Just opened the February issue of Surfer and the 2009 surfboard guide is in it, with paid ads from all of our favorite shapers, including a few who post on this site.
I flipped through until I saw something a little familiar. Cole Surfboards is offering “The Trunkboard,” which is 5’0" x 20 3/4" x 2 5/8". I instantly flashed back to all the headaches I had trying to bring my “fits in your car’s trunk” surfboard to life! The description of this funky little shape? “This short, stubby design, features a very low entry rocker. The deep “bonzer” style concave allows water to flow easily through the bottom of the board drastically reducing drag. This board catches waves and planea[sic] through sections with ease.”
Well I’ll be damned. Now I know how Simon Anderson feels. Last year right around this time I posted my “5speed,” a design a friend of mine and I collaborated on. Shucks, it’s a short, stubby bonzer design with a low rocker (just 4"!), and sure enough it catches waves with ease. Mine however, planeS!
From L to R: “The Trunkboard,” the first “5speed,” and it’s latest version.
Anyone know Cole Simler personally? If only royalty checks could cover my tuition costs!
A hundred craftsmen commissioned to make a tool for the same job. Some will be nearly exact. That’s all. Even if not: “There’s nothing new under the sun”, or “Everything comes from somewhere.”
If the job was just to make a board that fit in the trunk of your car, then sure they might be the same length, but would they both have bonzer concaves and a very similar looking tail? The number of coincidences is past just being a “coincidence.”
**The deep “bonzer” style concave allows water to flow easily through the bottom of the board drastically reducing drag. **
I love this one… Ha! We had a whole thread explaining how exactly the opposite is the case. The deep concaves direct water flow by slowing it down with drag through those areas… classic!
Fits one of my axioms, as long as it works, does it matter why/how??? Ha!
I really think you need to get you facts straight, first off, to have that board appear in the magazine you mentioned, i would have had to have the board to the them about 3 months before you posted your first concept of your copy of original Cole trunkboard.
Also, we were producing and shipping that board worldwide for at least a year before running that ad, and at least a year before your first post of your version.
On another note, I never claimed to have invented that shape, its just a fish with a split bat tail.
Anyway, its great that you make some of your own boards.
Keep shaping and have fun.
PS if you want to send us royalties my address is on our website. Thanks!
mate it has happened to me too and I'm only small time but the guy who borrowed ( or coincidentally designed almost exactly 2 designs at the same time I posted them on forums ) is bigger than myself.....and was interesting to go in and get my techno web mate to see who had been looking in at my web-site at that time and sure as eggs.....compliment I guess but he is now selling them and making MORE money than I...it happens every day now with the net, alot of designs being copied and stuff but I cant do blatant rip offs and do them as my own models...I think you can borrow bits and pieces and blend them into your own design.....( even one of the nick-names for one design was used, exactly...and one had same spray and colours done.....)....???? thanks for the compliment , you know who you are , really I am flattered...
I think it is a genuine case of synchronicity a phenomena which happens in all forms of technology and it is understandable that Rachel who has been in the business less time than yourself wouldn’t have recognized it.
One of my hobbies is measuring surfboards and I’m seeing synchronicity in rocker numbers quite a lot. Eg I scaled up the Flyer 2 rocker and got to within 2mm or so a match on all points except nose flip a board carved out of the Clark hybrid blank. Another example is that one of Josh Dowling’s personal boards went really well for me and again the rocker was within about 2mm or so at all key measurements and I know that Josh had never seen a Flyer 2 and doesn’t use conventional blanks, but he and Merrick still arrived at the same rocker numbers.
i feel your pain, but this happens all the time. As an example, it just happened to me - or I should say that 3 people are on the same trip at the same time…
check my fins, daniel tomsons, and eli mirandons…all developed separately, with different concepts, but very similar.
now I’m the first to admit that I don’t have the background/lineage these guys have in design, or experience. I just wanted to loosen up a keel template I already liked, and like longboard fins, I made it a cutaway…I thought, did they copy me( just as they probably think I’m trying to be funny)? Not a chance… In reality, there are only so many ways to do a certain thing…and I feel lucky to have stumbled onto something greater minds are doing…it’s a crazy, cosmic kind of compliment, really.
so, did cole steal your design? probably not, and i bet he’s just as suprised as you are…happens all the time in the creative “industries”
[Anyone know Cole Simler personally? If only royalty checks could cover my tuition costs! quote=rachel]
Rachel: Cole is very Avant Guarde and makes very good surfboards and many of his designs have been copied to no end. Cole will conitue to be cutting edge and he is a main player in the field.
Concerning the royality checks?
"The Trunkboard"
Back in 2005 a good Japanesee friend of mine who happens to be a great shaper took one of his models and srunk it down to a 5'0 he called it the Trunkboard. It was made out of necessity for corporate exectives in Japan to be able to keep a board in the Trunk of their cars and pull them out for a quick surf break when time permited. The "Trunkboard" is commonly used in large coastly cities in Japan. The ideal is to not have to worry about strapping the board to the car or having to leave it inside in plain view. Kind of a Stealthy approch. Your ideal is great and not something that is really patent friendy or anything new.
King Solomon said in Ecclesiastes 1:9
That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun.
