I was having a discussion with a surfboard shaper friend of mine today and we were discussing some of the comments by those who make certain claims and have certain ideas on surfboard design. One thing that came out of my discussion was that there are so many different opinions on what works. Just about every shaper has his own theory of board design and if he has been around awhile; probably a following of surfers to back up his theories.( Surfer theories are a completely differnt story)
Is it possible that every single design works to some degree and certain shapers simply know how to put together surfboards with their own theories that function no matter how wild the design may appear. I have been around surfing going on thirty years. I have made my living from it and seen my share of great board builders and great surfers. I have also seen my share of hacks and kuks that think they really surf good and everyone is watching them. The one thing that sticks out is the fact that surfers themselves will try almost anything, especially if it’s getting some magazine hype and talented surfers will at times inspire shapers. What I do not think anyone has proven though, is that we do have one or a small group of designs that is absolutely better than everything else on the market. Most of the designs today find riders who will swear by them.
I would say we have two types of surfboard shapers: The designers and the tuners.
The designer is one who comes up with a theory and creates something from scratch by seeing a need and then trys to fill the need. Many times it is not a need but simply a vision or search.
The Tuner is one who takes proven designs and tweaks and modifies them to get a desired result.
There are also those rare shapers who have both qualities. Some are also really good salesmen.
At times we think surfing is making progression or regression, but there is always someone out there who makes either one look really good. In fact I often wonder if great surfers make great shapers look good or great shapers make great surfers look better. One thing is for sure surfers and shapers alike will never be at a shortage of opinions and nothing any of them say can be proven conclusively.
The really great thing about our sport is there is so many different aspects of surfboards and waveriding we never have to worry about being bored. Surfers will always drive shapers crazy with strange measurments and shapers will always drive surfers crazy by wanting to do things their own way. If we can ever free ourselves of modern day surf shops that are really fashion boutiques and popouts or chinese boards that have about as much creativity as a pet rock, the next generation of shapers might even begin to blossom and creativity might overtake commodity.
Then again George Bush might hire Michael Moore as his campaign manager.
Being a newcomer to this great site and only having made a couple of boards over the years, I am on the one hand totally stoked with the standard of discussion here and on the other still amazed that design can still throw up some real oddities. we’ve come across them all over the years : remember the Stinger? W.A.V.E. hollow board, dial a tail… some worked others were just something that where a few moments looking at the thing, you just knew the guy was out to make a few bucks off the gullible or the termianly fashion adicted.
As a scientist I was taught that unless it could be measured, assessed and duplicated… you just did not make claims or attest proof. I still laugh at all those womens health care ads we get… outright lies. But I digress.
When you consider a surfboard, in it’s natural element, doing it’s thing, then that surfboard is the only measurable parameter in the whole equation, everything else is essentially an unmeasured [or unmeasurable] variable, which nullifies any claims for that board beyond the empirical. Move a fin a few millimeters and even that constant has gone.
So what’s my point, you say.
It’s this very fact that designing a ‘perfect’ board is like catching smoke, is what gives me hope that big business will never put the shaper/glasser out of a job.
Crafting surfboards is like hand building a car, house or table, it’s fit for it’s job and a thing of beauty because the maker has put a little bit of himself into ever one he finishes.
The fact that custom boards end up as landfill saddens me, over here in the UK boards get used until they literally fall apart, and then they get re-shaped into something else.
i agree with your observations. i know only a few board shapers who i would consider designers, and some you could consider tuners. i firmly believe that the other things we do in life affect our input into the surfing equasion. eg the study of fish when we are out to sea or the planing area of skis, or the outline/edge of a snowboard, the flex in a skateboard etc. (the construction methods too). the application of new designs comes from these outer influences. these are usually done by newer shapers who have the time and other input ideas fresh on thier minds. the tuning is done by more established shapers who have a system of manufacture and replication down pat. the established mainstream shaper will take the innovation, make it more subtle, make it work more all round & market it as his new design! where the innovator is usually left with the extreme version that has bigger negatives, and left behind in the corner for reference in future.
well put…in bali everything works…even doors…its the level that they work on…you wouldn’t pull in at padang on a door…as the waves get critical the surfboards have to perform…this is what sorts the men from the boys…a place like Jaws everything on the board has to be perfect …or you pay…just having the fin in the wrong spot or strap or foil or fin then the shape of the board …if 1 of these are wrong you will eat it…in small waves they can all be wrong and still perform on a certain level…aloha Cheyne
Howzit. Your post implies that there is only one exact design which will work for big waves and that everything else is wrong for big waves. Without detracting from your vast experience on big waves Cheyne, I have to point out that your argument is faulty. The fact that your personal equipment for big waves has to be set up 'just so' does not mean that there are no other possible big wave designs which work. It just means that any such designs have not yet been proven by yourself. The thruster setup has a horizontal fin area component which is prone to handling problems at high speed if it is not set up 'just so'. This can be shown on a theoretical as well as a practical level. There are other big wave designs which are not as critical as far as exact setup goes.
Roy
I was talking to Doug Haut who is a highly thought a shaper as I know of a few years ago about surfboards when I was getting ready to have a custom board made. One of his comments was “They all work.” My take was that when being the artist he is he’s not about to try and pin things down because it’s impossible. Everything you change affects performance. So you talk about the kind of waves you want to ride, your capabilities and what you want the board to do, the kind waves you’re gonna ride and let the shaper interprut things as best as he can. Good shapers have a magical way of coming up with some beautiful performers.
When the waves faces get over 50 feet and you going at speeds in excess of 35 knots I believe that Cheyne is right on. I don’t get that he’s saying (Correct me if I’m wrong Cheyne.) there only one design that works. If you put Ross Clark Jones’s, Peter Mel’s, Laird’s, and Cheyne’s tow-in boards side by side you see a variety of lenghts widths and configurations but you can bet every one of them is tuned real tight to the edge of maximum performance. What he says to me is speed, control and maneuverablity have to be completely maximized through a very careful sorting out proces and whether the tow-in board is a single fin or a thruster it better be tuned just right cause if it isn’t you get gobbled up and you’re very close to death in an instant.
As waves become less critical and smaller a surfcraft doesn’t have to perform as well to get where it’s going so as waves get less critical we see a greater variety of boards. With that said I feel compelled to say that different boards shine in different conditions. It seems to me that thinking there is some place to arrive with the ultimate surfcraft is pie in the sky. Trying to create one board that will go just as well in triple overhead Sunset as it does in knee high Malibu doesn’t seem too practical a task for the shaper but I’ve been wrong before.
If I’m going for a session I have a look at the conditions and make own subjective judgements just like everyone else. I pick a board that I think will suit what’s going on in the water.
I think that my next board will probably be an attempt at the most versatile board I can come up with. The board I build for myself will be different than what anyone else would choose. All the shapers I know have different boards for different conditions and the choices vary greatly from one shaper to another.
The subjectivity of surfboard design and surfing is one of principle reasons the surfing life is living the dream.
I take your point about the fact that the top big wave guys have considerable differences in their equipment, and apologies to Cheyne for any suggestion that he might not be right on it.
I think that part of what I was really trying to say is that small wave design is just as demanding as big wave design, and here are a few thoughts on that subject . . .
1) That the main reason that small wave design is seen as not as demanding is simply that the penalty for not 'getting where you want to go' is not as severe. For example if surfers were threatened with death for not making a particular small wave section then you can be sure that small wave designs would soon be tuned very carefully indeed.
2) It is assumed that the small wave surfing status quo is about all we can expect. I think that this is not the case. Small wave speed surfing is an example. I can get up some very high speeds on little waves because I have carefully tuned my designs for that purpose, and on some days this means that I can go two to three times as far as the malibu crew, simply because I get up more speed.
Small wave design has been dominated by maneuver based surfing criteria which leads to designs which are not optimised for speed. This is particularly the case with longboards which have been primarily designed as style platforms.
Big wave surfing is not primarily maneuver oriented, except insofar as maneuvers are required for making the wave. Small wave speed surfing design is just the same. Therefore I think that what we are talking about when considering that some designs are more highly tuned than others, is actually a distinction between speed designs and maneuver based designs.
5) As far as high speed surfing goes, lets start measuring speed. As I mentioned previously, all that is needed is a small gps unit. I would like to know how fast Cheyne really goes on a wave at jaws, and how close I can get to that speed on my custom tunnel finned speed machine on a three foot wave at my local beach break.
About this subjective versus objective thread, how about this:
What you decide that you want to achieve with a surfboard design is a subjective and personal choice. How you achieve your self imposed goal is simply a matter of applying the laws of physics, and that is an objective pursuit.
Cheers, Roy
A surfboards dimensions arent subjective and neither is its weight. How much do your wood boards tip the scales? Is increased inertia from weight a calculated factor in your design and surfing philosophy? Thanks.
Roy firstly Im not perfect and yes I come with faults…their is no one exact design I agree not disagree…im not saying that and never will…as in surfing most things turn out to be the opposite especially in design…now about the big wave designs being that critical…they are when it gets xtreme…now what designs do you know that have big scope for error and still work when its big…???and what areas can there be errors…??Im interested to know .
It’s really decent of you to reply to someone who is basically an armchair critic when it comes to riding really big waves, so thanks for your time.
I am probably speaking a bit loosely when saying that some big wave designs don’t have to be as critically designed. Also I am only at this point talking about fin setup with the thruster, and the effects of toe in and outwards cant combined.
It is safe to assume that you have a good handle on how much of these features to use on thruster side fins for big waves. My point is basically that outwards cant and toe in are in fact a kind of hydrofoil setup (as is the star fin) because they have horizontal fin area. The horizontal wing area on the thruster is angled in such a way that it does not have a neutral effect on the trim of the board. In fact it has negative lift, and will tend to pull the tail down and will have a braking effect whenever the board is surfed flat on the bottom.
This accounts for the problems which some surfers have experienced with thrusters in big waves. Hydrofoil fins develop power exponentially as speed increases. The influence which the thruster fin setup has on the trim of the board will thus increase dramatically at speed, while the power which the surfer is able to exert to trim the board remains constant. This will make the board difficult to control if the fins have too much toe in and outward cant, and in some situations the surfer may be unable to turn the board when at high speed.
Avoiding this problem is apparently only a matter of tuning the board exactly right. My point is that any fin setup which has a neutral effect on the trim of the board will not be as temperamental or require quite such fine tuning. Fin setups which are neutral are those with fore and aft facing surfaces which are not toed in, canted out or angled towards or away from the bottom where they have horizontal area.
These neutral fin setups include singles, and tunnel fins set up parallel to the bottom.
So I am not saying that there are some designs for big waves which can be set up with room for error, rather that there are some designs which are inherently more forgiving in their behaviour.
All the fins in the pictures are made of plumbing pipe because it’s quick and easy to make and reasonably strong. The tunnel shape is very strong in itself. The foils only have to be set into the board a quarter of an inch or so. Notice the absence of fillets at the fin base. For anyone else I will lay them up out of carbon fibre. I am glad that you find them entertaining.
Why the soft rail is an interesting question from the King of the lazor zap! All my boards use a continous rail section, so they all have soft rails. They are fast and forgiving and never catch or stall. You can stand the board on its tail and it won’t stall. Having said that I should mention that some of the boards are only two and a quarter thick. The Acid drop is Three inches thick and thus has a humungous rail profile. It is a bit of an experiment just to push the soft rail limits. It is very fun to surf, it is great fun in the pocket. The only problem is that it is so thick that I can’t get my hands around the rail to roll under. I am going to make a thinner one.
Just give me the word, and I will get into it. It might help to know what board you would park the fin onto, but an eight inch diameter is pretty versatile.
