50 Days on the Swallowtail
In the fall of 2022, Winterstick was gearing up for our 50th Anniversary celebration. Our Factory Manager, Joey Davis, suggested that I should ride the Swallowtail 183 for 50 days that winter, as a tribute to the momentous occasion. Up until that point, I had never ridden the Swallowtail, being largely based at Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine, there was little point for me to ride a huge powder board. I decided to give it a go.
For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure, East Coast mountains usually open with one or two strips of snow down the hill, and all of us flock to the mountain to get our fix. Being that there were only two “packed powder” trails open, I brought the Swallowtail 183 out with me, but I also brought a second set up with me to the hill. I took my pictures as my proof that I got day one on the Swally under my belt, and then I switched to an Ark, which was one of my more frequent choices. The second day, I repeated the same process, but when I switched boards, I realized how much more confidence I had in my riding on the Swallowtail. I noticed that even with the icy conditions, I was carving better on the powder board. That was the last day I brought out a second board.
Day after day that winter, I found myself riding faster and faster, carving deeper and deeper, and finding the tightest spots in the Sugarloaf woods, and all on a powder board that is taller than I am. I was astounded. Going back to 2018, Seth Wescott and I worked to redesign the Swallowtail. The board that we had been making was very consistent with what we had always been making: huge nose, huge taper, stiff as a door. Seth told me about the first time he rode it on hard pack, almost falling right after strapping in because it was so counterintuitive. We aimed to keep all the great things about Swally, amazing powder performance, iconic style, and surfy, unsinkable shape, and teach it some new tricks: carving, nimbleness, and stability.
To achieve this, we moved a little away from the traditionalist version of the Swally. We shortened the nose and reduced the taper. This allowed us to bring the waist up closer to the middle of the board to improve its manners on the hard pack. Then we took a look at the side cut and flex. The first board that Seth and I worked on together was the Volare: a full powder board with a deep swallowtail, but unlike the rigid designs of the past, we engineered some strategic flex into the tail. We made the first prototype, and on another early season east coast day, Seth went out to get the feel for that board and he said he would be right back. I didn’t see him for the rest of the day. The next day he came in and said he did 19 runs top to bottom, and that it was his favorite carving board ever. Seth could feel the extra flex in the swallowtail section of the board, and when he weighted the tail in a carve, he could manipulate the shape of the turn to his desire. With that realization, we looked at what we could do with the swallowtail sidecut. Instead of keeping the radial sidecut, we kept the side cut tighter in the nose and underfoot, but then we blended it to a longer sidecut in the swallowtail. What this resulted in was a board that was super stable at speed, but could be manipulated into almost any turn shape by weighting the tail.
During that 50th Anniversary season, I came to love the versatility of the Swallowtail 183. With 45mm of taper and 270mm waist, it has tons of float, but it is amazingly nimble edge to edge. I love it in the tight east coast trees, as long as you manage to get the nose on the right side of the tree. It feels like a much smaller board in some situations, but opening it up in the open terrain of Powder Mountain, I have never felt more confident at speed. I got so comfortable on it that I started using it for banked slalom races. Stable at speed, turns in whatever shape you want.
Over the last 4 years, I have put over 200 days on the Swallowtail. There have been at least 5 crashes where I swore I broke the tail, I have hit all the rocks and rails, and it still continues being one of my go to boards. Don’t put it in the box of a “Powder board.” It is, but it is so much more than that, and it is worth a try.
See you on the mountain!
Rob Lu
