A single moment with Neal Purchase Jnr - video
Now here's a cool li'l vid, Neal Purchase Jnr channeling Baddy Treloar from the 'Simple Ben' section of Morning of the Earth. Despite having to shape indoors - damn those pesky EPA laws - NPJ manages to go one better; Baddy only shaped and surfed his board, here Neal shapes, surfs, and plays the music too.
For those that are wondering: the corrugations NPJ sands into the board are orginally inspired by Jim Pollard channels. "I experimented with Pollard-style channels but I didn't like the feeling of channels that followed the outline," said Neal when I asked him about the design.
The next step in the experiment was retaining Pollard's shallow grooves but having them running straight down the board. "They're softer and smoother than conventional channels," says Neal, "the feeling is like riding over ball bearings."
Comments
would love to see how that corrugated single fin goes with a long point or reef wall in front of it.
twas a sweet little clip though, cheers Stu
Good clip I wonder if Snr would be so keen on jumping back on a single fin. I am too scarred from the originals to warm to even this one. Still don't get this retrograde step no matter how it is dressed up other than as a novelty which would wear off quickly once the waves were cooking.
Love these surfer/shaper series vids. Keep em coming.
Nice piece of branded content for Rhythm. It's great to see a board being shaped by hand like they all used to be, wish I could knock one of those babies off in 5 mins too!
yeah, the product placement shots on the boardies were a bit like getting slapped in the face by dogs balls.
bit more subtle next time pls gents.
Crazy seeing the technique in carving out the channels/corrugations, jeez, if I were in there I'd make such a mess that they'd end up either totally asymmetric or go right through to the deck!
Seeing the use of the tape was enlightening . The little tricks eh...
Yeah, thought possibly a little too much was given away, haha. And the egg-carton with sandpaper attached to other side, great improvisations..
Channels are too small / shallow to have an effect anyways
Surely not Camel, any alteration to the bottom plane shape has to effect the flow of water and hence performance/feel of the board.
Freeflight was doing channels very similar to these back in the 80s,still wish i had a couple those boards,so nice to surf.
My only issue regarding channels, or any other complicated bottom, is the assumption that water flow is always parallel with the stringer, which it ain't. So i'd prefer these softer ones to sharper ones, if any. I really dunno tho.
Wild.
Simba phil myers now makes them . Same as they ever was
Craig yeah its true . Unless channells are really deep they dont do much
Sends out a lot of spray that little single fin.
"Craig yeah its true . Unless channells are really deep they dont do much"
I suspect you might know more about board design than I ever will caml, however...
But.........
Given that hydrodynamics is infinitely complex, that board makers play with infinite variations of rocker and concaves and vees, and that every wave is different and every surfer is a different weight, height and ability,
that comment sounds awfully like a simple solution to a complex problem, that is elegant, concise,
and wrong.
Respectfully yours
Batfink
Ok its time to explain my reasons , and i have told this story on a previous thread about channell bottom boards . If you ride finless boards ie alaia you would know where im coming from . So i started riding boards with the fin removed , channel bottoms followed soon after plain vee then concaved bottoms . What i noticed was that if the channells werent deep / prominent they didnt offer any grip or extra speed . Simple
Boards with heavy channels became my favorite choice of finless board for a few years until i got onto a seaglass model foam alaia . Which is wat i use nowadays for sliding . The hull is a single conc with chine . There was major differences using vee vs conc bottom boards with the fins removed. Conc was much more sensitive & difficult and didnt spin well & vee was much easier and would spin / reverse easier . So when i say that channells need to be deep not shallow i know its a bit cheeky but theres proof for why
Meaning also that its a waste of time & effort to put small shallow channels into a shape . Ie extra shaping glassing sanding . When a concave would be less work
DaveTrelour and Neil Purchase were surfing mates in the 60's and went on a lot of Surf safaris to surf as far as the Gold Coast and NSW South coast. Neil started shaping at Keyo's when I was hanging around Barry Bennett's shapers, then we lost contact until the 70's when channels were a happening design worldwide, I was amazed by the world class shapers and surfers who surfed on my design and the innovative variations, I am still in awe that after 30 years they are still an excepted design. Of course they will never be other than another innovative design now just a sideshow to modern surf design and to me just too much work and effort to manufacture and would surf on a Malibu with to a tail vee if I wasn't so 'old' but there will always a new star wanting to surf on a channel design just to know the feeling is different, but the view from the tube is still the same no matter what you want to surf....cheers from Jim Pollard
Thanks for taking the time to post here Jim. Good to hear you're still getting out in the water.
I cannot understand why people persist with single fins. I see so many flaws in Np
surfing on that thing and he seriously can surf. Why under perform.
Why under perform? Probably because he wants to. There is, of course, another answer that gets far too abstract, but performance isn't one dimensional. Maybe he wants to perform the best he can on that board.
I can do a pretty mean snap when I really want to, but I don't always want to do it. Sometimes when the waves are barrelling I occasionally want to pump way out on the face and do a big sweeping cut back. Sometimes I'm on a good wave and I just feel like standing there doing nothing. I'd imagine NPJ is just surfing that way because it's what he wants to do.
Pretty simple isn't it?
No not really. This is simple thou single fins don't work and suck.
"No not really. This is simple thou single fins don't work and suck."
I can't see the above video (Vimeo is blocked in Indonesia) so I searched for it online. Instead I found one of NPJ getting 5 second pits at good sized Lennox on a single. Seemed to be working just fine.
I use to get 5 sec barrels on a single fin dose not mean they work and certainly dose not
give them any credibility. Imagine what he would do n a thruster or quad.
How about this, how many pros do you see anywhere in the world ride singles in a contest? Pretty much sums it up don't you think.
How about this, how many pros do you see anywhere in the world ride singles in a contest? Pretty much sums it up don't you think.
So should we all ride wafer thin high performance shortboards coz that is what the pros do???
Each to there own I reckon
Yes each to their own. My weapon of choice when looking for alterative is a foamy.
Probably goes better than a single fin.
youve got to be kidding evos . theres a guy who rides single finners around here and hes the best surfer out there . he used to be pro but stopped contests and rides a singley . you cant tell em that ! i actually understand what you mean but your wasting your energy trying to say that . pretty funny really
The irony of this is that one of my all time favoutite surf shots is Evosurfer slotted on a huge wave riding....a single fin!
Not at Cronulla Point is it Stu ?
Not sayin'.
If Evosurfer wants his cover blown that his choice. One thing I will say though: there's absolutely no difference between his online persona and real life.
Grumpy old prick...
Well I never. I guess stunet you wont be coming back now!!!
Ha! Yes I will, when you least expect it.
just recently watching allan byrne tribute film last paradise seeing the invention of skurfing & the tiny boards they used made me think why arent tow boards single finned ever ? the way those guys were laying over the bottom turns ...
evosurfa what about a new modern design single fin not an old heapa that is slow . surely a fast foil might rival a multi finned board ?
ah the ol singlefin debate......retro bds = retro thinking and feeling!
It s pretty cool that guys turn to the past to experience or relive a bygone era..........the whole Hipster movement are revisiting what we did and felt...decades ago...
I personally think single fins were pretty average,slower, and very limited in the top 1/2 of the wave.......
story...Lopez was down here a couple of years ago promoting his book...and he dropped by the factory to check out what I was up to.....I made the mistake of asking him ..."did he have a Retro Lightning Bolt Single fin Pipe Board in his catalogue?"
the couple of minutes was spent with me getting a damn good dressing down in that " he was still a contemporary shaper,single fins were so over rated to the point he would not make them !"
there seems to be a movement in surfing right now to explore the past and see who can go the slowest hehe!!
I spent a few months surfing alongside a fella at a fast, hollow reef break not so long ago. He was a competent surfer and had a two board quiver. A modern thruster that he would successfully make waves and barrels on and a retro single fin that he often failed to make waves with and was noticeably slower and less nimble in critical sections of the wave.
Despite this he was utterly in love with his single fin. The aesthetics of it and the idea of the thing. So who was I to tell him what he should ride ?
A board that obviously worked or a board he was enamoured with even though his surfing suffered as a result ?
To qualify, just let me say that it's the type of wave where if you're not making sections, they'res no joy to be had. Cruising don't cut the mustard.