Anybody have experience with super flat boards? I’m thinking of a super thick 7 to 8 footer with absolutley flat rocker except for kick in the last 1’ or so of the nose. Singlefin. Strictly for small waves. How might something like this perform. Positives? Negatives?
ask DUKE!!!
“well heck Robbo, I don’t know why you’d be wanting to ask me ?! …7 and 8’s always sounded a bit big , to me …I always prefered six shooters , personally … got the job done quicker , ah reckon , boy !”
I guess if you just want to go straight, and the waves are really weak and slow and small and mushy, it will work. But don’t expect it to “perform.” It will most likely tend to outrun the pocket and not give you the ability to turn to get back to where you want to be. You’d be struggling just to get it to work at all. Leaning over to turn would simply tip the board onto it’s rail.
Many shapers argue that rocker is THE most critical surfboard design element. Eliminating rocker puts you behind the 8 ball from the start.
I once made a 6’10 shortboard with flat rocker except a low nose rocker (almost like on a normal board, it was really the back 2/3 that was flat). It went very well but I didn’t have enough nose rocker because the nose didn’t lift as there wasn’t any rocker under my feet and I had to be really on my back foot to make it go without sinking the nose on takeoffs. The board was fast and still very turnable which was kind of surprising.
Flat rocker is NOT faster…
Gotta understand, where the board rides in the wave, the wave is curved.
Matching a flat board to a curved water surface just means you keep fighting the wave’s tendency to lift the tail.
Plus, some people like to turn without catching front rails.
Ditto with paddling. A little rocker is needed so the tail isn’t waaaay underwater.
I’m with LeeDD on this one.
IMO it will be fine provided that you have lots of curve in that planshape (that’s what will get the turn happening) and most importantly keep the widepoint in planshape way up there where the nose flip is.
I’ve recently shaped a 6’ retro fish, stringerless 2lb eps, with dead flat rocker from 12" back from the nose. The deck is straight flat rail to rail, the entire board is relatively thin and no bottom contours. I built it to surf small waves (up to 4 ft, onshore) and I’m hoping with all the design elements it will flex enough rocker naturally to allow a decent turning radius, and return to zero rocker to help me glide past flat sections. I’ll report back once its glassed and surfed.
Platelunch, this may be the shape you’re looking for. These have just a touch of flip in the nose and flat through the tail. Way outside the box, but it couldn’t be any different than the “peanut” I saw here last year. In powder snow there is/was nothing that carves better IMO.
These things even had a skeg of sorts. I took mine off and it rode so much looser.
Just a bit of a blast from the past.
On a short board, like mentioned above, a curvey planshape, along with some flex, will give you some turnability. But on an 8 footer, like you say you want to build, I don’t think you can’t get enough curve to compensate for no rocker.
The first surfboards were just planks…the earliest had no fins, too. Then, along came nose kick, and that’s what started to change boards from flat to rockered. And if you watch those old, flat boards actually ride waves, or even in photos, they all go straight OK. But to turn them, you have to turn vertically… stomping down on the tail to lift almost the entire board out of the water and pivoting/stalling around on the tail. To do it backside you GOTTA do a drop knee just to get the thing around…that’s how drop knee turns started.
comment from a contrary son of
a chief machinists mate:
the first surfboards were not flat.
the first surfboards
made by people
who didn’t surf
and used milled lumber
were flat.
The boards made from other
than milled lumber
were not called planks ( a derogotory name I believe).
these were close tolerance
and they were contoured
top and bottom.
When juxtaposed with the milled lumber renditions
they were derogatorily called logs.
when shaped by cognisant masters of the craft
even logs can be stellar renditions.
shape what yew like
whether its a lonbow or a short staff
or a plastic rocket or a foam turd
if you can make it go?
thets the test
an if’n you caint?
some other kid will rip on it.
…ambrose…
contrary son of a sailor