Speaking of change… I checked out your website and noticed a few changes. ROCKER in your mats! Photography models! Cool! http://neumaticsurfcraft.homestead.com/NeumaticSurfcraftwebsite.html
Thank you John. Yes, there have been a number of significant changes to my surfmats in the past 12 to 14 months. Aside from what Ive personally experienced, Ive been blessed to be the focal point of much invaluable design feedback from all over the world… so my website is sort of like the tip of an iceberg. But it seems the more I learn, the more questions I have, and the less I know… ha ha!
John, about the rockered mats… Theyre an old idea, and not mine. In The Surfers Journal “Inflatable Dreams” story, one of the photos shows my old van and part of that afternoons outdoor mat project... a rockered design, around summer 1983. Until recently, rockered surfmats have always been too troublesome and labor-intensive for me to offer them commercially. But over the years Ive managed to learn more and have tweaked my shops equipment to the point where theyre finally a viable option. George Greenough has told me many times about one of the very best surfmats he ever had, a rockered design… probably at least 35+ years ago. Of course, it was made of that time periods customary rubber/canvas, but he said what really made it come alive was that it had at least 2" of lift at each end! He said it was especially good in hollow waves. Unfortunately they went out of production a short time later. Even though my surfmats are designed to run at low pressures, the 3/4" to 1" break from flat to curved rocker still makes a difference in their overall handling and speed. I recently built two of these black surfmats (as seen in "Speeding is Believing"), one each for Kenny Hughes and his friend, Jim Brady. Although theyre both quite experienced with the much earlier 4th Gear Flyers and my previous mat designs, neither had ever used a rockered mat: “OUTRAGEOUS!!! A dream to ride. Well done! What a vision!!! And I haven’t even gotten any good, bigger surf, just small, hollow offshore-carved, micro-chambers, and it’s magic. The valve is a thing of wonder. Wow… Well done. Off to the mountains, and then to Bolivia and the upper Amazon for the rest of the month. Smilin’” Jim — “Dale!! They’re gonna work, I think! Jim and I baptized the new mats last night at Rights and Lefts. It was just a quickie go out at dusk, 2-3’ with howling offshores. Good thing we didn’t lose em! Although it definitely wasn’t primo road test conditions, you could tell the new rigs are really fast and seem way more maneuverable. They seem a little narrower than our previous ones–I like that. The valve setup is so slick, that’s gonna work out great, even for “Jim the ripper”. He was pretty hard on some of my backup 4th gears in his learning phase!! Actually, we’re all still learning, right? After decades of riding the “modern” mats, I feel like I’m maybe just graduating from apprentice to journeyman… maybe. I learn something new almost every go out. Thanks again for the most amazing water toys on the planet… More later, Sure feels like spring already–hope winter hasn’t done its last gasp!” Kenny —