Bending the rules
"A lot of surfers don't know why their boards work the way they do," says Greg Webber, before adding, somewhat cheekily. "But then a lot of shapers don't know why either."
I can vouch for the former having spoken to innumerable surfers with little comprehension of design fundamentals. And it's not always from a lack of trying, board science is a terribly complex business. A mix of 3D curves cuts through ever-changing water to create fleeting feelings in the rider. Add other variables such as volume and buoyancy, fin configuration and fin shape, and the fog just gets thicker. It becomes hard for the rider to discern which feeling is attributed to which feature.
Do shapers experience the same problem? Unable to isolate which aspect of design is contributing to the board's performance...?
Back in the day, Terry Fitzgerald tackled this problem by altering one design feature at a time: "Keep nine features constant, change one," he told Phil Jarratt in a Surfers Journal bio piece. The "nine constants" were the control group while the other floated.
More recently, Greg Webber has taken a similar approach either adding extreme elements to boards or dropping some features out altogether to get a clearer signal about the board's performance.
Of adding 'extreme' elements to boards, Greg says it's to "feel the effect in an exaggerated way so that you can then distinguish between a number of overlapping but different factors that might have the same end result feeling when put into a balanced package."
By way of example he describes how "low hard rails and large deck roll can result in similar levels of responsiveness but which one is doing what and when?"
To further explain his thinking, Greg says "As shapers have become better at balancing all the elements on a board the more blinded we are to what each factor does. Only radical experimenters, or shapers from before 1981, would have shaped and surfed on a really broad range of shapes."
The board Greg is pictured with - dubbed the Bent Door - is an example of dropping out a feature, in this case planshape, to isolate the effect rocker is having on the board. Clearly it's not a production model but a means to understanding more about board design.
The elbow work was done by Nick Miles at X-Core Reactor and the board will end up with Adam Robertson at Torquay. Greg's gonna examine how the board turns through the water without the aid of a curving planshape. And though it's very much an experiment, he's hoping all 5'10" of the rail can be buried with the leading edge cutting through the water during a cutback the same way a yacht's bow cuts the water.
To an extent Greg includes himself in the cohort of shapers who don't know exactly why surfboards work the way they do. Thus his latest experiment.
So what can be learnt from a board with lots of rocker and totally parallel rails? There's only one way to find out...
Comments
the more of this education as a whole to the masses the better.
some guys don't even understand the difference between epoxy and polyester, let alone why a surfboard turns and what fins are for.
Great I've been wondering how my tomo rip off copies work so well . hope there's follow up with this.thank you very much.love a straight rail!
90% of what is said about design is bullshit.....the only problem is picking the 10% that is true!
More significantly the real design process, as I wrote somewhere back there, is not technical, it is evolutionary.
You haven't excluded the variables of waves and surfer style. Still very hard to know all.
Whats the latest with his wave pool?
There will be a couple of announcements for potential developments in Florida and Perth but until they have secured funding for an entire development we won't be making any promises.
Thanks for reply Greg..in Perth is that the site of the old football stadium or another site?
Didn't Terry F also write an intricately reasoned article about how leg ropes were a bad thing? Sorta like Nat saying the cutback would be made redundant by the sideslip. I had a few Hot Buttereds way back. Looked good went bad ...unless the waves were perfect....sorry but McCoy or Aloha so much better. Webbers have been among the best boards I've had.
That outline is possibly incut not parallel ?
I picked it up and it looked dead straight to me Camel. Didn't get the set square out and I was a wee bit baffled but I'd say it's straight.
You mean in the the third photo? I thought so as well at first but after looking at it a few times I now think it's just an optical illusion caused by the rolled rails in the middle of the board.
Either way you'd get some looks paddling out on it. I'd give it a go!
Yeah I agree, and also the rocker.
What a hideous looking surfboard
But in saying that I'm keen as to see Robbo surfing it. Interesting
What a catchy idea. 3 pictures don't do this justice. Keep pulling that chain.
Fin placement will be tricky..........what do you think Roy ?
Lol quad for sure.
I'm a newbie at the execution of the 10-1 principle despite Terry Fitz explaining it to me at HB when I was board shopping in 1974. However, as a trained boat builder with some aqua dynamics experience I reckon there's major lessons that go both ways. Firstly, boats have considerable mass in the water, so the analogy of the boat bow is not quite right. What the first (forward) half of a hull does is set up and shape a wave which actually pushes the boat (like a board) in a good design. Check out the very best hull shapes by Nathaniel Greene Herreshoff - of 100-120 years ago. He was and remains the global master. For those who don't know boats, he invented the fin keel, planing hull, blade rudder and a thousand other innovations of pure genius so long ago. But a board rides mostly ON the water, except for the critical after third, where the control action takes place. The common factor is the influence of plan shape ie curve or straightness of the rails, no matter what shape. A curvier hull will turn better, straighter rails (and hulls) go faster. More volume of both means better buoyancy, fin choice and placement gives you that critical 10 per cent variation of drive/speed/control. Nowadays that's about all there is in the performance variation department. I gotta say, when you see a Nordic open boat hull design of high refinement (over 1000 years of sea-borne development) you see big flare=buoyancy, concave garboard (closest to the centreline) planks that aid buoyancy by trapping and channeling bubbly water and therefore reducing slightly friction in the wetted area, like double concaves on a board, and a "hollow" bow, which Herreshoff loved, to create better entry and more effective "pushing" bow wave. Check out a well-designed boat which appears to be surfing a wave of its own creation. The closest hull to a surfboard is a planing hull and given the millions of hours of development to make them go faster, those features are the ones worth emulating. They are the sharpish bow which flares quickly for buoyancy, flat bottom, hard bilges (read rails) and a lot of area in the rudder or rudder blades, for quick turns. Tweak those and you get your 10 per cent edge. Aloha.
Nice one spiggy
Definitely. Good stuff Spiggy. Cheers.
Spiggy as a boat builder we are constantly trying to work out what a perfect hull is and as i am sure you know there are no compromises when it comes to the perfect hull for a boat. Unfortunately there are so many variables that dictate what works that nothing is ever "perfect".
No boats that i know of do what a surfboard has to do except when in the hands of a mad man or in the worst case scenario. (and most skippers will never put their boat in that situation).
The bow of a surfboard doesn't have the same influence as a boat unless you are careening down an open ocean slop and most of us are looking for a board that has all the responsiveness in the back half of the board (hull).
I for one am completely perplexed by the multitude of factors that affect a board and props to any shapers that can make some kind of sense of all of these factors. It is a dark art and i am sure true witch doctor's need only apply!
There are a few basic principles that you can take from boat design for sure but one i really love is waterline length. we build boats that are 40m in length and if you change nothing at all except make them a couple of metres longer they go faster. that is completely against normal logic but it is 100% fact. also if you drop a vertical obstruction off the transom at right angles you can increase the speed. it doesn't make sense to most people but the hydrodynamics make it work in certain scenarios.
So much to learn in board design especially for certain conditions and manoeuvres.
i do agree though that the basics were discovered along long time ago.
Hi Reecen,
Who are the best boat builders in the world?
Most of the features which you mention are for displacement hulls.
Even planing hulled boats have significanty different requirements to surfboards.
Also, curvier planshapes are not necessariy slower since surfboards are effectively turning most of the time for example even when trimming in a 'straight' line.
By the way you forgot to mention what a great prose writer Herreshoff was :)
Hi Roy, I did make the point that boards only approximate the hydrodynamic shapes of planing hulls but all the (scores) of Herreshoff boats I've run my hands over in the US I would only call semi-displacement in that there is very little boat in the water. But I do adhere to the principal that straighter, more parallel rails/ hull outlines do increase board and boat speed. That's the case with my boards - and the great sticks Terry Fitz did in the early to mid 70s when he explained it to this clueless shopper. However, he did add that they'd fly but wouldn't turn as well. I think he was really focussed on speed then. BTW, though NG Herreshoff did write a bit and was a revolutionary steam engine designer as well as designer and manufacturer (he invented the production line Henry Ford copied partly) L Francis Herreshoff, Cap'n Nats' son, was a very stylish writer - and yacht designer.
Sorry Spiggy, Stu just misquoted a little, the analogy was not with traditional boat bow but very specifically with the axe or vertical bow. Maybe Stu you could get a pic or readers can look up vertical bow or axe bow on Wikipedia. So the idea is to feel the board planing on the rocker with nose out of the water and as the surfer puts the board onto the rail, with zero plan shape curve then I'm wondering to what degree will the board get buried ? Ideally the nose will enter the water like a blade or chisel and not be able to rise up due the plan shape having the same effect as the standard rocker, which in profile only, looks like a standard bow on boats.
These analogies are for the reader to help them visualise the things that I'm describing verbally. I'm not trying to find deeply analogous similarities between boards and displacement hulls, however the effect of the vertical bow for a yacht in waves is very much closer to what I'm attempting to test with the blade shaped front of the bent door. The vertical front on the yacht decreases the upward rocking effect as the hull rides into the face of a wave and so that's what I'm thinking will feel interesting, to feel an absence of the rocking effect that planshape can have. And it's not rocking back and forth just the difficult feeling during a rail turn when the planshape is too curvy, and when on rail it is unstable since any slight pressure too far back or forward on the front foot or back foot will make the board tip and angle. I just have to say rock back and forth to give the feeling that I'm trying to describe. And no thanks, I do not want any boat hull terminology to help you to prove that you have some understanding of hull dynamics. The surfer feels everything through their feet on pieces of foam with as little as 20 litres of volume whereas the yachty on even the smallest thing like a laser with hundreds of litres displaced makes it virtually impossible to "feel" what a surfer does.
The feedback to the yacht designer is numbed by mass and intertia so the shaper riding his own design will have the potential to sense far greater subtleties, but to get back to the objective and the real subject of the article is that despite riding tiny sensitive craft we are missing our potential to distinguish between design elements since we have honed all surfboard packages to actually be sold as a product and therefore they must work, and in doing that we are numbed and learn very little. When I do my experiments I'm not trying to make a product, and so I'm then I'm free to delve a lot deeper into why things work. I do the same things with my relationships with women....That's the ultimate experiment!
I like the plan to overdo the experiment to find things out then wind it back from there . We are lucky to have gregs presence here on sn . Been missing MC , pity hes left the forums . New opportunities with greg maybe to learn
your relationships with women?? Do you mean you are also experimenting with women??
Haha!
Greg, do you exaggerate particular personality traits individually on the dates you go on to see which one contributes what to the female response?
;)
Yeah pretty much exactly that. It's easier to see if you will be suited to a woman when you trigger her responses by being slightly risky. How they react gives you a much deeper insight into their personality than what you find from a politically correct, socially acceptable dialogue. And then they get to see who you are much more quickly too, so it filters out certain types who will be put off easily. It's a filter I guess.
Yeah for sure. That's the best way to deal with them I find, by objectifying them in two ways, physically and psychologically. Obviously mixed in with all sorts of deeply genuine moments of connectedness. (I had to say that or they'll all hate me)
shit,deeply genuine moments of connectedness , objectifying them physically and psychologically , man are you married or?
Hey how much nose and tail rocker in the board?
Nope not married. I wouldn't marry me if I was a chick.
Apx 5 3/4 and 2 3/4
I bet you wouldn't marry you if you were a chick either. ;)
I get it now Greg
+1 for Herreshoff. They still race the H28s on the Swan and they were beautiful boats to watch in action. As were the Couta boats with their more 'skiff' type rear hull.
Being into boat and ship design, the sterns of RN pre-dreadnought battleships always puzzled me until I realised spending most of life sub 10kts (max about 17-19 from these displacement hulls) it was incredibly efficient through the water. Similar to rounded, turned up sterns on ocean going yachts of old.
Otherwise, planing area and sail yardage equalled speed and led to the amazing 'J' boats.
Edit: mention must be made of the hull shape of the French 1930's liner Normandie, just beautiful and incredibly efficient for a displacement hull.
Question for Greg: Everyone knows surfboards are planing hulls; when they are upon rail, do elements of displacement hull design begin to assert themselves?
Maybe with a cat but the board is more like a curved keel when on rail, which yachts can't do unless they can actively alter the curve to go both ways. When we plane then the rails or keels are out of the water to a degree so that's how we can put two edges that have the opposite curve when you alternate rails. If a yacht was way faster for its mass then it could be more like a surfboard. We are doing 8ms per short board on a 2m wave or about 3 meters per second per kilo whereas the fastest yachts go about 20meters per second but weigh over 5000 kilos, which is 0.004 meters per second per kilo so only when they plane up on keels can you get any hint of a parallel
Maybe a a high speed sailboard or the Vesta gets a way way better speed to weight ratio but they are not designed for turns nor riding waves so only a small sailboard for waves would be a fair comparison to boards but then again it's almost a surfboard anyway. Sorry for the waffling on but I avoid trying to compare to other fields in a rational way, it rarely helps and often sends you down a path just like when surfboard designers try to pluck a fin from a sea creature and hope that it will apply. Only occasionally it does. However just trying to sense the function and be influenced by man made or natural shapes is very ok. I've probably been more influenced by the shape of leaves than any other man made or natural thing.
Cheers for all the words Greg, appreciated.
Well I for one think it's fucking fantastic. Ugly as sin, but then it's a lab test, you can chuck your aesthetics on the bunsen burner. More power to Mr Webber and all the crazy cats with killer curiousity.
Thanks mate and what's good is this kind of focus on radical experiments might free up other shapers to try some risky stuff without the need for making a product for sale.
What is the fin placement on this thing?
Can't remember but pretty far up, apx 13" and 7" I'm planning on making some flexing keels as a twin then quad.
I'm waiting for the video.
More rocker than my seaglass tuna but a similar back end
Does it float?
Ok I checked the sea glass and should have remembered that one. Yeah similar except the bent door is still designed to get deeply on rail which the sea glass tuna or albacore would have trouble doing. At best planshapes like those ones with low rockers as well, can only dig in a corner to turn or of course turn flat and slide which is fun.
Not to be confused with the albacore which is a softboard . The tuna is fiberglass & goes fast , straight outline is good . I can vouch for that.
Yeah thanks for the clarification on that
Yeah thanks for the clarification on that
Looks like a wakeboard. Only a matter of time,surfing is starting to do manoeuvres like wakeboarders do. A bit like snow ski design followed water ski side cuts.
Yeah that's another area to explore for sure and I contacted McFly after watching him ride a surfboard in powder and we're going to make something a little less surfboard like and see how it goes. Inverse vee.
"As shapers have become better at balancing all the elements on a board the more blinded we are to what each factor does. Only radical experimenters, or shapers from before 1981, would have shaped and surfed on a really broad range of shapes."
Totally agree. And reason to be regularly surfing craft of this pre-81 era.
And some readers might contest that there are all manner of boards available today but they are still packages that have been honed over 20 or so years whereas the earlier shapers pre the thruster were making the first fish and the first triple flyer pins and the first channel buttons and so by doing it at that early stage heaps of scary things were made and the shapers that worked out why those fucked up boards didn't work became the better shapers. Not many shapers now would have made a 3" thick 17" wide parallel sided super low rockered nightmare. I did, and it was aptly named the ironing board.
A valid contest, there were heaps of scary boards made pre -81 and it becomes a challenge to sort through it all and find those guys who were advancing things. If I can add anything to this discussion it's that if you try to paddle in on many of those boards the foam will hold you in the lip (the rails too, depending) making easy surfing somewhat less accessible, for the same bottom rocker. Take that bottom rocker, add a modern deck rocker (some concave in this perhaps), less thickness, a little more width, modern domed deck, modern concaves and surfing gets way easier for the same kg surfer. Just experienced this in junky 2ft SE swell with my grom, there's daylight between the old and the new (or more precisely refined) when it comes to that accessibility. Thanks for mentioning TF's "change 1 thing in 9" approach.
Hey Greg where do you actually test your designs and what kinds of waves??
Until I did my back in two years ago I'd ride experiments in anything at all. Ideally angourie point at 3 to 4 foot and then a softer back beach within days. Only just got back in the water so three guys have been testing for me: jimmy young Whitford in Sydney, beau Edwards on the south cost and Adam Robinson in Torquay. All great for the type of feedback I get.
Here's another shot of Greg's board showing the rocker:
wow how much nose and tail rocker?
Not sure without checking, but around 5 3/4 and 2 3/4
So when you shape you do it all by feel , and not technical parameters?
Two answers for that, one with designing and one with shaping.
As for design I don't always go by feel if you have something that works and you are just making a small change like a touch more tail volume, but occasionally I'll bend things in the program really radically to get an instant feeling of how this distortion might function, and also within design I've occasionally handshaped a board entirely with the planer and hand tools including the planshape. This reconnects you with link between the planshape and rocker which is removed to a degree of you just plonk on a template and draw around it.
The second bit with finish shaping does always have a lot of feel involved especially at the end when the tiny smooth bulges of foam are being removed by hand. They are not visible by eye since they are so smoothly blended into other curves so you need to be in an odd kind of semi mesmerised state to really sense where they are and then how to remove them. But it's a good feeling when they are removed like getting rid of a curve that feels slightly wrong. I think it's all happening in the same part of the brain where female curves are being sensed. Like the transition between the concave of the waist and the convex of the hip on a woman in a reclined position on her side. I
odd kind of semi mesmerized state to get rid of the unseeable smooth bulges , using the female side of your brain? Sounds like sex drugs and on a roll! If the woman is reclined on her side does the word doggy come into the situation?
Yeah it reads more oddly than it really is. I think we all have the sense of when curves look good or feel good. Here's a way of highlighting this point. If you were to bend a flexible tapered rod (a fishing rod effectively) most people would recognise the shape of curve that's created. Whether it's a parabola or some other mathematically describable curve is not required to sense the perfection of that curve. Now, if you were to use a sanding block and thin one short section of that flexible tapered rod, and then bent it again, then again anyone will see the increased bend at that point at which the rod was thinned out. So now you have two really lovely curves joined by a tighter curve which is not so nice. It's these not so nice curves that I try to get rid of. And when they are gone the board goes faster and has more grip and has a broader sweet spot, all good things.
Be fun on a Shorey digging sand out of your eyes.....
From Cam..
Greg what do you think of these hard edge rails ? Could they be used on a finned surfboard ?
Totally. I was going to do sharp edges throughout on the first bent door but decided to just get the thing done by nick miles with normal rails since my back was too shitty to get in a do it myself. I designed that board months ago and one factory understandably just said fuck that Greg we're too busy for that crazy stuff and then nick took months to get the right blank for it since they are not standard rockers to start with so I just had to be patient. So hard to describe rail transitions as it is let alone something with severe edge. I'll be doing the next one with hard edges if thing is rideable at all.
Yeah I remember that design now. Still it's not something that would be easy or even possible to get the entire rail in because it wouldn't change direction enough when it would get on rail and so with your weight to one side you'll just fall on your face. But I'm in no way saying this design isn't a fun and valid shape but just that it's not testing the radical contrast between high rocker and zero planshape curve.
Oh greg I was really hoping you might give your opinion , this board was super good for me , but what im thinking is having rails like the tuna on my big wave guns , but the knowledge is just out of my grasp , . Theres been stuff tried on rails especially lately , but no proof that any of these rails are really better or faster . Your designs are based around turning in the pocket / carves , concs & rocker usually , but your open mind and knowledge possibly can help on this idea . Its really out of the box but the desire to ride waves extra fast & big takes me to these ideas . Going faster in straight lines is the aim & big waves ridden from deeper . In some ways opposite of the bananas , the other end of the spectrum ,& I assume you would have been there in your studies and experiments .
Sure I'm happy to comment and yes I've gone into lower rocker and vee bottoms for the totally different feel they give. The extreme experiment on vee was actually with roll so it's not a true test on vee but I've also tested inverse vee with concave to experience the flat sided-ness but with lift. Ie this is just a concave with flat sides to the stringer. The roll test was 1" of roll with ten channels from nose to tail to see to what degree the channels would add grip and speed and bite to offset for the loss of grip and lift that comes with rolled bottoms. The roll won the battle easily and it was as sludgy as if the channels weren't even there. So send a pic to my email if you like or post it here up to you.
There is another broader design reason as to why I've done this bent door but I won't be able to say why for a couple of months.
anything to do with the deal you have done with Kelly? congratulations in getting Kelly and Firewire to do models with you!
It may be at a later stage but not part of this current deal. Just taking one step at a time but I've wanted to wait for the right time to bring it out. It's not a single shape but a relationship that can be applied to all shapes. Sorry to be cagey about it, but at least the bent door will help me to explain it all.
Well that question took me ages to write & I did my best to explain it . It was about rails like the squarish sharp type . Edit ; I see the post further back does address square rails . Thanks greg
Which question? What board are you taking about? An idea for a new board or an existing board?
Caml, Slaters insty shows him playing with some diff profile rails on the self shaped
'the knuckle sandwich'.
Thanks Udo will check but yes he's been playing around with all sorts of shapes.good on him. The better the gets at shaping the better he will be able to explain what he's feeling
Great thread Stu.
Awesome thinking outside of the circle Greg congrats;)
How wide is the bent door pictured above? It looks around 18" judging by your fingers ?
My pleasure mate, it's only 15" mainly so that a surfer of about 85kg can put the entire rail into the face all the way to the stringer which is being pretty hopeful on my part.
Cheers
As I thought the fingers weren't as long ? as I thought.
You know what that means Greg!
I was giving you a bit of respect there ;)
Hahaha
No worries, the webber word logo is 12" and I just measured it and it's 15 ⅜" I have to get it in the water tomorrow. Too small for me but I have a guy to try it and then send to Adam Robbo.
Udo yeah I seen it , not to mention plenty of other shapers are trying different rails . Its pretty obvious that the parallel outlines are working but im still yet to find evidence of the different rails out performing the traditional style .
Yes Caml you're right that rail has been toyed with before and I have too and of course in the extreme with a razor sharp edge on the outside edge and guess what? It was terrible. BUT if KS makes one himself then he will try to surf it as well as it can be surfed, and then his feedback on that rail will carry more weight than if you or I or Maurice or anyone else says anything about it. So we would want to encourage him.
Gw , Bodyboard rails use flat rail things called 60/40 or 50/50 , It serves a purpose , the sea glass pictured has a different rail but still does a similar action . I have an idea that it could be incorporated into serious wave surfing board shapes . To go to the next level with speed .,xxl waves & fast down line waves particularly . Theres a lot of drag on round curves compared to flats right ? Im sure that wetted surface area drag could be reduced by doing away with a round rail . So seeing the pictured seaglass goes so fast in a trim I figured that something could be learned & utilized for bigger wave designs . Even tho your experiment with sharp edge didnt work there's this evidence I have here of success in non round rails . Thanks for replying
I'm pretty sure it's not the second higher edge that's having the good effect, it's just that it's not causing too many problems when softish and the bottom edge is still doing the bulk of the gripping. The reason I'm thinking this, is that when I did the super hard edge it squirted water back into the face giving a lot of lift well before the rail was angled enough to get grip. So as I'd go over with the first pressure it's all ok, then at about 10 or 15 degrees the upper sharp edged rail started to jet water back into the face and id almost fall flat on my face. After a few waves I delayed my pressure and got it controlled but for no advantage at all. The slightly softer upper rail edge on the tuna is just allowing the water to curl around a bit better than the hard edge up high and so does less damage. The smaller the gap between the bottom and the upper edges the less effect and so the Ger-bevels worked because they didn't do anything wrong and in fact did very little that was different to normal rail. I shaped him one at least and one for myself and had experimented in that realm before with a step rail when I was at HB in 1980. That rail isn't just a flat but a 90 degree inward bevel. But that design had a different and flatter rocker on the bottom bevel so not really the same but the two edged rail was still present. Mate I'm happy to experiment on it if you like and then know one way or the other. Or you could take that board you have and add some resin and Qcell mix and round off the rail to see if it goes better or worse. Then just carefully sand it off after you're done.
The tuna is snapped in two greg , in the picture its only half we're seeing . It is history .
The boogyboard rail & tuna rail is just using the flat side panel & it holds the board on a line like a fin but more subtle . These boards tuberide good & hold line deep in tubes . its actually called the (tom morey )vacuum rail patented way back yeah ?
Theres enough hold from a boogyboard to ride massive barrells and theres no round rails on them , theyre flats . And they become like a fin . Horizontal bottom x vertical fin = speed & hold -standard formula for speed on surfboard . The boogyboard has that too & the sea glass tuna , flat x verticle = speed & hold , but its the rail ...
god knows mate, I shaped fibreglass body boards decades ago with rails, and they had more grip than the soft ones. hard to be categorical when the body board is creating a reverse rocker when they push the tail rail into the face.
Gw the sharp edge rail you did failed because ; in my opinion , the rail needs the angle different than what you did , I will find a picture & send it on here .
My experiment with rails ; more lower and pinched rail gave the board less hold & I had to use bigger fins . Im Trying to reduce fin size & increase hold from the shape , ' ala' alan byrne spears , always had smaller than average fin size in channel bds . I think that to improve the speed of bds in bigger and fast waves we can reduce fin size/ depth & wetted surface area .
Ok I get your objective but lower rails with too low a rocker will certainly lift up and lose grip so maybe that's what was happening. which is why lower rockered boards tend to have softer rails. But in fact the lower rail always lifts more so it's a matter of balancing the lift and the bite so maybe softer is ok but not the point that they drift. ideally a board is made with super soft rails with the Qcell harder rail and while in the water or on a boat you have a sanding block to reshape it during the same session. Imagine starting with razor hard edge and softening from that point.
Here's Cam's rail design..
I had a look at this the other day and thought it was wrong so I had a closer look this morning. None of the angles shown are as labelled. If you draw the shape with the angles as labelled it is a very impractical rail shape. Sorry if I have misinterpreted the diagram, if so I am happy to stand corrected.
From nose to tail ?
Thats a random bodyboard rail design from the Google search so its maybe not the latest rail but it looks good for this topic im trying to talk about . My idea is that it could work & am fortunate to have gregs opinion & discussion about it . Back later ....
I'm happy to shape one to start off with or just take an existing board and sand the flat bevel into it.
Firstly gregs idea to sand off the edge as you go is valuable info - take heed . That is how fine a line gw thinks it is .
This rail type that is pictured ; how about that for the rail on a board , combined with reducing fin size etc etc . ?
It's pretty obvious from the latest sessions at Peahi and from other sessions that the main issue with big wave padde in boards in extreme conditions is control. People won't admit when looking at the footage that the boards are disastrous.
Re. 'the next level' of speed via reduced wetted surface area: Speed improvements are ony going to be small and incremental, since drag goes up by the square as speed increases. To look at it another way, tow in boards have greaty reduced wetted surface area compared with paddle in boards... they go somewhat faster but even the speeds which they achieve will never be available to big boards. Reduce wetted surface area as much as you can on an 11 footer but there's still going to be a huge amount more area than on a tow in board, so the gains will be only a small percentage of the advantage that tow in boards have.
Reduction in area via rail shape: Assuming a sharp plate rail which is the most extreme possible, a typical wetted surface area reduction will be about 5%. That won't translate into 5% more speed, since wetted surface area drag is ony part of the drag equation. So we are looking at possibe gains of a few percent at best.
It's a good to go for small improvements, but a few percent is not like a quantum leap to a 'next level' .
Plenty of speed can be gained however by aways being in the optimal position on the wave. That and the fact that the handling characteristics of current big wave paddle in guns are so abysmal, has led me to the conclusion that improving control is the way to go for both for improved speed and wave making.
If wetted surface reduction is what one is after however, there are ways to achieve it other than just faceting the rail.
.
Roy you must have an interesting solution to the big wave boards to call the efforts on Sunday as disastrous?
Looked like to me that bds seemed to be paddling in well as they are all around 100 litres , Albee Layers 8 8 looked pretty good .
I understand your thoughts on Tow bds less wetted surface areas but could you catch a wave on one?It seems that most of the board is for paddling?
Hi Sharkman.
As you say the boards are picking up the waves ok. The trouble starts once the wave has been caught as we can see from the video action.
The kind of control issues being seen are not limited to the extreme upper end of the wave scale, and as Blindboy pointed out are partly due to the offshore winds. I've had the solutions since 1998.
There's an interesting discussion going on at present on Swayocks. Kazumi, who rides Peahi and makes boards for the spot shares some useful information. He's on the right track: http://www.swaylocks.com/forums/peahi-big-wave-quads
I found it very interesting that negative fin cant is being employed. I've been railing against positive fin cant for more than a decade and have been using a fin setup with extreme negative cant ( the tunnel fin) for a very long time. Kazumi states that negative cant eliminates the 'hydrofoiling effect'. It doesn't as inward canted fins produce lift in the horizontal panel, but they do it in a way which doesn't produce the unwanted handling anomalies which positive cant generates.
The solutions which I have are primarily to do with board shape, but fins are a factor.
You'll notice that the riders have a great deal of trouble controlling how much rail is in the water.They often have way too much or way too little, and move between the two in the blink of an eye. This leads to failure. It's more obvious due to the offshore wind and ragged face texture, but the design flaws are always there anyway.
I think that the designers are thinking in 2D rather than in 3D.
The main problem in that session seemed to have nothing to do with wetted surface and everything to do with the wind coming up the face getting under the board on take off.
Agreed.
Precisely so Blindboy, which suuports my point that surfboards which enable better control is what's needed.
No doubt it depends upon the kind of wave being ridden though. Caml is looking for better speed because he rides very fast waves and probably doesn't have control issues on those waves. It's certainy legit to look for more speed. It's just that there are such serious control issues being seen in the really big stuff...
.
.......????????????
Wow there's a conceptual breakthrough! We need boards with better control and here was me thinking that had been a major design priority since day friggin' one.. I think you have major .issues withe wetted area between your ears Roy.
I was saying that the potential for improved control is huge whereas for speed, not so much... and that a practical way to gain more speed is to have better control and positioning.
When it comes to big wave paddle in boards the results in the more challenging conditions are obviously pretty poor, as a certain penny hasn't dropped... since day one.
Your initial comment about existing big wave boards being "disastrous" manages to be both ludicrous and grossly offensive to big wave riders and designers. At a time when paddle in surfers are riding bigger and heavier waves than ever before you have apparently deluded yourself into believing that, despite a complete lack of practical experience riding such waves, or of designing boards for those who do, you have somehow, perhaps by selling your soul, acquired such superior knowledge that you can disparage their efforts. Take a hard look in the mirror mate, then put your over grown ego back in the cupboard and see if you can develop some more appropriate notion of your actual abilities.
We are taking about surfboard design, and your personal comments are not relevant.
What I have been saying is correct.
In future stick to the design topic please.
Ha ha ha nothing better than that Roy? You keep posting nonsense, I keep calling you out. Only one way that cycle stops.
Roy so you agree that the rail concept could reduce wetted s.a , somewhat . But you missed the other thing , with these rails I belive the fin area can be reduced and then theres more speed due to less fin drag . In fact fins is where I see lots of speed reduction , & that guy brad domke is already riding big waves on a skimboard . But this topic isnt just about a big wave shape its also for mid sized waved & fast waves , ie waves that do not get surfed because normal bds cant go fast enough to make them . Ie normal symmetrical fin setups , No chance . We have ryan burch & co doing stuff with fins & assymetrics that will go faster already .
Hi Caml yes I got that. What I was pointing out is that speed improvements will be only incremental due to the nature of hyrodynamic drag vs speed. Basically there are diminishing returns. There are bigger gains to be had by improving board control in my opinion... after all speed is zero if the drop isn't made, so if the wave can be made by improving control then the gain in speed is infinite.
Speed gains even if fins are eliminate will be small, but could still be significant.
Yeah for sure. In that respect the smallest boards will always win.
The speed you got on that lefthander in the clip we saw recently was impressive.
If fins are a major source of drag how is it that finless boards such as Derek Hynd's and those of a couple of locals I have been watching do not appear to pick up extra speed during take offs? Today's WOD shows a huge amount of turbulence from the rail. I realise that the mixing with air makes it more visible than the drag from the fins but I find it hard to imagine that the flow around the fins could cause greater drag. Using bodyboard type rails would almost certainly reduce rail drag but given that the control surfaces of bodyboarders are overwhelmingly the legs and fins and that their rail profile prevents water wrapping up around the rail my guess is that a board with rails like that would be a very slippery proposition........but I am all for experimentation so let us know how it goes when you build it.
Further, if fins are such a drag why are quads the most common configuration on big wave boards where speed is the ultimate commodity? If the equation was as simple as "more fin = more drag" then surely they'd be on single fins.
On a shortboard I can understand why more fins give you speed; a shortboard can be pumped and driven, the rider "pushes against" the fin surface for acceleration. But that's just not the case on nine foot guns.
Nice Mr Editor.
Roy have you seen what greenough is suggesting for big wave boards ?
No I haven't, where can we find it?
Roy read your reply about fins , but whats your hulldesign that will solve the surfers disastrous slow turns etc?
It's not the speed of turns that is the issue, but control of how much rail is in the water ( at least that's one way of describing it)
The short answer is the displacement or 'sinker' tail.
Roy wouldn't that long pointed tail with no edges drag , I have a 5 9 tow bd with hard edges nose to tail faster than any normal bd and never spins out?
Wouldn't your round nose get caught at the top of a wave if it was windy>
Greenough and Mccoy on design, big wave boards and one born every minute... Surfees. Wanna know how adolf talked a whole country into shunting their next door neighbour into a blast furnace? These days just going surfing will show you. A bit of snow and ice helps things along too. Climate change wankers.
http://www.mccoysurfboards.com/mccoy-philosophy/14-knowledge-tree/64-int...
I was never coming on here again. And this is the last time. But I have looked at the site. I surfed for over 45 years. 20 odd in the desert. Harsh place. I loved sitting out at blacks alone with nature. Marvelling at its majestic, raw grunt, more than enough for anyone when it feels like it.
Anyway the latest swillnuttin' stupidity, adolf's dream come true, on display, has me here one last time. The turky dawg fiasco. I'm not turkey. Have to laugh at the picture though, that is pretty funny. Ben and Stuart should be able to prove that its not me easily. I don't know about all that internet savvy stuff though. Surely in this day and age it is easy enough to prove though. But I guess sales might be jeopardised. Look, look... Mr adolph, he used an s, it is turkey... fry the cunts!!! Reminds me of the googludesless... 'as if some guy fixed caroll's back'... nick off. Surfees. Plus, adolph's dawg'z always right!!! Winnerz!!!
This is why you swillnutted dawg. Consumed.
'Ummm... I'm fairly new here...... Can someone please explain WTF this is about? A rather bizarre but intriguing read...... A very very strange thread......'
http://www.swellnet.com/forums/wax/14901
And why you still are swillnuttin. I still helped you though, heaps, after you asked me to. Even got my kid to. He doesn't know you from a bar of soap. I just told him some guy needed help with his shoulders. Then you sold him out... to 'get' (sic) me. Pathetic. Consumed. Surfees.
Turkey's having a ball playing adolphs. One bourne every minute. Consumers. Easy pickin's for him.
'Yeah, yeah, I zeen I'm aye!!! I called 'im! Afta ve foam balls got me!!! Amasing!!! Fry the cunts!!! Gatezy lurv's it!
Consumed. Winnerz.
Hurricanes... stormz in the desert!!!
When I wanted to surf black's I just went and did it dawg. Moved there as soon as I saw it. Didn't take photo's and wonder. I got plenty where they count. Instant replay. They reckon the bakery's doin' chicken soufl'e pies these days. Yummy by the campy fire with the old cunts. Watch out for the blowies.
If it means so much to you dawg, just come and see me. I've never hidden.
Hey there big fella;)
Where you been?
Training....................
Squats, Glutes, Knees or just hanging with the ????? StrayGators;)
Have to say hello welly. Hope all is good your way.
Yeh, always training welly. No good yappin' about shit ya never done! New situation now.
https://www.facebook.com/AnytimeFitnessPortLincoln/videos/67594530917289...
(although its strange to see a surfer bigger than the female interviewer)
Stoked too, one top triathlete from here, never tried weights, but after some talks about building muscle, benefits re injury and performance etc, gave it a go. Ranking went from 4th in the country to no 1. At the recent world championships, went into the top 10 in the world. Stoked.
On that note, heavier, bigger waves, heavier, bigger boards, heavier bigger winds...
Bring out the flyweights, the pip squeaks... blow 'em all away!!!
Oh, no they're too heavy!!!
See yas... !!!
Shit, oh no... shooda used a fucken z!!!
See yaz... zie!!!
Fuck'n blacks!!!...???
Good to hear from you big guy. Hope you are getting a few waves in between the workouts!
Have to say hello to you blinder. Same, hope all is good your way. I had my first surf for ages the other week. Not pretty. New board coming too. Heading to the pacific soon, for a long stint, can't wait.
Here's something interesting, especially for you, on topic re Geenough's/McCoy's comments on consumerism taking its toll in surfing, and the false portrayal of 'history'.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-24/uncovering-australias-indigenous-p...
Evidence of the false portrayal of Indigenous Australians pre invasion. As is obvious, they were extremely healthy, fit strong and totally relaxed and at home in the environment. Time rich. Time to use and foster true intelligence wisely. Time to be in touch with the source and elements of life. Truly wealthy people. Despite the idiotic, yet common portrayal of them as desperate, barely surviving, savage, struggling, against the elements brutes.
Adolph didn't have to try very hard. Easy pickin's the blowies. Consumed.
See.... yaz!!!
Geez Liftyz
Shez doesntz needz bigeer Breastz.
Imz amazedez at how well you keepz you hair lookingz soz wellz;)
Nice work
uplift , but did you surf a gun , and shoot the curl, amasing?
Awesome!...
By the way Caml, regarding reduction of fin area:
I've gone ( on 11 footer) to an 8" single fin with the leading edge currently 27" up from the tail and the board seems to work fine so far. That's only 42% of the area of a typical quad set ( comparing with FCS II SF4 PC Carbon Quad Set)
Next I'm going to try a 6.5" single with the leading edge 20" up from the tail and see how that feels. Area ony 28% of typical quad set.
There's more than one way to get the rail to do some of the fin work. Instead of having a hard sharp edge I have a soft railed displacement 'cone' tail ( which you've seen). Ryan Burch's rabbit's foot uses the same principle.
Roy these look very interesting . think I grasped the idea better when you mentioned the rabbits foot , I imagined your bd without a fin , then realized that your board might hold in especially one way more so than the other . So its built to help a goofyfooter ?
Looks good Roy but are you going to hang it on the wall or get someone to risk their reputation (and life) surfing it in serious waves?
Thanks.
Currenty I'm riding it, will soon be with another rider, serendipity will rule re. riders, the future and wave size. I'm over worrying about it.
........so no-one is willing to try it in anything substantial? Wonder why!
A rash assumption Mr Blindboy.
Maybe, but I'll stand by it until you post the video!
Good link uplift re greenough & mc coy . Roy great link to swaylocks , especially the fin cant theory
sorry that my comment now is about something that I've been into for many years, but the reason why i did curved fins was to have both lift and grip within the one fin design. positive and negative cant in one fin is better than totally upright or one or the other. The two qualities of lift and grip alter smoothly during the turn from lift at the initial phase of the turn from the positively canted base and then progressively the effect transitions into grip when fully on rail due to the tip. If you do quick pumps the lift dominates, and if you do hard turns onto the rail the grip easily offsets the lift. The faster you go the harder it is to get the fin to lift out of the water or slide because of the huge negative cant of the tip â…“. Curved fins do both things at the ideal times. Sorry to sound like an F'ing wanker but like the banana these things were manufactured incorrectly (made with carbon and had no flex which dampens the transition) and were misinterpreted by the industry and never fully developed.
Shame that the fins didn't work greg , I mean the composite & shitty fcs systems at the time . Maybe a remake is due
they worked to a fair degree but it was all about perceived value (carbon and buffed shiny and nice) and using an expensive flagship design that looks radical to allow the base fin prices to be raised a bit since the top price fin was now way higher. This is just good business despite ignoring the objective of the design.... I was lucky anyway, to be distributed at 5000 sets per year for a few years.
Greg certain fins like them & even the deep conc vectors often had me thinking the fin positions should be a bit different than where the fin system was set .
yeah maybe further forward but with enough $ it can all be done, someone just has to sacrifice the idea of selling each board and do the full range of experiments. Are you the camel that has surfed Gland a lot?
Yeah gw that might be the one , who has been frends particularly with your bro dan . Back in the late 90s . A place where I did many experiments with board / fins in the most perfect testing tunnel .
Ok cool thought it must be you. He said good things about how you dealt with whitewash in the back of the barrel and that you liked softer rails to not grip too much. What a wave to explore hey.
Roy also you say that your fin is much smaller area than a quad set , did you notice the size of the fins kazuma says theyre using ? 4.25 . Model all same size . I can find the area of them somewhere on my catalogue . Pretty small tho
Yes I'll be most interested to see Caml, thanks.
A coupla real eggz will do that to ya welly.
Now look, for the lazt time...
PALEEEEEEEEZE, PALEEEEEEEEZE, PALEEEEEEEEZE, PALEEEEEEEEZE... PALEEEEEEEEZE DON'T MAKE THIS WHOLE WEBZITE ABOUT ME... ZZZ!!!
GIVE THEM THEIR THREADZ BACK!!!
PAAAAAAAALLLLLLEEEEEZZZZZZZE!!!???...
"I was never coming on here again. And this is the last time.".............................
Meanwhile, 3 posts later......
The last time before the last time before the last time before the last time.....
Carry on.......
Greg webber come back please . Square boards again please !
I would caml, but I'd rather do it by video with a few guys face to face. It's take too much more to-ing and fro-ing by text and will take weeks to get to any resolution. Each guy on this thread has his viewpoint and most seem totally valid yet there are contradictions too. e.g. one comment that the big boards were looking cumbersome at jaws but of course you need to catch the things so it has masses of area to try to control wheres the tow boards are far more easily dominated with tiny area, and so retain more grip, BUT, I have never seen one tow board do such an amazingly smooth carving entry line as one of those guys did in that contest. An entire 10 foot of rail slicing cleanly like a balanced blade into a monstrous wave. So control is one thing and art is another.
Hi Greg it sounds ike you are responding to my post. I didn't say that the boards look cumbersome i.e. too big, just that they are mostly not working well.
I've been a fan of very big boards for a long time and think that many of the jaws boards look to be on the small side.
The reference to tow boards was in a different context, I was using them as a yardstick for the speed gains which can be had by reduction of wetted surface area.
.
OK got you, maybe I got you wrong but can't even find the comment now.
OK yes I get you re 'speed gains' with less wet surface area, but less wet surface area has to be weighed against the proportion of rail that enters the water to create the speed in the first place. The lower the area then the lower the rail entering the wave, so if we get to something that's 2 foot long then we have tiny wet surface area but we don't get much redirection against gravity back up the face. Too much rail means that the average surfer weight is not enough to dominate and bury the entire rail line so we don't get the redirection for the opposite reason. The quicker you go of course the more lift you get and the harder to bury the rail and turn against the energy so tow boards have to be small, but they lose any hint of a match between the board and the wave. My guess is that the tow boards will get a bit longer so that they can start to get a bit more feeling out of the wave instead of just surviving, but of course just surviving is all you can go for when it gets ridiculously big.
good luck with this discussion guys!
Yes true & I couldn't quite understand your description of the gerr bevel post etc . Shaping needs to be much closer & personal for explanations .
Sorry mate, so hard to describe these things. You would get it easily if I had the board in front of me and we could describe the qualities we are getting at back and forth a few times. We need to use hand movements of the board and the wave face to really get this happening.
This is the best..no waves = madness...
Yeah pm annual madness of early summer windy long days I think .
Merry Christmas camel...
Interesting thread. Good thinking outside the box. IMO it can sometimes be easy to over think things - just go surf and reset
Yep, great thread. Gents there are many of us following this with interest. For many of us who just use these creations but we need these ideas and of course those that can test with true ability. Given the large number of variables, it does seem that simplicity wins out but not always.
Video up of this board being surfed on Webber facebook.
BACK IN THE DAY WHEN I WAS PASSIONATE ABOUT SHAPING,, I FIGURED I COULD SHAPE WITH MY HANDS AND DESIGN WITH MY FEET,,,,