channel bottom

Surfboard design feature, usually consisting of four or six longitudinal bevels in the rear half of the board's underside, thought to increase board speed by directing water toward the tail.

Jim Pollard, Australian surfboard shaper from the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, produced one of the first channel bottom boards in 1974; Pollard's "beetail" featured four elliptical sets of channels—eight channels total, four on either side of the board's centerline. New South Wales surfer Col Smith intr...