there are going to have an outsized contribution to the feel of the board. If the nose of the board cuts into the wave, the force from the wave onto the board (people talk about that as the “hold” or “grab”) is going to turn you more than when the side of the board cuts into the wave. When you try to turn the board, the weight in the nose of the board is going to resist you more because it’s farther away from the center of mass or pivot point. Like spinning in an office chair, you spin faster with your arms hugged in than you do with your arms outstretched. The same kind of thing happens in wakesurfing, so more weight in the nose of the board is going to make turning a little bit slower. 

So, taking those things into account, the idea behind the snub nose is that it moves some of the volume in the nose closer to the center of the board while also removing the point from the nose which is more likely to ‘catch’ the wave. Like the spinning office chair, moving some of the weight and volume closer to the center of the board means you have less forces ‘fighting’ you when you try to turn. This lets you turn quicker and with less effort. In a similar way, moving the surface area in the point of the board closer to the center means that any drag from water interacting in the front of the board is closer to the center of the board. That means it doesn’t have the outsized feel of ‘fighting’ against you as it would be farther out along the lever of the board. 

The Science Behind Snub Tails

A snub tail has a lot of similar effects as the snub nose, for a lot of the same reasons. Removing weight and volume from the tail of the board results in a decreased effect of forces farther out from the center of mass (hugging your arms closer in our spinning office chair).  The snub tail also acts to concentrate more volume at the back of the board resulting in more lift and drive. That’s because the corners of a snub tail are necessarily going to be wider apart than the point of a conventional board (which would be right on the centerline). That concentration of volume is going to give the board more buoyancy in the tail which makes it sit higher out of the water and gives it more lift, decreasing drag and increasing drive. 

Thus the overall effect of a snub tail on a board is going to be increased agility and speed. Increased lift in the tail of the board is going to result in more drive and less drag making the board feel (and actually be) faster. Bringing in weight and volume from a pointed nose closer to the center of the board is going to decrease the ‘fight’ you feel from the board when you try to turn. This makes it more agile so turns are quicker and easier. 

Trade-Offs of Snubbed Wakesurf Boards

So far it’s sounded a bit like snubbed ends of boards are nothing but good, but as with all things there are some tradeoffs. In general, snubs will have the effects we mentioned above, but you can always go too far. If the answer was more and more snub, you’d eventually be riding a rectangle and wondering why you can’t do any of the things you used to be able to. The biggest reason for that tradeoff, is adding snubs to a board introduces corners where they didn’t exist before. You’re not actually getting rid of the point on a board, you're actually turning it into two points and just bringing them in closer to the board’s center. If those corners, say on the nose of the board, are too far out, then they will catch the wave no matter how much rocker you have. That introduces a lot of drag on the board, slowing you down and pulling you into the wave. 

Finding the Right Balance for Your Board

On the other hand, you might see a couple boards with snub tails that are pretty much square. You’re still going to have similar drag as the exaggerated nose snub, but in the tail the corners facing the same direction the water’s flowing, so you don’t have to think about the corner essentially crashing directly into the wave. This lets people push the size of the tail snub, but it does mean that riding revert is going to be much harder than with a board with a smaller snub.