Geeeze.... Sunova got me hooked on Speeed , then Acid.... now I'm trippin' on Shrooms
This is a very preliminary view of the care and feeding of Shrooms.
I hope to get some real waves to test it in at some point... but I made this up, to answer questions that have been floating around about this very interesting shape.
Berts a fricking genius, he figured out how to put a fat bastard on a short SUP.
At 8'3 and only 126.3 liters, the Shroom is super easy for me (240 lbs)
It is 32" wide and a very "Square" board....
Bert has figured a way to make this board turn, with interesting rails, some pretty good rocker with concave on both deck and bottom.
It paddles extremely straight for a short, wide board.
and... a huge shout out to "wetstuff" because he deserves all the credit for this board.... "wetstuff" ordered this board as a custom.
It was his concept that Bert honed for 6 months of design and testing.
It was always wetstuff's desire to have me use and review this board first, so I jumped at the opportunity.
Big thanks wetstuff... this is a very fun board
Short boards always feel like potato chips to me, this one, feels like a real board.... it carves and snaps and zooms.
Maybe now that I have posted a video, the waves will get better
i wondered how that board would work.....good to hear how it gets on with bigger swells When you get the chance. What's the thinking with the two rear fins?
Nice vid Rick.
Another spanner in the works . Love the innovation .
With the concave deck shape does water actually pool on top of the board ?
I just ordered a Speeed and now this comes out!!!
I may just have to convince the minister of finance to get another board!
It does look quite manageable......and only 8'3 which I suspect even fits within Air New Zealand "surfboard lengths"
Well, well, well... Just when I thought I had my quiver settled... It is great to see this level of innovation. Pretty impressive that 126 litres and 8'3" floated STC OK and it was easy to paddle. It will be interesting to see what sizes they release.
Slab...
Nothing over waist high yet.
I will update if we ever get any waves.... been small for too long.
It will be interesting to see how that tail/fin arrangement holds up in OH waves.
Gboots
The water does pool on the deck when stopped, but I didn't notice it when paddling around and catching waves
Haydos... enjoy your Speeed, plenty of time to get hooked on Shrooms.
May have some surf in 2 or 3 days... I am itching to get this little box in some waves at my home breaks.
Wow, that mind of Bert! Interesting fin set up, haven't ever seen anything like it, its seems to be a box as you say STC and very minion like, I think my team rider may be wrong I am liking my Speeed way too much, but that doesn't mean I won't try this in Merimbula
Nice one STC !!!
Thanks for posting the vid, looks like an awesome board and something very different
Hi guys,
So the secret Shroom model uhh! hahah. Just to fix a few points above from the story originating at the zone this time.
1) the name is from mush and we have to stay true to our naming conventions and thus there was no other real option here than shroom!!!
2) Wetstuff asked for a board that coincidentally was in the works over here. Bert was working on it for a while. He did get a deal to NOT have to pay it custom because he was easy on taking what Bert wanted to make ;-) ;D
3) the shroom is an official model thats coming out later during the year. this the first version of it which we allow ourselves to be still tweaked a bit.
4) the first one will be in Australia at our dealer meeting in July.
5) there will be a range of them in Bert's normal scaling way to be able to experience the same board no matter if you are 80 or 280 pounds. Probably 105L, 125L, 145L, 160L.
6) the pad is in fact not properly glued and we saw it too late. We cut all our pads from larger sizes (thus the waste for the flip-flops!), but for the first boards it sometimes needs to be re-calculated. Especially Bert was a bit off from his normal calculation which is a standard factor off from rail. It actually felt really good paddling it that way as you could almost wrap the foot over the edge. It probably will be just a tiny bit over the edge.
7) Bert is in fact hand shaping the first set of fins, which is unfortunately still a bit in limbo. Apart from many things, one thing can be said about Bert about anything that looks definitely like work, or in other words does not look like surfing or beer!... He HATES it!! :o
HERE BELOW the extended version of the crazy ideas of all the shroom features here in Bert's voice:
i have designed something along the same lines ..
those designs in general all have the same types of issues ..
hard to drive them through a turn , a bit flicky ,, go really slippery if there over powered.. hard to do anything in the pocket.. slow rail to rail transition.. can slide into a drift easily during a rail to rail transition...
so ive come up with a design that addresses most of those issues in a small board ..
but its crazy.. and i really dont know how people would respond if we made it a model ..
when you first look at it , you wouldnt get it ,, until after you rode it ..
anyway ,, were gonna need a guinea pig for this one and maybe a different strategy and some hype if we release it..
im convinced its a winner coz i have a surfboard very similar and it works really well..
at this point i have 3 versions of this board ..
all the same rocker, bottom contour , outline and width .. but 3 different thicknesses..
8-3 x 32 x 108 liters,, 118 liters and 126 liters .. i would prefer the thinnest version , but based on competitors volumes and sizes , i realized i had to squeeze more volume in if it was gonna fly..
all the pics are the thickest version..
ok heres the run down ..
Outline .. obviously trying to squeeze in as much area as possible so it goes in mush, so it has area to plane early, also generous tail area for cutting back and floating over really soft sections ,, if you go too straight in the outline like a door , it gets sticky and loses flow , like trying to fit a square into a round hole , its a difficult fit, so the outline is the same as a magic surfboard we did with this same outline..
Rocker.. is quite flat , more so in the nose in comparison to other boards.. this gives the board really good carry and allows you to have your weight more distributed and the board will still go.. if you have too much rocker in a tiny board , then your weight must be placed in the exact location to make it go, if not it comes to a stop..
Crazy Concave bottom.. one problem with really wide tails and boards , its really hard to get them on the rail , with this one the concave is so deep you virtually have your rail engaged before you even start , next issue with a wide tail is the slippery feeling on the rail to rail transition , this is where you can go into an uncontrollable drift when turning under the lip at speed , one rail is engaged , then there is a brief moment where the board is flat before you can get the other rail in..
but with this concave style, almost inverted V , you have one rail engaged , then as you transition onto the other rail it bights and grabs instantly, because it cant drift while on the flat...
Crazy Concave deck .. this gives you loads of leverage into a turn , combined with the deep bottom concave , the board responds like you are surfing really aggressively and hard ..imagine a rolled deck , when you lean into a turn and say your body is on a 45 degree angle.. the board ( bottom) will also be on a 45 degree angle relative to the water surface.. maybe a little less with more roll in the deck.. but with the combined bottom and deck concave , your body will be on a 45 , but the bottom of the board and rail is engaged way deeper , like 52 or 53 degrees, so with the same effort you get a radical and instant response , like your surfing way more aggressively than you actually are, and the board will go vert and virtually launch out of the water before you even realize whats happening, if you respond in time , it will hook back down with hold and bite..
Step Rail.. this gives the board auto pilot and training wheels combined ..
its really common , that if your rails are too thin , you can bury them if you go too hard , its almost like you have to have a very acute sense to know when to hold back.. but if your rails are too thick , your fighting a chunky rail into the water , that gets harder and harder the faster you go.. this rail is thin so it drops in instantly , but then it only goes as far in until it hits the thick part , so you get enough penetration in an instant to give you hold but it wont bury.. its like you just cant make a mistake..
Fin Set up .. i dont have a name for this set up yet ,, weve done it in some wide tailed short surfboards and it offers way more direction and drive.. really common on wide tails , they get squirrely and slippery , spin out , once the tail fin lets go , its hard to recover.. its because the board sits flat on the water , so you are more reliant on the fins to keep hold..
having the the 2 tail fins really close together acts the same as a Bi Plane .. they can handle massive angles of attack before the wings fail to function,, when the angle of attack is so high with a single wing , the air/water can no longer stay attached to both sides and it stalls or lets go ,, but with 2 wings , one of them will always have water attached on both sides , due the water being forced between them...
Fin Design.. with really short boards , its hard to get a feeling of a carve and drawn out power turn, when you go to turn you get these short , tight, flicky powerless arcs its like you turn off the power and the board stops as well ..
so the raked fin keeps more power through the turn , especially when you want to do a roundhouse cutback.. vertical fins , have an instant response , but also a turn and stop feel , the raked fin resists the turn and converts it to drive, hence the name of the fins ( drivers) you can stay powered up with drive all the way through the entire turn..
The overall package is designed to work together..
if you take all the other boards like this on the market , they have there good points and there bad points..
i hate bad points... if i cant design a really good board , then i just wont make one .. so its taken me a while to settle all the issues with the current offerings and come up with something that will do it, or at least do it better..
plus the other boards have been around long enough for people to be familiar with there short comings and potentially recognize this one will do it....
regards
BERT
A four fin thruster setup? That just does not make sense.
I don"t think I have ever read such marketing gibberish in my life as the following
"Fin Design.. with really short boards , its hard to get a feeling of a carve and drawn out power turn, when you go to turn you get these short , tight, flicky powerless arcs its like you turn off the power and the board stops as well .. so the raked fin keeps more power through the turn , especially when you want to do a roundhouse cutback.. vertical fins , have an instant response , but also a turn and stop feel , the raked fin resists the turn and converts it to drive, hence the name of the fins ( drivers) you can stay powered up with drive all the way through the entire turn.."
uuum What did he just say?
The fins look like nothing but a drag inducer..I can't work out why a set up like this would work. Seems like trying to be clever and fronting running in new products more than anything.
just my opinion
Fins.... yup, I had no clue what fins would fit the bill for this box placement, so I borrowed a VP Quad set (8's & 6's) so I could go surfing.
On the other forum, I had mentioned that this fin comb didn't come with the board, but forgot to mention it here.
Since the Atlantic Ocean, thinks it's a lake, I don't even have crap waves to test different fins.
The next swell, I will have a bag of fins on the beach for experimentation.
I really had zero problems with the board as tested. I simply want to see how the Shroom changes with other fin set-ups.
Burleighlocal said:
"A four fin thruster setup? That just does not make sense."
I made up "4 fin thruster set-up" on the fly, as I flipped over the board.... and a camera was stuck on my head.
Not a normal set-up, so I called it like I saw it.
I am a thruster guy, so it seemed like a good name........ and I like it
This fin setup isn't entirely new, well not to windsurfing anyway. I do wonder what type of fin is going to be suggested for use ie symmetric v's asymmetric as the pressure/lift difference will certainly affect performance and in that regard I think the concave associated with the wrong fin choice could also create drag.
A mate of mine has a very similar fin setup on his short board, it is a Hayden shapes shred sled king which he uses mostly as a semi gun/ barrel board - the fins hold in real solid and go super fast from what I can tell. This was a production board not custom
Hey, who can fault some marketing bull****. Please guys. Leave us some fun...
Even tho seriously as much as I love it for exactly THAT!!! Bert was totally serious. And thrust me is neither on acid or shrooms but in a wave when he comes up with this stuff. Here is the pic I forgot to post.
Got the Shroom in some waves today.... very windy, side on.... tough conditions.
My Acid would have been a better choice for today, but I wanted to answers questions about the Shroom in some size.
Here are some pics that show that this fat ass board can throw down a turn if you stayed hard on the rail.This board was designed for softer waves and is really snappy in mushier waves, but can get feistier at speed.
Turns would get a bit flat at speed, if I didn't keep my feet tight to the rail and set it, there's a lot of lift with the wide concave bottom.
I really need another day with easier conditions to get this board wired in some juice.
After a 3 hour beating in the wind, I went out tonight on the 10'6 Surf ECO and had a freeking blast in some perfect evening glass :)
Lots of turn shots, cuz they tell the tale of the Shroom on a rail.