I’m wonder if anyone has shaped or surfed a longboard with a low entry rocker but high nose? Does it noseride well in general?
I got this profile pic from a local surf shop. It’s a 9’6 PU board. Maybe the board’s meant for steeper waves and a more progressive style?
I’ve seen videos of surfers like Kirra Seale noseride this kind of board perfectly but in one of her vids she’s hanging 5 then the tail lifts and slides out (fins completely out of the water). Do you think it’s because of the nose?
They “plow” water. If you get used to that characteristic, you can make them work. Dewey Weber’s “Scooped” Performer was a classic example. A good Noserider is a much simpler board, that noserides easily. No tricks or techniques needed.
One of the best old school noseriders; The Morey-Pope Penetrator, was a dead flat bottom at front third with a turned down rail. (Known as a “Wing-Nose). A shallow concave 1/8” through 1/4" has always worked well for me.:
I think it depends on what you mean by nose ride. There are quite a few people here in Hawaii that can run up to the nose and hang ten for a few seconds on a board like that. That style of board is great for bigger or more powerful waves.
Most of the newer longboards I see these days have a low rocker nose for more traditional long nose rides, but I see them being used in smaller south shore waves.
I don’t know about other places, just the south shore of Oahu in Hawaii.
And there you have it - board design is influenced by the prevailing local conditions. A longboard with a high nose rocker isn’t going to be well suited for noseriding in most spots on the West Coast due to the weaker and slower conditions. A traditional rocker isn’t going to fit well in the faster conditions. A surfer might be able to make it work but at that point it’s more attributable to the rider than the board.
The rocker looks amost the same at either end, probably a 9-8Y blank (approx. 4" nose, 3" tail). Most noseriders that Hobie made were this blank and it was a favorite of Terry Martin. Depending on how the blank was shortened, you could flip it either end. Any high rocker LB doesn’t noseride well and paddles even worse. The bottom contours look to be less than 1/8", so not worth the trouble when everything is blended in. I would just make it flat throughout, but that is also highly dependent on the rail shape. Based on your diagram, these rails appear to be 50/50 with a bottom edge; presumably to work with those very slight bottom contours. Those edges on a single fin don’t work well in my opinion, and I would use another band on the bottom (or screen the edge). On a 60/40 rail with more fins those edges would have a purpose. For a board that isn’t exclusively used for noseriding, I would also recommend a teardrop concave (conservatively done) since the nose outline in the diagram is very full. Keep in mind all this input is coming from the perspective of “predicable results” not “let’s see what happens”. Hope this helps.
Anything with a Y attached to it is usually a good all purpose blank. The 9’8Y can do 9’8, 9’6, 9’4, 9’2 noseriders easily. I’m lately hooked on Arctic’s “Noserider” rocker on any of their longboard blanks; 9’3, 9’9 or 10’3. More in line with the old “reverse” rocker stuff that Bing used. I am very partial. To Millennium’s 9’5 and 9’5P blanks. They make great 9’4’s and can be ordered in other than “Natural” rocker. PS-- The Arctic Noserider rocker can be seen under their 9’9" blank. I don’t see it under the others, but they do it in them as well. Interestingly enough they have a “Weber 67” rocker that has over 4" of scoop.
While I am at it; Why is it that young shapers these days can’t make a 9’9’ outta of a 9’9"blank? Or; A 9’4 out of a 9’5. Measuring the deck?? Just had someone in the shop who wanted a 10’3" for a 9’9. I had it, but at todays prices I think he lost interest. Never saw a 9’9 in anything but a Gun my whole life.
All in the surfer my friend. I grew up when HPs like that we’re all the rage, guys from the 60s having that good ol’ midlife crisis but unable to carry their 30# logs to the beach. I’ve always been an old school logger, but I learned to make those things work as well.
it’s not so much the nose rocker, but the tail rocker that limits you. A proper nose rider doesn’t shed water off the tail well, this slows you down and keeps you in the pocket as well as providing some serious levitation up front. HPs have a tendency to haul ass when you’re on the nose, making the nose ride shorter and more exciting. Proper application of leverage and you can helicopter the shit out of it too.
all depends on what you’re looking for. I like the low and slow groove, mebbe throw in a spin on the top with some hula hip sway back to the tail, but if you wanna fly that’s fun too.
rell sunn was the master of the HP. She re-wrote the book on surfing big boards in the late eighty’s and early nineties at makaha. She also weighed 90 pounds soaking wet. Talk about breaking glass ceilings…
There are plenty “masters” on the South Shore ofOahu. Those little 9’ers are still being ridden but not so much by mid life crisis types. Easy for a good surfer to whip around and tube time a thicker 9’4 or 9’6 if the waves are decent. I laugh when I watch South Shore and Bali videos of 90 # chicks and skinny little white boys with “man buns” tip timing in 2’ surf. Acrobatic at best. Reminds me of Ed Sullivan’s show with Plate Spinners standing on each other’s shoulders.
McDing, sharkcountry, gdaddy, petec, paakikijake - thanks so much guys for the enlightenment.
I finally got to see and try the board (the blue board in the pic). The nose tip is strangely high when compaired to a log that has ‘medium entry rocker’. Anyway, it nose rides quite okay but I feel that it’s designed for a more progressive style.
I’d like the ask a second related question - is it possible to build a board with ‘low entry rocker’ but high nose tip? Or with a nose like that do you call it high rocker anyway?
Not sure if I understand what you mean by high nose tip. To me, that is when the final bottom band progresses flush to the deck; in other words the bottom band is turned past the actual rail center and blended up to the deck. Tricky to do and easy to ruin the outline that way. But some shapers do them like that since the rail center versus the nose thickness is so close anyhow as the band approaches the stringer. But that effect will not give you the same benefit as more rocker. If you mean “high nose tip” as in cutting a very short (fast) high rocker in the blank, then it will really push water and be terrible to ride and paddle.
From the photo, that is very high rocker and looks like it was a gun blank. I suspect that this is for (very) short noserides in beach break conditions. Typical rocker on most LB’s or gliders is maxed at 4" nose and 3" tail. Those boards are meant to be ridden in the pocket, with lots of walking to stall,slip, etc. A performance LB requires less walking but more turning since it will go slower than a traditional LB in the pocket or down the line. Therefore, you’ll have to keep turning it into the wave for speed, Why? The high rocker reduces the planning area and it must also be narrower for the short turns. This is why they differ in fins and rails from traditional LB’s. Much input to this discussion has been about the rider, but the design is really dictated by prevailing conditions. If you don’t have a break that peels there’s no pocket for a glider. If it’s a drop + turn beach break, you’ll do better with high rocker. To summarize, there are dedicated noserider boards and performance LB’s that will allow some nose rides. Each type will be limited depending on wave conditions but a very good rider will make it look otherwise.
You can a bit of kick in the last 4 inches or so of a flatter nose rocker. Way back, Brewer did a few that were dubbed hyper-kicked noses. My cousin has one from the late 60s. They looked a bit strange. If it does what you want it shouldn’t matter what others think.
If that “flipped tip” worked,you would have seen everybody in that day and time riding them. But they didn’t work. So as soon as a surfer figured out that the “Flip tip” was a “DOG”, he got off of it and got onto something that made more since.
I’ll differ from your opinion of the disc or flip tip. Here’s why: The first several inches of the board spend so little time in the water, how can they make much difference? Back to the OP’s question, a flip tip is irrelevant to noseriding, they were a feature of “short” (for the day) boards. But then, if a flip tip slows you down, it’ll keep you in the pocket for a longer nose ride…
The flip tip didn’t fail, it sold a lot of boards for a while, and then was superceded by other “developments”. You don’t think RB cared how well a customer rode them, do you?
Just about anything that anyone can think of, can be experimented with, and some value may be found in certain conditions. Whether a particular feature can be incorporated into the rest of the board, and still provide the benefit, is another matter.
I’ll go a giant step further: Most of surfing depends on the rider, not the board. Example: we’ve heard that Slater can rip on an ironing board. Is it true or is it outrageous to think so?
Nobody ripped on those flip tips. They were lucky if they got to the beach alive at places like Pipe and the Bay. Costco sells a lotta “Wave Storms” too. Doesn’t mean a thing. Never saw a flip tip anywhere but the Islands. Although if I remeber right Reno showed up in Huntington once with one. A fad’s a fad. Lots of publicity went into that one. Shape one. Ride one and give me a report. If the nose on a flip tip isn’t in the water; Why have it? To catch chop and wind? Big seller? Maybe on Oahu. And for how long? Maybe one season? Probably just long enough for people to realize they were dogs. They couldn’t surf like Reno and no flip tip was gonna change that.
