Board Design: waves, ability, style, etc.

[alakaboo]

If your board is designed for average waves, then you'll be frustrated when the waves are good. You need a dedicated good wave board, and another for average conditions. One board quiver is possible, but then why make your own boards?

I think in SEQ/northern NSW you need a quiver along the lines of (in order of frequency of use, seasonally variable):

1.everyday beachbreak board - detuned version of the high performance shortboard, bit more tail area, softer rails, less serious contours
2.small pointbreak board - could be a mal, fish etc. something with a bit of volume and fairly flat
3.hollow/good wave board for the days it is barrelling like crazy but in the 3-5 (?) foot range
4.big pointbreak board - something longer and straighter, designed to cover ground and paddle well against a sweep


In my case I fill these gaps with:
-5'10" quad with wider tail and forgiving rails
-6'6" egg, quad
-? I had a 6'1" thruster, was a touch too big and I snapped it in WA.
-6'3" single

Also got a 7'4" mini-mal sort of thing that belongs to the wife for when it is really small, like under knee high, and a 6'8" for those once-in-5-years days.

[alakaboo]

A HPS would be the last board I'd try and make for myself, especially given the availability of cheap well shaped boards near you.

[Davros]

Damn that's good value compared to Sydney, mate travels up to Goldy and picks a board or two every year or so. JS 845 off the rack at shop.

[JaM71]

I feel that my SE qld quiver is somewhat lacking!
I have a custom pu hypto krypto (thruster) for chest high & above waves which are steep.
A wide nosed quad which is my fish/groveller
A mini simmons for when I feel like it (glassed on wooden keels)
Finally a 2 + 1 which I haven't ridden in ages

What I have been able to do is find fins which suit my weight and boards perfectly. Fin choice can make a big difference.

My wish list is a NPJ quartet with glassed on fins and a Formula Energy with rasta keels. Boards with specifically tailored fins makes sense to me

[Nick Carroll]

wingnut

for what it is worth, I don't reckon there's too much you can do to hurt a board for any kind of surf by applying high performance design thinking to it.

Tucked edges, concaves, hardened rocker lines, flat exits, they all work in shit waves as well as good ones.

just depends on the framework - and on the technical skill in the water. A better surfer will always be able to use the above stuff to help generate speed and flow whether it be 1-2' or 6' or whatever.

Chubbier profiles, softened edges, softer rockers, rolled vees etc etc are really about forgiveness more than anything. The technical errors smooth out more than the wave energies.

[alakaboo]

what is a hardened rocker line? More curve?

[Nick Carroll]

No. It's a rocker line that doesn't just flop over about halfway through and turn into jelly. Or doesn't sorta tweak itself unevenly throughout the board without taking into account the outline or internal bottom shape.

"Hard" rocker can work with concave to create lift and release. It fits tightly with every other design aspect of the board. "Soft" rocker is just sorta ... there. It feels slightly pillowy underfoot and leads to slowed reaction times (which actually suit a lot of surfers) and a lack of willingness to go straight up or down the face at speed.

You'll see a lot of boards with a fair bit of rocker through the middle three feet of the board, this is almost always soft rocker. Also the slightly exaggerated tail rocker you will see on many mini-mals and "performance" mals.

It's not a technical term so much as something I've kinda sussed out over the years. Some shapers seem to like soft rocker and others always produce hard rocker lines, there's a lot of guys in the middle somewhere.

[alakaboo]

Every time I ask you a design question I end up more confused than when I started.

No, I kind of get what you mean. I used to not like much rocker at all in that middle 3 feet, then I tried a board based off a top pro's rocker and it lit up, sort of challenged you to get more out of it.

[Davros]

Start with fins and design board based on fin type perhaps.

The pillowie description is apt, I was trying to pin point what I didn't like about a board I have, I was saying doughey, but same thing by the sounds and on bottom turn...yuk.

[alakaboo]

Now, I'm confused ... what are you saying 'boo?
The 'pro based board' had a lot of rocker in the middle 3 feet? While you used to like it with less?
That seems to be the total opposite of what NC is saying?

I didn't think it was the opposite, maybe I didn't get it.
I meant that I didn't used to like much rocker at all between my feet, because most of the time it was what I am taking to be meant by soft rocker. I'd rather have little or no rocker than something that didn't feel crisp, at least get the speed benefit.

But when I tried a board with a rocker based off Fanning's boards, with (slightly) more rocker near the front foot, I realised that it wasn't rocker that I was not liking, per se, just the way it had been used in the previous boards.

[Nick Carroll]

There ya go.

I am just going off how I look at and feel boards, but you will not find any pro surfer's board with soft rocker. They get chucked after one wave.

wingy I guess what I was saying re high performance features: Don't make your boards soft and gooey thinking it's a good idea for any reason. Those edges and harder lines help you surf better, not the opposite. No matter what the waves are like.

Soft gooeyness may seem to make up for weaknesses in surfing technique but actually they just make it worse over time. Like people who decide they are permanently "injured" and start wearing a support of some kind. Well, the support fulfils its own prophecy; wearing it weakens the muscles around the "injury", causing you to become dependent on it rather than on yourself.

I'm not saying anything about volume or whatever, mind. You've got to adjust volume for yourself and sometimes for the waves. But you've gotta see those harder cleaner features as a plus on any craft.

[alakaboo]

If anything, the opposite.
I used to surf like a snowboarder in powder, really unbalanced with a heavy back foot, now I'm getting more balanced.

I can certainly feel that the 'Fanning' board rewards a strong back foot towards the end of the turn, but it feels like the key advantage of the 'hard rocker' is at the start of the turn when you have more weight on the front foot.

I guess my takeaway is that I agree with Nick. I'm moving towards more 'high-performance' elements in my boards, despite being far from a high performance surfer.
My boards are still wide (19") and thick (bit under 2 1/2") compared to a pro.

[Natho]

Nick's comments are timely and interesting. I just got a new stick and took it out at the weekend for the first time. The board seemed to lack bite, drive and direction when on rail. In fact it lacked bite in general and overall just felt a bit slippery ( possibly sloppy). I gave the board a good looking over on the beach afterward and the rail seemed to just lack a good bottom edge in the back third. I'm putting the issues I was having down to that one design element. The rocker and concave felt good, but that lack of edge seemed to bring it undone. Nick's comments kind of sum up what I was experiencing with this board. Like there was too much softness right through the rail too far back.

[Cpt.Caveman]

I've been thinking about a general rule of thumb for my boards recently, basically the board should look like the waves its surfing (some somewhat like its rider too).

More curves in the wave (e.g. power on tap) - curvey rocker, planshape, etc.

Flatter faced - flatter rocker, straighter planshape, etc.

Taller and flatter - longer board and straigther but still curved planshape.

Taller and rounder - longer board (within reason) and curvier planshap.

More power - lower rails.

Less power - fuller rails.

Simple stuff like that.


The best question in my mind is always - what do you want the board to do? And seeing as most design variables function on balances and spectrums you need to make decisions on trade-offs and balances to get there. Neutrality and high performance? Speed and control at abandon of some performance? Effortless speed and flow? The list goes on...

[Natho]

To me the best boards are the ones where you don't even think about all the design elements. You just focus on surfing them because they just work and let you take the board where you want. The elements blend with each other.
This stuff can be as simple or as complicated as we want to make it.
Ever heard Occy describe different boards? ' that one went well, that one didn't'. Simple.

[Cpt.Caveman]

To me the best boards are the ones where you don't even think about all the design elements. You just focus on surfing them because they just work and let you take the board where you want. The elements blend with each other.
This stuff can be as simple or as complicated as we want to make it.
Ever heard Occy describe different boards? ' that one went well, that one didn't'. Simple.

I personally get a little bored when theres nothing to "figure out"

Maybe its a symptom of surfing ADD. Pretty much never get the same type of board twice.

[Nick Carroll]

If anything, the opposite.
I used to surf like a snowboarder in powder, really unbalanced with a heavy back foot, now I'm getting more balanced.

I can certainly feel that the 'Fanning' board rewards a strong back foot towards the end of the turn, but it feels like the key advantage of the 'hard rocker' is at the start of the turn when you have more weight on the front foot.

I guess my takeaway is that I agree with Nick. I'm moving towards more 'high-performance' elements in my boards, despite being far from a high performance surfer.
My boards are still wide (19") and thick (bit under 2 1/2") compared to a pro.

yeah exactly. High performance elements applied in that "hard" manner open you up to whole-board surfing. You can lead a turn off the nose rocker if the rail up there has some bite and grip, and get the water into the bottom earlier so you come through the end of turns quicker.

A hard rocker tends to start with quite a low entry point then peel back from behind the front foot, working through the concave. It tends to bleed out of the concave just behind the back fin where everything will flatten out

Here's an interesting one, if your board has a single concave or single to slight double: get a straight edge and lay it across your board about 2 feet up, a bit tailward of the centre point. It'll sit on the rails so the concave is visible beneath the edge.

Now take that straight edge and turn it so it shifts to the diagonal across and down the board. At some point, if the rocker fits the concave, you will find a dead flat line on an angle rail to rail.

No amount of casual looking will show you that diagonal flat section - till you know to look for it. But if it's there, it's a sign the rocker and concave are fitting. And it'll show you where to put pressure in a turn, 'cause when you push on that flat line, the board goes Zing.

If it's not there, well now you know why your board feels a bit weird.

[Natho]

Yeh it was interesting hearing Maurice Cole explain that a while ago. Until then I'd never seen it like that. I've heard Greg Webber talk about it but Maurice and the straight edge trick opened up a whole new world of blending concave and rocker to me.