Mark _australia said..
Cost. Foam makes new models easy to produce .. but slight tweaks for costly mould changes made it hard to have a range of hollow boards.

then labour cost maybe for more complex layup, trimming halves and then bonding halves properly.
I think foam sandwich is the best blend of cost vs durability vs ability to change shape if needed and that's why it's prevailed.
I've seen some great DIY hollow boards but I think the current mass production of them is a response to the trendiness of wing / DW and wanting to have something new that the other companies don't have. I hope it doesn't translate to $5000 windsurf boards soon.

TWCustom said..
A new board from us costs about 3200 USD. My idea is that a rich guy can purchase a new one when he wants by returning the old one and pay half price for the new board. Then we fix the old board and sell it for half price.

We can do this since carbon repairable an infinite number of times and the breathable foam always stays light. 2-300g extra for an 85L board when it is repaired the first time. Subsequent repairs/accidents ads no more weight in the foam. So the board lives forever. This is not some plan, we are doing it now.

For everyone else with traditional foam boards I suggest you drill holes. It is real easy and all boards both production and custom boards are over-engineered. Remember the holes are there also to make it possible at all to dry up the traditional foam. If you can save 200g, you want it. Strip paint and sand to carbon. Use epoxy+carbon powder instead. That is 150g. Replace all pads. That saves 100g. Use FCS II Skindog 18cm (7 inch) aircore fins always. They are US and superlight. If you can, replace thrusters with FCS/Future boxes. The white ones they are 20g and use aircore fins her too. Never use 4 fins. The FCS/Future box (yes two-brands-in-one) are strengthened with to 10mm divinicell plates, maybe 8cm across. These get very strong when glued in with microspheres reaching the top deck.

About the hip-harness. It costs nothing and the patent is there just to stop industry stealing it. So images of converted old harnesses on our old website does make me loose any sleep. All you need is a little rope and the longest harness lines you can find. Your old board and rig really improves. And remember, seat harnesses are really bad. The hook is actually still to high. It should point exactly to Trochanter Major. Google it and good luck.

We make light boards and go out with info so as to kill windfoiling and kiting. We really don't like them on our waves.

enjoy
// Thomas - from the other side

Grantmac said..






I think some form of 3D printing/additive manufacturing is where this is going. Between foaming filaments, continuous fiber printers and the ability to put strength exactly where it's needed.
Maybe not this year, but likely within the decade.

Other food for thought:
The shape shifting molds used to make the newer laminate sails could possibly be a basis for making custom molded laminates for hollow boards.

TWCustom said..
A new board from us costs about 3200 USD. My idea is that a rich guy can purchase a new one when he wants by returning the old one and pay half price for the new board. Then we fix the old board and sell it for half price.

We can do this since carbon repairable an infinite number of times and the breathable foam always stays light. 2-300g extra for an 85L board when it is repaired the first time. Subsequent repairs/accidents ads no more weight in the foam. So the board lives forever. This is not some plan, we are doing it now.

For everyone else with traditional foam boards I suggest you drill holes. It is real easy and all boards both production and custom boards are over-engineered. Remember the holes are there also to make it possible at all to dry up the traditional foam. If you can save 200g, you want it. Strip paint and sand to carbon. Use epoxy+carbon powder instead. That is 150g. Replace all pads. That saves 100g. Use FCS II Skindog 18cm (7 inch) aircore fins always. They are US and superlight. If you can, replace thrusters with FCS/Future boxes. The white ones they are 20g and use aircore fins her too. Never use 4 fins. The FCS/Future box (yes two-brands-in-one) are strengthened with to 10mm divinicell plates, maybe 8cm across. These get very strong when glued in with microspheres reaching the top deck.

About the hip-harness. It costs nothing and the patent is there just to stop industry stealing it. So images of converted old harnesses on our old website does make me loose any sleep. All you need is a little rope and the longest harness lines you can find. Your old board and rig really improves. And remember, seat harnesses are really bad. The hook is actually still to high. It should point exactly to Trochanter Major. Google it and good luck.

We make light boards and go out with info so as to kill windfoiling and kiting. We really don't like them on our waves.

enjoy
// Thomas - from the other side

Gestalt said..






Agree, 3d printing is the future. I've just ordered some Lisa harness lines, they are using 3d printing for many components..

Chris 249 said..


















Titanium was banned for some uses in big boats decades ago because in practise, it fractures easily with no warning. It's been dropped for most uses, AFAIK, because it doesn't do much that isn't better done with carbon or ss.

There's thousands of boats from the '60s and '70s out there with stainless steel bolts holding multi-ton ballast keels with no problems, normally zero cleaning, and years of living in bilge water. I had the keel bolts from one of my yachts pulled when it was 40 years old and most of them were perfectly fine and the other had other issues. I used to work in the industry and never heard of anyone even considering ti bolts for keels, and can't recall them ever being used for critical rigging areas.

I'm no boatbuilder but looking at the areas where people spend vastly much more cash on building lightweight sailing craft (ie $35,000 for the bare hull of a 17 foot singlehander, or $70,000 for a foiling Moth) it's normally a case of using thin cores of Nomex or high density foam with carbon over the top. High-load areas like the rigging attachments are made up very easily and lightly by using carbon tows (strands) epoxied to the carbon skin. I think my brother's 37 foot catamaran has its rigging loads taken by simple carbon tows, which would weigh a few grammes and take far more load than anything any windsurfer ever felt.

I'm not up on windsurfer sailcloth, but I still find it odd that a 5.7m dacron sail from the original Windsurfer is less than 2kg and therefore dramatically lighter than most modern sails. I've noted before here that I've weighed by yacht, dinghy, cat and windsurfer sails and the latter are far heavier for their area and the claims that windsurfer sails are tougher seems to be complete BS - I don't know anyone who both wavesailed and done a tough Sydney-Hobart would claim that. or anyone who would have wound the tension into an F18 cat rig and then stacked it big time in a blow. There may be very good reasons for the extra weight in windsurfer sails but I do wonder whether the board sails are more driven by marketing than boat sails. Certainly windsurfer sail makers keep on claiming that sails have ever-wider ranges but they also keep on writing catalogues that say you need the same number of sails to cover the wind range as they did decades ago, whereas the yachts that have gone to 3DI or modern laminates are showing that using different modern approaches really can increase sail range.

TWCustom said..













Well, rope is the only cost if you have a waist harness already that widens to you hip.

Chris 249 said..
Leaving aside what handicap class that is and whether it's very serious by big-boat standards (most modern F-Ps are full cruisers) Is their foam core 100mmm or so thick and of soft foam, as it is in boards?