To wide nose or not to wide nose?

Following on from the low liters debate I wanted to get everyone's opinions and feedback on this question.
For a long time I thought a wide-ish nose was key! Increased Stability, faster entry on waves, more range on waves.
However.. my local beaches tend to typically have big grunty walls of whitewash, which i've found, suck with wide nose board.

I found that the wide nose became a pain in the ass in those conditions as there is more board for the wave to lift up and over throw.
Getting hit by an overhead wall of whitewash as it breaks just lifts the front of the board skyward.

SO! See my pics of my 8'6 sic vs my 8'2 mano. Stupidly narrow nose on the Sic vc full to a point on the Mano.
Which is more stable? In big stuff, i'd take the sic- as the narrow nose slices through the whitewash despite being 'less stable'.

Anyone else find this?

In my experience, stability is mostly given by the width in the 2' range in front of the handle. One of the best compromise I found is thus to have a somewhat pointy nose but with the pull in not starting too far back, such as on this board I use for "big" (for me, like the ones on your pics) conditions:



However, I still prefer wider noses, because of the stability, and because the rails in front are more parallel. This way when you dig a front rail in turns or in drops the board stay sane and has less tendency to yaw unexpectedly. But not full wide noses Tomo-like, which are cumbersome in turns. Noses like this one:



But I am glad my input could nudge Patrice Guenole - the Gong shaper - to come up with this kind of bullet nose, that I think is the best compromise of all this in my opinion:

Having tried a few boards (minion and speed at one extreme, and acid at the other) I prefer the narrow nose. As you say, IMO, it is best for getting through whitewash, but on steep drops (with sufficient rocker), bottom turns, and even when trying to quickly turn to paddle for a wave, I prefer the narrow nose. The acid is pretty thin and narrow.

your onto it benji .
i to have found this ,i ride a simular wave .I use to ride naish manas ,I'm now on ACID .like CSE.

narrow nose ,a lot safer .
gives you more of a free feeling on the wave too.free to move

I generally prefer narrow nose for performance
but, there is a lot of space between "pointy" and "wide" nose.

I found that adding a bit of width, made performance easier in wonk.
also made it possible in winter gear, when my pointy boards were just too difficult.

As far as wide going through whitewater....
I have wide nose boards with lots of kick that easily climb over reasonable whitewater.

Pointy nose, I tend to push the board through at the bottom of the wave and keep my legs "in line" to minimize pushback.

When it's bigger, and I can't do either, I simply kick my boards over and fall back under the wave.

What I also find crucial is a proper amount of nose lift
Some of my fast, low rocker boards are very sketchy on a steep drop.
whereas proper nose kick makes it easy.

Youth helps.... I have a young friend, that only surfs 10+ longboard SUPs.
He can climb an entire set of OH whitewater..... absolutely stunning to watch.

I also have a gulliver vbox in my quiver so also have full ends of the spectrum like you guys. I could do ok on the gulliver getting over waves but it was such a crazy feeling when I went on the sick and found it just roll over big breaking sets that I could've got sent skyward on the vbox. I even tried paddling out on a 3.6m day at my local a few months back!

What's that first gong board? Looks quite similar outline to the mano?
i think also short-wider nose boards exacerabate the problem.

whats everyone's approach to hitting big whitewash? Paddle hard and hit it full force or wait for it to hit you?

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benjl said..
I also have a gulliver vbox in my quiver so also have full ends of the spectrum like you guys. I could do ok on the gulliver getting over waves but it was such a crazy feeling when I went on the sick and found it just roll over big breaking sets that I could've got sent skyward on the vbox. I even tried paddling out on a 3.6m day at my local a few months back!

What's that first gong board? Looks quite similar outline to the mano?
i think also short-wider nose boards exacerabate the problem.

whats everyone's approach to hitting big whitewash? Paddle hard and hit it full force or wait for it to hit you?

Hit it hard so you don't get pushed back too violently... hard to reverse a Sup!

Select to expand quote

benjl said..
What's that first gong board? Looks quite similar outline to the mano?
i think also short-wider nose boards exacerabate the problem.
whats everyone's approach to hitting big whitewash? Paddle hard and hit it full force or wait for it to hit you?

The first gong board is the Curve. A very classic "performance" template, most of the brands have a similar one in their line. The other ones are the Fatal and the Karmen. The Curve itself is replaced by an easier model, this Karven, and a harder one (narrower, more pulled in), the Curve SP.

Thin rails in the nose can a bit alleviate the problem for wide nosed board, but only to a point.

For me, what is key is folding a lot my legs, to get a lower center of gravity, and having room to exert a controlled push to stabilize the board.
This said, I tend to avoid hitting big walls of water: falling out would mean falling on/ close to your board with no speed, a dangerous situation, so if I am not certain to make it I prefer to not take risks, and push the board over the whitewater while falling backwards, and if possible pushing the board a bit to the side to avoid nasty surprizes if the board gets pushed back.

To wide nose or not towide nose?
Nose width is what you see but in reality, it's the position of the wider point by the length of the board as well as the position of the hips (width at the front fin position) which are determinant for the final width of the front part of the board.
Because as you want a smooth outline template with the straighter section up the front fin, as the designed curve needs to follow those two first points, the geometry rules of circle or ellipse comes to determine the final width of the nose.
The only way to match those geometrical rules is to draw what Scott designed under StarBoard label call the HyperNut. This design brings stability because of its wide nose and maneuverability because of its widest points pulled back like the widest of the board/hips ones.
Let Scott talks about at 1.20.