RealSurf Surfers' Forum

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Legion wrote:

Braithy wrote:jesus. i may need to rethink this.

i'm 40 in about 3 months time, weigh 83 and I'm still riding 28-29 litres as my go-to board. I'm sinking up to my neck and paddling like a pregnant lady ... but when i'm on the wave, oh sweet jesus it feels good.

Brian, I also ride way outside FW calculations. I'm lighter and taller than you (i.e. not as fat) and ride similar volume. Happy to trade paddle efficiency for wave performance. If all I cared about was paddle power I'd be on a SUP ... oh, hang on, you already are. I'm not looking to change any time soon. That calculator sucks balls with the age weighting.

Last year one day a pro skimboarder guy came out, mucking around on a 1' summer day. He paddled into waves and then proceeded to do all sorts of kickflips and stuff. Sitting around he was up to his shoulders, just about.

yeah I'm 55 years old, weigh 77 kilos and what feels best to me is about 24.5litres for a typical shorter board, though 23 is fine on a really good board.

while FW and Super and a couple of others would have me riding something around 35-36 litres. Yeah right. I don't think even my Sunset guns have that much volume.

I think the online volume calculators are being very conservative because there is such a subjective call to be made by people on their surfing ability. They can't trust that people will be truthful about it, and people aren't really sure where they fit on the scale anyway.

23 litres. I'd need one for each foot. Like rollerskates.

Is very minimal. Have I read somewhere that most pro hpsbs are 0.35 litres per kg of body mass? That would put Nick on just under 27 litres. Maybe I'm recalling it incorrectly. Ratio of 0.30 would have him on a 23.1 L board

105 kilos and have A 38 litre board, I ain't no pro so far from it so I reckon .35 for a pro might be a little generous.

The diverse website used to have a calculator with those figures swivel.
I'm 2 decades younger than Nick and about the same weight, my HP volume is about 27l and my weekend warrior volume is 29-30. Can ride down to about 25, but over 31 in a shortboard starts to feel boaty.

I think volume has always been vital but until recently there's been no way of accurately measuring it, that's why it seems a bit fad like, there hasn't been any way of putting a figure on it till now

Now it can be measured and thus over time be better understood by everyone as a facet of board design. I reckon that measurement is around to stay.

Nick Carroll wrote:I think volume has always been vital but until recently there's been no way of accurately measuring it, that's why it seems a bit fad like, there hasn't been any way of putting a figure on it till now

Now it can be measured and thus over time be better understood by everyone as a facet of board design. I reckon that measurement is around to stay.

Actually, Archimedes figured out how to measure volume 2200 years ago. Today, the approximate volume can be calculated.
Other important factors are of course weight and therefore buoyancy, and how the weight and buoyancy is distributed throughout the board.

I'd still find it immensely interesting to learn what you find when you ride a board that has been developed to maximise and distribute volume in such a way that it does not hinder performance more than necessary.

Davros wrote:So what is the lightest construction material nowadays with the best float. Is it Tuflite? Would 30 litre volume board in same design in Tuflite ( for example) be easier to paddle than other construction?

More to it than that I reckon. Some modern construction boards end up corky and too light, and feel just weird. I find tufflite to be like that. If you want a tufflite I think you should go much smaller than you think to possibly overcome that. I find them stiff as also.

I'm biased but I like the parabolic rail composite construction. I've got 2 JD's and while my first one ( keel fish ) has too much foam for me, it really isn't an issue and I don't find it corky or anything. Even though i could use less foam on that board I prefer it in decent shaped beachies around 3' or so. The next one I got I went smaller, and not as thick. It's a sweet potato type board for tiny waves, and again, I think I could go less foam, but it's no issue. Feels much closer to where I should be foam wise. Next one will be even less foam. I'm going to take a bit of a punt and go thinner/narrower again.

Ok, lets put our 3 pages of knowledge together and design my ideal board. My dims: 70kgx5'7'x58yrs average surfer, aka: can do frontside reo's (sort of) and can surf in the pocket is the wave is not too quick. So I'd like around 31-33ltrs, 6'1"x19x15/8" roundtail thruster. The deck will be domed to keep the volume through the centre of the board and allowing for low volume rails. The tail will be thinned out and a strong hard edge tapering at the side fins. I tend to surf with my weight more on my front foot, so maybe some slight rolled v through the nose (I tend to catch the front rail on the bottom turn) leading to double then v through the tail. Rocker will be relaxed through the nose to allow for a bit of glide in the paddle in with a good kick in the tail behind the trailing fin. Planshape will take the form of the hybrid style, nose wider than a HPS but not as wide as a fish, and a continuous curve through the rail line with a fairly wide tail width to get me through the local fat sections. Standard PU construction, and I bet there are a few contenders out there on racks!

What do you need advice for?

You just designed the thing to a T.

Now go get it and surf it.

So much over-thinking in the modern game.

Spork, I like how your discussion of the right volume for your board became 9 lines of not actually about volume. Putting volume in its right place.

When I get around to it I'll do the calculations to show the differential in buoyancy between tuflite and PU boards. Its not as much as you think

It's not just about buoyancy though. Once up and going, having a lighter board of similar dimensions is much easier to move around, the key is getting them to surf "light" without loosing drive. That's my very unscientific biased intermediate opinion on why parabolic railed composite works well. Very light and lively but the hd foam and timber in the rail helps to stop them lacking in drive. I have absolutely no idea how, but they just seem to work so well, for me anyway.

yeah, volume is relevant for measuring displacement when stationary/static (that is what buoyancy effectively is - static displacement).

When up and planing volume is nowhere near as important in many respects (eg I suspect surface area will affect the ride much more than volume) and, as you say, less weight can be useful. As anyone who rides a longboard will know, moving that 4-5ft of board hanging in front of you around a turn takes a lot of effort.

I found this application for a patent, which might solve everyone's issues - a measure for standardising buoyancy, through testing how much force is required to submerge the board

http://www.google.com/patents/US20030200037

ctd wrote: (eg I suspect surface area will affect the ride much more than volume)

exactly.

I find the idea of a "fixed" volume as a measurement that surfers aspire to counter-productive and a marketing tool. Thats my beef with it.

Like Carroll has alluded too with the diff between his Sunset guns and shortboards and Boo also alluded to, volume is just one more design variable to be played with, not a fixed point from which to begin and end.

I like and ride boards of wildly differing volume depending on purpose, fitness, desired feeling, surf spot, ocean etc etc.

eg, I prefer much lower volume in boards I'm riding in Indo, compared to winter time Lennox in unruly south swells with 20 knots of sideshore wind and a five knot current.

Lightness too is a variable. I much prefer heavier boards at the Point, they keep a rail in the water and paddle in so much better.
Crisp beachbreaks, the opposite.

Re the perspicacity of Greg Loehr. Few years ago he was crowing to all and sundry on Swaylocks that Pu/pe would be extinct by now and those people who made it would be mowing lawns.

steve shearer wrote:I like and ride boards of wildly differing volume depending on purpose, fitness, desired feeling, surf spot, ocean etc etc.

+ 1

Well yeah, you'd have to be a bit of a lunatic not to.
My previous post was purely talking about shortboards in the 5'10"-6'2" range.
My boards range from 5'6" to 10'4", and 27l to 60+

steve shearer wrote:
I find the idea of a "fixed" volume as a measurement that surfers aspire to counter-productive and a marketing tool. Thats my beef with it.


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Any fixed or targetted volume can only be relevant to a specific blank or core type.....if you switch from a Burford blank to a Dion , the volume calculation becomes irrelevant......if you change colour code of the blank , the vol calculation becomes useless.......use EPS of any kind and it changes again.......use a heavier glass job and it becomes more of a misleading useless exercise to worrying about calculating volume.....it's a very silly and entertaining arguement........all volumes can come in a thousand different densities......try sticking the board under yer arm , feel the weight , feel the balance , trust your own judgement......if it's feels good , it'll go good for you........volume calculators are just dumbing people down.....(lol)