i want to make a traditional longboard and have a big question. i cant find the answers in the forum. i was wondering where the belly should go. reason being that in some traditional logs it starts a foot or soo in front of the fin and goes out the tail, and is flat up through the rest of hte board with rails that end under the board more than a modern board. but lots of other traditional longboards have the belly sort of in the middle portion of the board, with a flat nose and a flat tail, still no edge though. whats the difference of having the belly in the middle of the board as opposed to in the tail portion of hte board? (im assuming that having it in both would be more of a displacement hull style board, like a liddle or something).
I don’t know for sure… I’ve seen many variations on the belly theme.
Maybe (?) safe to say that you place the belly where you want the board to roll or penetrate.
It has been said that Liddle places the belly back pretty far on his pointbreak models while Skip Frye places the belly forward on his reef break models. I’m not sure if either concept applies currently to either shaper. Skip Frye has been quoted as saying that belly in the tail “sucks.”
I do know for sure that you can’t take a single component (belly for instance) of a design and isolate it from the rest of the variables.
Nose belly makes them more steerable when you’re on the nose (or near) because you can wobble rail to rail, without catching the rails. At least, that’s how it feels to me. Your results may vary.
Nose Belly (sorry my thumb’s in the way - look past that):
You can make a thick board with thinner rails (easier to hold a line) with belly through the middle, so you don’t have to dome the deck so much. Heavy dome makes a board less flexible.
And like John said, tail belly sucks. But when you’re shooting for keeping the tail engaged on a slow wave, or you want to run a big pivot fin but also allow some rail-to-rail wobble back there too, its kind of a slower alternative to vee through the fin.
Tail belly (again, sorry for the finbox stuff in the photo, I was taking a picture of the box install, not necessarily the belly):
To elaborate a bit on Benny1’s stuff, belly lets you roll an otherwise stiff board (wide single fin) from rail to rail. By moving the location of belly around (along with outline and rocker) you can fine tune a board’s sweet spot to fit your style. Just remember that convex means drag and that can be a good or bad thing when going in a straight line.
In the tail and off the tailblock (pod) you will get a real swiveler and great nose rider (that drag sucks the tail down whilst you perch on the nose) but in a fast trim it will feel like kelp around your fin.
Move the belly up to in front of the fin with no V off the tail block and you will get a smooth, quick turning board that still trims out really nicely.
Move the belly up towards the nose means a nice turning board from the nose but pretty stiff at the tail.
Belly really slows paddleing speed. If you can keep part of the belly out of the water (banked over in a turn or holding a high line) they can really fly which is why they are so popular in point break surf.
If you consider belly to be a shallow constant convex curve, Liddle’s don’t really have belly. There is a fairly large area of flat on either side of the stringer.
So Lee, would you say that a hull has more in common with a V-bottom (like a Farrelly) than it does with a board with round belly? I have a v-bottom but its pretty beat up & I haven’t surfed it in years…
The one I was posting a few photos of actually paddles fast. But its very wide. Its an odd board - outline of a super wide, thin noserider like a CJ Nelson model, belly throughout, and a Roy-inspired continuous rail profile.
Here’s my favorite photo of it:
Its currently on vacation at Punta Baja without me
A “hull” has more in common with Greenough’s Velo than any other board I’ve seen.
As for paddleing…the deeper the belly the slower it goes but you can make up for a lot by playing with rocker and even weight. I’ve paddled some pretty round bottomed heavy boards that go real well. Must be a momentum thing.
That is a sweet looking ride you have there…I wish I could bend the space/time continuum today and head down to Santa Rosaliita. Even in its denuded condition, I’ll bet it is going off.
The boards i have with the deepest belly(and low tail rocker) are most favored in small hollow point surf…with a distinct feeling that the board is being pulled forward in the barrell, taken over by some mysterious force that allows you to become a thrilled, but unimportant passenger. The 10-0 Paul Gross that i lugged around Australia, was perfect for the small waves we found…including beach breaks. I had many ozzies wanting the board including Noosa local, Dane Peterson, who rode it for an hour or so…when i asked him if it nose rode good…he said " never had to go there". I tried his Scott Anderson board which I found wierd…it forced you to move forward as soon as you caught a wave.
I think low tail rocker is the key along with belly, fin etc. etc.
I have an Eaton fun gun with a belly in the forward third. It feels as if it allows the board to penetrate down the face. Especially noticable in offshore conditions where a concave nose for instance can make entry difficult.
All turning effects aside, introducing a little “paddleboard technology” can make for earlier takeoffs.
i have found that in the tail area it equals drag. its slow, and as soon as there is a line in front of me i walk forward to get the hell off of the belly and pick up some speed. but when the belly is in front of hte fin, in middle portion of the board, it gives it a nice glide without the drag.
