I have always been a fan of a beautiful shinny bottom finish. What do you guys think about having a bodyshop clear coat the bottom of my 2016 Naish Starship? The rails are shinny and came that way, and know that the bottom of the board clear coated would look amazing!! Clear coating the bottom would not change the warenty. Would the board be that much slower by doing this? What are your thoughts? The board is plenty fast, so I'm not worried about loosing 1-2 MPH
around full speed. If you think clear coating will take off more than 2 MPH, I won't have it done.

As long as its a good smooth clear coat with no orange peel it won't affect the speed.

Too smooth will effect the speed . From what I know as long as water droplets don't bead on the finish it should be ok.

i think if it's two shinny you will loose you're warenty

Hi Sparky,

I called and emailed Naish and they verbally told me and wrote to me that the warranty would still be good if I had this done. Naish emailed me to have who ever does this to use urethane clear. Thanks so far everyone for your comments.

Shinny may be prettier, but it is slower, the fastest bottom you could have, if you want to maximize it, is to have a 400 wet and dry sanded finish, making sure that the sanding is done along the length of the board and not sideways or circular. Most new fins come with a 400 wet and dry finish.

It's also more practical, whenever you get a scratch on the bottom of your board, you can just sand it out, as opposed to being upset that your new shinny bottom got scratched. Then what do you do?

You may want to check out the Mistral boards, they all have very shiny clear coated bottoms, even the speed boards. Last I looked they have done over 53 knots so I don't think it slows them down too much!

Most companies sell their boards with shinny bottoms because it's less work, you have to put that smooth finish job on them anyway, buffing takes way less time than hand finishing the bottom with 400. Go to a windsurfing race, all the pros have hand sanded bottoms.
But I will admit, the difference in speed is not huge, but the maintenance is, shinny is almost impossible to keep pristine, unless you want to hang the board on a wall.

Magic Ride, If you are going to do it you will want to use a 2 pack Polyurethane paint. If a super polished finish is what you want then you will need to wet and dry it to get the orange peel out. Start at 400-600, then work up to 2000. Then buff with a non silicone based polish. Important to not use silicone polish as water will stick to it.

Don't worry about the comments re speed sanded vs polished...that argument has been raging for years and as far as I can see there is still no definitive answer. I sand the bottom of my boards to 800 but only because I am way to lazy to clear coat them and do all the work to get a mirror finish.

Once the irregularities in a surface lie fully within the laminar sub-layer the surface is considered "hydrodynamically smooth". The scratches left by 800 grit sandpaper are fully within the laminar sub-layer so further polishing won't make it go faster. The trouble with a clear coat is that, although it is 99.99% shiny smooth, it could have blemishes that poke through the laminar sub-layer. Accidental scratches, mini barnacles, dead insects can also stick to a shiny finish to slow you down (by a very small amount I'd guess).

So that's why serious racers use wet and dry. To be sure to be sure that it's as smooth as it can get. The only disadvantage is that it's no longer shiny.

Then again Frank Bethwaite, the famous sailing researcher, tested a very shiny chrome plated foil and figured it had less drag. And shark skin type riblets are thought to somehow align turbulence to reduce drag under certain conditions. So there's a little contention out there. The established fluid dynamics says a blemish-free polished surface is no slower than a surface treated with wet and dry.



www.tutorhelpdesk.com/homeworkhelp/Fluid-Mechanics-/Hydrodynamically-Smooth-And-Rough-Boundaries-Assignment-Help.html

Maybe I will just leave the board the way it is. Just GPSed the Starship today and the GPS read 38 MPH at max speed. That board is seriously fast.

I've seen a magic ride get to 39mph

Have you GPSed yourself Mark?

It's amazing what mark has done to himself. He's often thought about giving himself a shiny bottom

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Mark _australia said...
I've seen a magic ride get to 39mph

They do 39mph quite easily in fact.

Strapped to a car.

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Magic Ride said..
Maybe I will just leave the board the way it is. Just GPSed the Starship today and the GPS read 38 MPH at max speed. That board is seriously fast.

If you spray it you may need possible up to 500 ml top and bottom. for a good coat that's 500 gms of weight or 1 lb .in your scale.
that's a small anchor .

just give it a good polish .I do that will my Titan .to keep the dirt out of the carbon finish..... meguirers yellow wax...looks ok ..

I'd be scared to touch it ..if I changed the weight ....just me ...

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Sparky said..
It's amazing what mark has done to himself. He's often thought about giving himself a shiny bottom

Nah but I am polishing the hell outa other places