Saw this concept on a surfboard via Instagram. SOLLY SURFBOARDS. I wonder if this could be an advantageous concept that could be implemented into a windsurfing board. In theory I like the idea you could completely change a board's size, shape, characteristics and potentially have the do all one board. Just by you changing out the rear rocker of the board.
Thought it was worth a share, it was interesting to me! www.instagram.com/reel/DKoYrWtTsvj/
www.instagram.com/reel/DKqis1XTJNh/

You're too young to have ridden them Izaak, Mistral made them back in the 1980s. Called the Challenge Flex, originally developed by Mike Tinkler. www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/General/radical-designs-from-the-past?page=1

Tinkle tail

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izaak said..
Saw this concept on a surfboard via Instagram. SOLLY SURFBOARDS. I wonder if this could be an advantageous concept that could be implemented into a windsurfing board. In theory I like the idea you could completely change a board's size, shape, characteristics and potentially have the do all one board. Just by you changing out the rear rocker of the board.
Thought it was worth a share, it was interesting to me! www.instagram.com/reel/DKoYrWtTsvj/
www.instagram.com/reel/DKqis1XTJNh/

Windtech have a similar idea and it works great!
You can't change the size of the board but certainly you can certainly adjust the ride characteristics.
They have a carbon plate and you have a screw that you can adjust to change the amount of flex it has.
Their waveboards have a similar setup. I've locked in a certain amount on rocker for rough days.
Great to increase comfort and control in choppy waters or you can adjust it so there is no flex for go faster mode in flatwater.
Everyone whinges about their poor knees in the chop..not with these boards.
My profile pic is me on the 90ltre.
There is one ultra cheap on Seabreeze. I can't understand why it hasn't been snapped up..
www.seabreeze.com.au/Classifieds/Windsurfing-Boards/~kpsxt/2019-WindTech-Silver-Bullet-257-cm-90-litres.aspx?_page=1&search=MsVd7Fn%2F%2FIrHM5Kr98AlfsoGO0xXJW%2Ff

George Greenough invented flexible tails/rockers

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Roo said..
You're too young to have ridden them Izaak, Mistral made them back in the 1980s. Called the Challenge Flex, originally developed by Mike Tinkler. www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/General/radical-designs-from-the-past?page=1

Ah yes cool! I had a feeling something might have been done before with a windsurfing board

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sboardcrazy said..

izaak said..
Saw this concept on a surfboard via Instagram. SOLLY SURFBOARDS. I wonder if this could be an advantageous concept that could be implemented into a windsurfing board. In theory I like the idea you could completely change a board's size, shape, characteristics and potentially have the do all one board. Just by you changing out the rear rocker of the board.
Thought it was worth a share, it was interesting to me! www.instagram.com/reel/DKoYrWtTsvj/
www.instagram.com/reel/DKqis1XTJNh/

Windtech have a similar idea and it works great!
You can't change the size of the board but certainly you can certainly adjust the ride characteristics.
They have a carbon plate and you have a screw that you can adjust to change the amount of flex it has.
Their waveboards have a similar setup. I've locked in a certain amount on rocker for rough days.
Great to increase comfort and control in choppy waters or you can adjust it so there is no flex for go faster mode in flatwater.
Everyone whinges about their poor knees in the chop..not with these boards.
My profile pic is me on the 90ltre.
There is one ultra cheap on Seabreeze. I can't understand why it hasn't been snapped up..
www.seabreeze.com.au/Classifieds/Windsurfing-Boards/~kpsxt/2019-WindTech-Silver-Bullet-257-cm-90-litres.aspx?_page=1&search=MsVd7Fn%2F%2FIrHM5Kr98AlfsoGO0xXJW%2Ff

That's awesome! Cool to see an Aussie brand doing something different

Witchcraft flextail:

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SurferKris said..
Witchcraft flextail:

I remember this. Was it any good ?

None of them have prevailed. What's Solly doing different?

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Mark _australia said..
None of them have prevailed. What's Solly doing different?

I don't think there is anything wrong with the Windtechs just a small company and other circumstances making it not profitable.

Windtech are still around building custom boards.

Sorry I meant fully bendy tails didn't prevail. The wind tech was a properly done version I think but still not that many people want it. So this thread reads like yet another marketing exercise from a company that isn't aware of the many that came first.

the issue with that length is it might bend nice and even like he shows - until it doesn't. A harmonic type oscillation back n forth making the rocker change for half the board would not be fun. So prob not applicable to anything that sees a bit of speed

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Mark _australia said..
the issue with that length is it might bend nice and even like he shows - until it doesn't. A harmonic type oscillation back n forth making the rocker change for half the board would not be fun. So prob not applicable to anything that sees a bit of speed

Back in the day I rode a mate's plastic tiga wave board. It did exactly that, try a hard carve and it wobbled around like crazy.

Inspired by George Greenough, we also built spring tailed mals. It absorbed energy from high G turns, and released on exit. we could get amazing acceleration out of bottom turns, but the board wasn't neutral handling, it could do all sorts of stuff in turbulent soup.

Not certain but I thought this was a photo of one of George's flex tail shortboards. He built the sail too.
Ahead of his time

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Gestalt said..
Not certain but I thought this was a photo of one of George's flex tail shortboards. He built the sail too.
Ahead of his time

He wrote an article about it for 'the surfer's journal' but i can't find it now. Didn't he also develop the RDM?

He may have. The list is pretty long and impressive.

flexible rockers
recessed mast tracks and short and wide shapes 40+ years before mainstream adoption
raf sails with automatically adjusting foils
Adoption of carbon fibre fins
Pioneer of surf video and photography. first recorded tube shots

pioneered Shortboard design
Surfboard fin design . Greenough fin probably most famous longboard fin in existence
Surf mat adoption
knee board design.
he also pioneered many spots and gets referenced by many legendary shapers as influential
he had a cameo in wind rider
designed and built boats

wiki claims he built his first flexible tail board after a trip to Australia in mid 60's and used it to shred waves decades ahead of the time

his understanding of materials, foils and hydrodynamics must have been beyond most people.

interesting article www.surfersjournal.com/editorial/the-archivist-george-greenoughs-shark-files/
Freeking me out now as I'm the water in Byron a lot especially spring

Obviously Mistral tried this first - if you go back far enough.
But no manufacturer has ever made this concept work in a competition.
Gimmick. Marketing. A really bad idea for boards which jump as well as ride waves on the way back in.

^^ Obviously not as Tinkler's patent was 1976.

When did Mistral start making boards..? Around then, in attempt to compete with the Windsurfer. So unless the very first Mistral OD board had this system, I call BS.

Agree mark

In interviews tinkler said he started in 1967 (with surfboards) after living with George Greenough and Bob Mctavish in Australia. There is an amazing history here about the birth of the Shortboard by greenough and the abstraction of that into surfing by Hayden and Mctavish in Australia before being exported to the rest of the world

Greenough started around 64 developing flex tails so he is unquestionably the creator.

all these guys windsurfed together as well and made windsurfing boards through the 70's. mistral didn't release the tinkler tail board until later in 1988 where it flopped

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Mark _australia said..
^^ Obviously not as Tinkler's patent was 1976.

When did Mistral start making boards..? Around then, in attempt to compete with the Windsurfer. So unless the very first Mistral OD board had this system, I call BS.

Mistral WERE the first brand to try the Tinkler tail COMMERCIALLY in a production board. Must have been mid '80s, when people still didn't know what a windsurf wave board really was, and anything under 260cms long was radical.
They were seen as a gimmick, but some people claimed they liked them - until the problem emerged that they split along the rail.

I seem to remember another idea from that era, where you had a board with two different tails to bolt into place. One gave you more rocker for turning, and another was flat for better speed. It's a bit before my time, but perhaps Mistral's intention was to create the first convertible board, to cover all wind strengths.
Either way, the 'Challenge Flex' was a brief moment in time.

Sorry basher but your take on this is very Eurocentric. People were building tinkler tails commercially prior to mistral. Fair enough not "production" boards and in smaller numbers but mistral really wasn't the first brand to try this. Think I saw a Bob Mctavish windsurfer from 1978 with some type of a flex tail.

also, plenty of people building true shortboards around the world during late 70's early 80's. probably not in Europe but earliest I know of in Australia was around 1976 and no doubt America and Hawaii were similar. Aka surfboards with straps and track.

Kinda cool the tinkler tail exists but I don't see it as the best solution. Greenough figured out very early that flex was critical to board performance and that idea exists today. Flex is controlled by material selection, layup etc. you could argue the tinkler tail is like using a hammer instead of a screwdriver. The greenough execution is simpler and redefined surfing.

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Mctavish 1978. Was bob the first person to try it on a windsurfer?

Possibly he was first to build hollow boards too

For the history nerds



"One Sunday afternoon in the late 70s, looking down from our wedge-shaped home on the top of Lennox Point I saw an amazing sight. two white windsurfer sails were flashing out through six foot Nor'easter torn surf. Flying out through and over the powerful lines, then turning and catching the biggest waves back to shore! Nobody had challenged seriously strong wind-torn surf before so I raced down to meet these guys and check out their equipment. Scotty O'Connor and Mark Paul had these sawn off Windsurfers with glued-on tail locks. About ten feet. Bodged up foot straps. Heated and bent nose rocker. Fascinating! Within a month I had an eps/epoxy version and was on Lennox's Lake Ainsworth getting the knack. I hand shaped the eps foam and simply wrapped it in alfoil glued down with epoxy.

The sailing world was investing fortunes into racing yachts with solid wings as opposed to simple sailcloth. The theory was, if aircraft are so efficient generating lift, surely sailboats, and therefore windsurfers, will benefit from solid 3-dimensional wing-sails as well. Turns out the resultant rigidity is an enemy. Tip washout is powerfully essential to efficiency. So a foiled mast with a cloth body is still the current go-to.
This solid sail simply failed (Slide 1). It generated a crazy rhythmic pulse as it released air off the tip. Yuck!

For the following ten years, I explored windsurfing from all kinds of constructions in all kinds of locations; Ho'okipa Maui, all along Torquay to Lorne, Flat Rock, Noosa.... even ten-foot Lennox Point (where I broke $1000 worth of gear)! I learned so much about sailing, epoxy, vacuum bagging, fins, moulding, blowing polyurethane foam, roto-moulding, foam sandwich, wood veneer laminates, and just plain fun surfing huge waves with an engine in your hands!! Yeehaw!!! But it was costly, and soon we had to sell our house on the hill and start again..."
- Bob McTavish
Photos by Lindsay Grant and Peter Green

From Facebook greenough reportedly went from longboard to his spoon early 80's.

Basher that's not what you said. you said Mistral were first to try this ... nothing about commercially or in a big way or windsurf.



your first statement was plainly wrong. Sorry I'm so literal


Gestie that was a top read about Bob - cheers!!

Nice content Gestalt considerably less boring times
"caaaa passe ou caaaaa casse"

Thanks for all the historical stuff here, and my apologies for being Eurocentric - but obviously that's where I live.

It's maybe weird that, after all those custom boards and variations, nobody made the idea work.

We can also see how so much design stuff was moving on at the time - as the riders themselves got better and wee able to sail shorter, more compact kit.
I'm not one for nostalgia, but I'd point to the more recent waveboard shape changes as being more interesting, or better for the sport.

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Doggerland said..
Nice content Gestalt considerably less boring times
"caaaa passe ou caaaaa casse"

Thx!!

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Basher said..
Thanks for all the historical stuff here, and my apologies for being Eurocentric - but obviously that's where I live.

It's maybe weird that, after all those custom boards and variations, nobody made the idea work.

We can also see how so much design stuff was moving on at the time - as the riders themselves got better and wee able to sail shorter, more compact kit.
I'm not one for nostalgia, but I'd point to the more recent waveboard shape changes as being more interesting, or better for the sport.

Which more recent ideas do you see as been more interesting

Custom in 1968 Where it all began. 1970's board below

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Gestalt said..
From Facebook greenough reportedly went from longboard to his spoon early 80's.

That's just a couple of miles from here... sailed there yesterday!