WOW, that looks awesome. Well worth the time I recon.
Just wondering what the advantages are using this sort of shape:
the square nose: what is the advantage apart from shortening the board
the channels: is that for lift or to use smaller fins? or.....?
The fins: is that optical or are they very close to the boards rail. what is the plus or minus on that?

I am thinking about a custom build board and I guess having some knowledge will sure help to get the right shape. This looks like a new era shape that incorporates a new way of thinking. Like it. I am sure the mainstream will stay away from it for commercial reasons but I can see a few advantages to it for sure.

Love to hear your motivations on why you used the shapes, rails etc you did.

Again mate, if it surfs the way it looks you will never come off the water once you're on!!!


thanks
Rene

That has to be one of the most interesting articles I have seen! Good on you for having a go and it looks freckin awesome. Let us know how it surfs. (When do we place our orders? :)

Hi all,
Thought I would wait till I had plenty of time on the board before offering up an opinion. I am typing this on my phone so please excuse any predictive text weirdness. Regardless this will probably come across as the rantings of a lunatic.

Am super pleased with board as it stands.

Initially the board felt plenty stable side to side but the short length took a while to get used to. Takeoffs were initially a bit tricky until I really moved close onto the peak and then going with a 3 to 4 paddle takeoff.

Once I dialled the takeoff then the bottom turn came together. The board has to be bottom turned right of the tail, once you get foot positioning dialled turning is easy. I thought I would need to shuffle my back foot on such a wide tail but once board is up to speed you can leave it planted.

The square nose is a real bonus when paddling out through whitewater as it punches through easily. I gave it 4 1\2 inches of nose rocker and think in hindsight could easily go less, maybe 3 1\2. Wide nose does catch plenty of breeze in an offshore, trying to paddle into them early is a pain, much better to swing into them late.

I chose to go hard rails the full length of the board, they seem to give a good on edge feel and don't catch, will be going hard rails from now on. Quad fin setup feels good but might try experimenting with slightly smaller fins, I like my boards to have a bit of slide entering turns. I was tempted to put in 5th finbox for a nubster fin when building, the board does not need it when on a wave but I wonder if one would reduce the row for paddling back out. I have been thinking of making like a spring loaded fin you could push down when paddling out and pop up when catching a wave.

On a wave the board is great in down the line waves, and offers a good balanced feel between back and front foot when on a rail. It has great acceleration and powers through sections. It has this kind of crazy acceleration that can often pitch you off backwards as you need to surf it pretty back foot heavy for turns. The board takes some getting used to, the turning technique is a bit different to narrow short board surfing but you can dial it in. The first half a dozen waves I caught on it I couldn't get it to bottom turn cleanly and thought I had made a non functional design but I slowly got it sorted. Testing has been in 1 to 5ft, I reckon this is about the comfortable range of the board. Board is good on 3 to 4 ft down the line conditions, prefers moderately steep faces.

Another thing I did was instead of foiling the back of the board out I kept as muck volume as possible right to the tail with only a bit of concession to foiling the most outboard corners. This has definitely I believe helped with static stability with out affecting planing efficiency.

Any way all in all I am super happy with the board as it stands and think this type of shape is valid as a surf sup. I am glad I took a few design risks making the board. I suspect kiteboard and windsurfing board design may have more to offer sup design than traditional surfboard design. I am not sure a board this ugly has much marketing potential!

Thanks to everyone who helped out, if anyone wants my plans as a starting point then I can post them to you..you ma y want to change to suit your specs though. Will try and get some pic soon.

Cheers chris

Oh yeah....

Rear concave channels were stolen off tomo vanguard and mini Simmons designs as was the plan shape. Fin setup was as per hanalei fin systems reccomendations, however I reduced the toe in to half of what is reccomended. Fins are clustered to the minimum reccomended. In hind sight I could have had the rear concave a bit wider. I scaled the design up but in hindsight should have kept dims from the rail to channel the same. I was trying to build 2 short boards rails with a big slab of planing area in the middle

Select to expand quote

highvolume said..
I was tempted to put in 5th finbox for a nubster fin when building, the board does not need it when on a wave but I wonder if one would reduce the row for paddling back out. I have been thinking of making like a spring loaded fin you could push down when paddling out and pop up when catching a wave.

Just use C-Drive fins and enjoy tremendous grips at low speed and agility in action!

High volume,
Just wanted to tell you that this was the best post I have seen on this site or any other standup surf forum. Love the look of the board, like how you went out of your comfort zone, at least it seemed that way. I feel very inspired after reading all your posts. It takes me a year to usually figure out what shape and size and all the good stuff that goes along with getting a new board shaped, this really takes it to the next level. Pretty cool. Cheers.. Keep charging...

Please keep reporting about your board after some more sessions and get some pic as soon as possible :)]

Great job HV, I can imagine the MPH design would perform once on a wave - how is this design for paddling back out?

Does anyone have any updates on who is making these sorta boards as sups and/or where to get one to demo in Victoria? I see that post of Casso's was a demo on a Deep oceanboard, but they have nothing about it on their site. Having watched a few clips of DT surfing his boards, I imagine there's going to be a lot of these around very soon.

Hi Toppleover

paddle out is not super speedy, cut of nose helps through whitewater. Paddling into strong offshore can be a bit of a slog.
I suspect a centre nubster may help also need to try out c drive fins.

Cheers Chris

Select to expand quote

Tang said..

Does anyone have any updates on who is making these sorta boards as sups and/or where to get one to demo in Victoria? I see that post of Casso's was a demo on a Deep oceanboard, but they have nothing about it on their site. Having watched a few clips of DT surfing his boards, I imagine there's going to be a lot of these around very soon.

Select to expand quote

Tang said..

Does anyone have any updates on who is making these sorta boards as sups and/or where to get one to demo in Victoria? I see that post of Casso's was a demo on a Deep oceanboard, but they have nothing about it on their site. Having watched a few clips of DT surfing his boards, I imagine there's going to be a lot of these around very soon.

Yeah I'd be keen to tang .

Select to expand quote

Pretty awesome article, very inspiring.

I am thinking of making the same kind of DIY Tomo style SUP, especially after seeing the video from
<div class="fwn fcg">Keahi de Aboitiz 14. juli kl. 01:54 www.facebook.com/hashtag/jpaustralia

Any chance you would want to share your Aku Shaper file? That would be very helpful!

/Thomas Alsbirk

It is not a 3d file, but I found the shred.com viids very useful to get a good idea of a shape...

My word the boy could sell ice to Eskimos.

Hi Thomas,

No worries i will track down the file and post up, i went through a heap of variations so may take me a day or to to find the final version. I don't think i was able to add the swallow tail with AKU shaper.

Cheers Chris

HI,

Here is the board cad/aku shaper file of the board.
I used this for doing volume calculations and getting the outline generally sorted.

drive.google.com/file/d/0B1nyzKK33tOqZnI1ckgyUmdma3c/edit?usp=sharing

I cut the nose with sharper corners than the file, the rockerline is a hybrid of mini simmons, vangurd and short sup measurements. I ended getting nervous and adding a bit more nose rocker to 4 1/2 inches... however in hindsight you can leave it lower 3 1/2 to 4 would be plenty.

Board cad is hopless at doing cut out type tail shapes, so i left sqaure in the file and cut the shape.
I just scaled up the entire vanguard tail outline however in hind sight i would have kept the 2 rail edges the same dimension and added extra width in the middle.
This will put the channels and cut out in the right position for working on edge.



cheers chris

Select to expand quote

colas said..
It is not a 3d file, but I found the shred.com viids very useful to get a good idea of a shape...

Colas that's an excellent video! What I found interesting about it is the emphasis on creating lift via the front rocker with the inherent placement of the concave channel to trap air and creating lift thus circumventing the issue of pearling. Quite frankly we need more of this narrative particularly with sups which are renowned for nose diving. I am getting more and more sold on the shorter sups which if dialled in correctly through design have the capacity to accelerate more than traditional shapes. Obviously all of this works by having parallel rails as your starting point. What seems to be unique about this is that you can go narrower than normal without sacrificing stability and in most cases you actually seem to create a better potential for this. Am I reading this correctly?

highvolume said..

Select to expand quote

... oh yeah and if any one wants a round nose version here are the dims for a planshape i was mucking about with.
width imm mm is at top of plan

cheers chris

Mmm, try the same in 6'10", trying to hide the volume in the center, and I guess you will get something that will blow your mind on the water :-)

Select to expand quote

ghost4man said..
What seems to be unique about this is that you can go narrower than normal without sacrificing stability and in most cases you actually seem to create a better potential for this. Am I reading this correctly?

That's it!

The vids are interesting because he shows you the board "in your face", with a constant motion that help you "feel" the shape.

I would take his "theories" with a grain of salt however: concaves trapping air or "accelerating water are just kind of "urban legends" rather than scientific observations.

However, his first hand experience reports on riding the actual boards are invaluable however, and the fact that he can compares the feelings of the different boards on the water.

Plus, the guy is a natural salesman, very captivating and anti-boring, with a communicative energy. I love it when he mimics making a roller in the air with his board, letting the 10-year old in him loose... just like I love to do sometime in the water when nobody is looking :-)

Hey colas

Do you reckon I can get down to 6 10 for my 90kgs?

What has really surprised me with sup is how conservative the big board manufactures are, I have been absolutely hanging for starboard to create something revolutionary like they did with the go board in windsurfing. That is one of my all time favourite board designs of any board sport.

Cheers chris

Select to expand quote

highvolume said..
Hey colas

Do you reckon I can get down to 6 10 for my 90kgs?

Of course.

You will need to build up some paddling technique, and relying more on timing and using your body weight to take off, but the shorter length is really interesting for wide nosed, flat rocker designs, as you can enjoy fully the added speed and glide without worrying about pearling as much as on a longer board.

Major brands are shy of these designs I guess for these reasons:
- they are too much driven by contests and team riders, which are extremely conservative. And many customers just want the same designs as the competitors. Their short boards are too extreme for normal riders.
- you need some "surf addiction" to enjoy the benefits of a shorter length and accept putting with the slower paddling speed. This may be too small a market.
- it needs a lot of commitment to educate prospective buyers, with advices, tutorials, howtos... it is just so easier to sponsor young to riders that will make any design work in contests, and base ad campaigns on them.

Naish, Starboard, etc did release short boards at some time. But they were just "dumped" on customers without any long term support (tutorials, explanations, commitment, design refining, ...) so they stayed novelty items for them.

Hi Colas

maybe i will have to have a go at shedding a few kgs before summer in preparation to go sub 7ft.

Not sure if anyone has seen this crazy looking board off an old swaylocks thread called thick board skinny rails, but i have bee intrigued by the concept ever since i saw it.
It effectively separates the function of flotation and planing surface. The thing i like about the thinking is you could build a planing surface like a wakeboard with a no porus core so no probs with water in board and then top it off wth a flotation pod made of xps foam or something similar.





The thing i really like is the ride report:

My plywood prototype5mm rails3.5" thickLength 7'Centre width 24"Nose & Tail block 20"Inspired by this thread, my friend Ben, and Bob SimmonsCheap. quick & visionary It gives me great pleasure to report that it goes - exceptionally well.I would never have thought that it would be so easy to paddle, was so fast and turned so well.A few days ago my friends were laughing but now they have ceased to laugh after seeing their own boards out performed by what they considered a plywood joke box..My life has been changed.Everything I believed about board design has been challenged - by something that took less than 20 pounds and 1 day to make.The next one is going to be even better....

Imagine the looks you would get rom the local crew paddling out on that!

I have a heap of landscaping to do at home before next board build but this is tempting!

Thin rails thick board thread on sways is: www.swaylocks.com/forums/thick-board-skinny-rails?page=2

Select to expand quote

colas said..

ghost4man said..
What seems to be unique about this is that you can go narrower than normal without sacrificing stability and in most cases you actually seem to create a better potential for this. Am I reading this correctly?

That's it!
The vids are interesting because he shows you the board "in your face", with a constant motion that help you "feel" the shape.
I would take his "theories" with a grain of salt however: concaves trapping air or "accelerating water are just kind of "urban legends" rather than scientific observations.
However, his first hand experience reports on riding the actual boards are invaluable however, and the fact that he can compares the feelings of the different boards on the water.
Plus, the guy is a natural salesman, very captivating and anti-boring, with a communicative energy. I love it when he mimics making a roller in the air with his board, letting the 10-year old in him loose... just like I love to do sometime in the water when nobody is looking :-)

Colas there is no doubt that the issue of board shape is very much a problematic area. If there it were the case that there was a unique shape which ticked all the boxes and which also applied to *all* riders then we would not be having this discussion as we would all be riding on the same shaped boards. Laminar and turbulent flow of water along with changing water molecules all of which can change at any time, where the effect for one rider is very different for another riding the same board is indicative of just how tricky this topic is.

I do have to say that I resonate with his intuitive descriptions which seem to have merit. One would have to think that creating a concave trap for air to sit in which has the effect of creating lift under increasing velocity just feels right. In fact it goes further to say that the design principles are such that the shaper did this to create the effect by creating a condition for the cause. Thinking more about this, and I know that I will probably get criticised for the analogy, but you only have to look at snow skiing, snow boarding, water skiing to see that parallel rails works. Thats a fact. Whether we can argue that that logic works equally well or better for this sport remains questionable. However one has to question why it is the case that the aforementioned sports do not have equipment where the nose is pointy (as it occurs in surfing) in shape especially when one thinks of the critical need to achieve speed. Think of snow skiing for a moment. You need incredible speed *and* maneuverability to traverse some pretty ridiculous courses. What I have noticed in this thread and the other one that is going at the moment is the relative ease with which these boards seem to get on dull lifeless waves, a capacity to handle really juicy ones as evidenced by Casso and surprising stability.

You know Colas the argument is always there that as you go shorter we have diminishing paddle power. So far and I have seen quite a few videos of these boards in action with some heavy riders on deck and this does not seem to be that much of a problem. In fact you could argue that the capacity to get on a wave *better* via the shape perhaps more than compensates for the reduction in power if there is any.

Cheers Ozzie

Good points Ozzie, but I wonder about the analogy insofar as snow doesn't have curves like wave faces, and skis etc don't have fins to deliver acceleration through turns. Skiers etc are pretty much using gravity as their energy source, whereas surfing uses moving water in the wave, water moving through fins and along the board, and gravity for drive. I agree there are parallels (pun intended) but profoundly different mediums I would have thought.
Cheers

Select to expand quote

Tang said..
Good points Ozzie, but I wonder about the analogy insofar as snow doesn't have curves like wave faces, and skis etc don't have fins to deliver acceleration through turns. Skiers etc are pretty much using gravity as their energy source, whereas surfing uses moving water in the wave, water moving through fins and along the board, and gravity for drive. I agree there are parallels (pun intended) but profoundly different mediums I would have thought.
Cheers

Tang, you are very loosely getting into the realm of Potential and Kinetic Energy in the example of the snow skier. You are correct in saying that gravity plays a part in this which initiates the forward momentum. There are many other factors in play during this movement which include the fact that snow acts as a friction or resistance to this forward movement against the ski blades. So yes they are different mediums and the examples that I used dont include fins. I am not sure about the wording that you use in terms of delivering acceleration through turns. I think that there is a much stronger argument that we have fins to provide directional stability which is critical during the turning phase and a consequence of this is maintaining the already existent speed. Thats probably a trivial point. But what I do think is of value is the fact that in the case of the water skier, we havent as yet, unless I am mistaken seen any blade designs which incorporate a pointy nose which we find in surfing. You have to wonder why. You have to wonder why you have two sports, namely water skiing and snow boarding, with both very different mediums, using parallel constructions, where speed, turning, stability are crucial elements and yet they both retain similar design principles. I am not suggesting that parallel rails should be the standard for sup design but its obvious you can achieve a lot by shortening a sup board significantly, making it narrower and yet increase performance elements like stability and speed.

Cheers Ozzie

Want to bring this to yours conversation;
About concave: i't's looking concave shape when you put a straight edge perpendicular to the stringer. Well, if you put the straight edge in the direction of the water flow, it's FLAT.
IMO :concave leave water flows freely with no drag rather than forcing it. ( not the case in Bonzer's system which is a venturi theory, useless for SUP and even more to shortSUP)
: As even ShorSUP has large area then large water flow reaction , it's hard to bury the board in the water to force the flow in the concave. My theory is just to put a little bit of concave ( might say a bit flat) around the front fins aera, sharpening the rail in the same way. ( will look concave cross the tail section)
Concave trought the center/front stiffer the board allowing round rail as needed there.

About pointy nose vs the tomo vanguard kind of:
Don't look about the nose but the outside lines coming to. Square nose allows to put the max width back from the center making the board loose still got some aera in the nose to got acceleration while surfing( like our eskimo's ice dealer said) but in case of shortSUP this large nose got foam and such flottation to paddle on while standing up.

Yes Ghostman Tomo vangard type of board got components to reduce size significantly, making it narrower and yet increase performance elements like stability and speed.

Select to expand quote

ghost4man said..

You know Colas the argument is always there that as you go shorter we have diminishing paddle power. So far and I have seen quite a few videos of these boards in action with some heavy riders on deck and this does not seem to be that much of a problem. In fact you could argue that the capacity to get on a wave *better* via the shape perhaps more than compensates for the reduction in power if there is any.

Actually, when I say "paddle power", I was referring more to the going out / moving around the spot. And the fact that it is trickier to apply power without spinning around.
And yes, for taking off, sensitivity to (good) timing quite compensates for the reduced max speed... except for when waves are too big (i.e. fast), just like with prone surfboards.

For the concaves, what I mean is that I want some evidence. For instance "concave trap for air to sit in which has the effect of creating lift" is just a supposition, I can say the opposite: since air is compressible, air will exert less lift than water (try to skimboard on just air...). Basically one can invent easily any kind of plausible justification to physical phenomenons... only experiments can sort things out. I do not say concaves do not work, I just say do not believe all the speculative "whys".

Select to expand quote

Love the plane shape of the board , not a fan of the fin angle , straighten them up goes against the whole design.

Hi Piros,

do you think that the fins on that wooden box should be straighter? I have seen your vids of fin angle on the JP boards and am sold on your ideas, i put a set of almost straight side bite boxes on my naish nalu 10 6 and am super happy with the results. Do you think it is possible to go to no toe in on the fins... or should there be always a little toe in?

All this makes me wonder how square and wide things can go.

It is very interesting how so many other sports have abandoned pointy noses. I remember reading a jim drake article on short wide boards vs long thing that was a great explanation of planing theory, Starboard used it when they started going wide, i might have to give it a read again.

Cheers Chris

Safety, pointy things pierce things.