In the not too distant future there may be a revolution in surf design, Ive sent details and drawings of my protypes to a bunch of shapers in Europe. They are as keen as mustard to build and try my board. So inevitably there will be a ground swell of info comming out of Europe about a new and faster surf board, very stable at top end speeds never attained by conventional board designs for reasons that Mariners and pilots would know about. Tell me are there any new and fresh ideas out there that could appeal to the masses, or is it closed shop and we dont want any better thanks ? Take a look at the new buzz in Europe !!! http://www.geocities.com/wunderboyi/frontpage.html http://www.geocities.com/wunderboyi/frontpage.html
it is much too crowded to surf a t any point breaks today for anything new to be developed here.What i mean is now you surf the crowd instead of the wave.
Both interesting thoughts. Waves are a needed resource (along with materials), and things do appear to be fairly saturated in urban U.S. and Australian areas. While writing an article recently I touched on the fact that, in covering the death of one Mr. Dora, Surfer’s Journal and The Surfer’s Path had the best and most complete coverage. From Surfer’s Journal you get some wisdom and maturity. Why is The Surfer’s Path currently the magazine with consistently the best “soul” cred? The only thing I could come up with is that surfing is still somewhat “new” over there, which leaves it halfway fresh. British Isles and Europe could well be the next surfing energy center for just that reason.
I saw those on a web site about 2 years ago…funky stuff.
No body ever expected the Spanish inquisition. Are you breaking the holy rule that says you can’t be wider than 24 inches? Good! Does the concave give you any trouble with fin hum on the center fin?
Actually, I seem to recall a tail like that…on a Jim Phillips, about thirty years ago. Board was purple and it had a graphic of The Incredible Hulk on the bottom. doc…
Do we have to keep hearing about the penguin. If its popular in europe take it there dude. I would be surprised however, with most items such as cars, furniture ect europeans tend to be really into designs that are pleasing to the eye. The penguin may be the fastest surfboard we have ever seen or whatever but it looks tacky. Unfortunately for this reason it will never be seen on 99.9% of surfing beaches.
Every time Fat Penguin gets posted, it gets ripped. Why? It looks functional enough (if different) and reminds me of stuff that I could imagine Greenough or Tom Morey dreaming up. Wilderness Surfboards is making “Greenough Designs” edge boards with concaves that aren’t that different from Penguin. Tom Morey built a few boards with strategically placed concave channels much like the Penguin. I saw one in the old Ventura Surf Museum. I would think that designs outside the current envelope (like the Penguin) while risking diminishing returns at the extremes of design, open a few doors that might take us past the thruster phase in board design. With designs like this and material development by guys like Greg Loehr, maybe we can keep the ball rolling forward?
When l was in the Maldives in 2001 there was an american guy there that had something that resembles the fat pengy, it had a lot more fins than the pengy but a similar outline, a friend of mine whowas staying in the shack next to this guy, was told by him how good it went and how it was a new proto type, l kept my mouth shut and thought to myself, lbet this thing cant even catch waves, it was over 3" thick and about 7’ long and super wide, now you would think that this thing would catch waves and fly accross the face just on boyancy alone but not to my suprise this thing went backwards, it was 4 foot pasta point and l followed him up to the point to sit and watch and maybe learn something from his design, the first wave he paddled for he caught and seemed to be getting ready to take the drop, then he got to his feet butas he did the board got sucked back up the face and over the back of the wave, l had not seen anything like it in my life, too be going down the face and then get sucked the opposite way back up and over the pitching lip, sensational to say the least but not the way that l want to surf. He proceeded to attempt to get down the faces but l think that he paddled in blaming the sweep. back to the drawing board for this little penguin. KR http://groups.msn.com/MyKRSurf/krcomweb.msnw
Seems to me its part of the evolutionary function of shapers to streach the envelope with new thinking. Indeed, we wouldn’t be where we are today without experimentation. Tom Blake, Matt Kivlin, Joe Quigg, Dale Velzy, Bob Simmons, Dick Brewer, Tom Morey, Simmon Anderson…into the future! Because we are all part of Nature, our best inspirations come from understanding how Nature solves the problems we are working with. I’ll never forget sitting out at a Northern Calif point break, between sets, and having a harbor seal swim up to me, go to the nose of my board and reach its flipper up and feel around the curve of the nose…as if to say,“not bad, keep trying”!! Swell today is 12’ and building. -Paul
Nothing new. A revisitation of the paper canoes/boats of a century ago. Check out the rolled up newspapers for the hull/mast of the sailboat. Turns out even some train wheels were paper mache. The link below might offer some intriguing ideas to intrepid cheapskates like myself. Also, years ago in Surfer there was a board shaped out of laminated pieces of corrugated cardboard. The image has never left my mind. Don’t think outside the box, use it to make a new ride. http://http://www.home.eznet.net/~kcupery/PBArtic/Hookam.html
OOOPS! Here is a working link to paper boat making. http://www.home.eznet.net/~kcupery/PBArtic/Hookam.html
What I think is irking people about the Fat Penguin is the way its being marketed. There seems to be a lot of hype involved with the way its being presented. For all we know it may be the next big thing. What surfers want to see is proof of its merits, whether it be photos or video. I like the way Simon Anderson did it when he developed the thruster. He went out and ripped huge Bells Beach, small Narrabeen and took the Pipe Masters. People took notice of his brainchild after that. A few suggestions to the Fat Penguin people. To better market your product I feel you should have some kind of demo program where someone could actually ride one. Have available some photos and video of someone actually riding one and maybe change your color schemes to a more simple type of air brush pattern.