Hi Matt - I don’t understand how that would work but always found it interesting that on those two boards of mine, the fins are offset in opposite directions. I assume that being from SB that they were designed to be ridden primarily on right handers. That Phil Edwards board isn’t mine.
John, you are correct in your belief.
so peck shows up and needs a box
the fin he’s running has a base that fills the entire box
RX for finbox failure so I take him over and show him the topper
feature on my 2007 stand up… three perpenicular aka 90 degree 1/4 ‘’
stringers, I get a nod and move on… the jig for the stringers is for two currently
four inches apart mebe 8’’ long centered in the tail… rout the fbox hole down the middle
and the box is actully cradled in a slot of wood to engineer strength resistance to sideways failure
that compounded with a center stringer industrial strength more over built than lunchmeat’s
popeye mini tugboat.
…ambrose…
probobly done this method
ten times in ten boards in 11 years
all boxes are still check laidat.
Awesome, what size fins?
Mr Ambrose - On a recent prone paddleboard project for my son I used that method learned from you… 3 ‘mini-stringers’ set perpendicularly to the box on each side in a stringerless EPS board. The slots were ‘cut’ with an old butter knife heated with a torch. Thanks for that idea!
hi john ,happy new year of the dog.
my best to your son,hope he is ageing well
as we hope too.
…ambrose…
up the revolution!
That Hobie/Phil is a 90’s retro and was probably done that way out of some goofy nostalgic reasoning by the collector who ordered it. When Morey first came up with the Wave Set box there was a lag in technology. The simple reason these boxes were off set is that no one had come up with an Easy way to sink the box into a stringer. No jig and the router had not yet been adapted. There was a few months or maybe a year that went by before guys like Morey and Yater figured out what to do. You rarely see the off set boxes because they were only done that way for a very short period of time and very few were done. Yater was also still doing "glass ons. Hobie and Hansen had been doing some semblance of a fin box with their “dog bone” and Hansen’s thru the deck screw. When you look at who did what FIRST; You have to assume that Hobie and Hansen most likely figured out what to do next. They had already been installing removeable fins and probably had the router/template thing figured out. All you have to do is look at the history and it tells it’s own story. Having said all that; I will also say Yater admitted as much in an interview at one time. The Asym crowd is just reading to much into the meaning. A rewriting of history. Hynson stated in an interview once that the “Down Rail” idea came to him as he paddle a board upside down and fin first over very shallow reef at Maalaea. Hence down rail theory was now born. In Surfboards design breakthroughs are usually accidents or mistakes. Tom Morey had a wonderful idea and design. It just took boardbuilders a few months to figure out the best and quickest way to install it. Lowel
Got to disagree with you on that Lowel,
Morey was routing into the stringers for his Morey Skegworks Boxes in '64 on his Australian Surfshop Boards out of Ventura. right on the centerline. Morey Skegworks was the first commercial fin system, he got the idea from Kenny Price who showed up at malibu one day with a board rigged up with a slot and a briefcase of skegs. Downing had also done some boxes in the early 50’s in a few of his balsa guns. Routed in and lined with redwood to accept pressure fit redwood fins.
Morey Skegworks morphed into the Wonderbolt System which were usually on the centerline and sometimes (but very rarely) offset on Yaters or Moreys. Using a router was definitely not a problem for Renny or Morey’s guys, craftsmen who could get any job done with hand and power tools. If the fins were offset there was a design theory behind it, either structural or performance.
The Snub I bought was purchased in 65. It was not new. Two stringers 3 inches apart with a box centered between them. Looked like to me it was routed because it was a clean install. Sorry I might be wrong and I may have misunderstood what Yater said about being afraid to rout into stringers on Clark blanks, but I’ll never buy the Idea that an inch offset made any difference in the way a board performed. I owned a Tom Hale V-Bottom that was offset and I could see no difference in the way it rode. My personal believe is that it was all hype meant to cover the real reason they were offset.
I can 100% say that it makes a difference to have a fin 1” off set the middle of a board.
I (as a few others) have tested it out on my 10ft twingle.
I don’t have it handy right now, but I can show you a Yater ad in which they advertise the fact that their glass-on fins were routed into the stringer. The ad is from around 1964-65. Other builders were doing the same thing, as it was believed it added a little more strength to a glassed on fin. The idea that routung a box weakens a stringer is silly. Stringers add very little strength to a board and mainly serve to retain rocker and act as the rib in an I-beam configuration, keeping the two flanges a constant distance apart. This concept was proven in controlled stress tests using mock-ups of various stringer combos and also with a foam/glass lay-up having no stringer.
Here’s a late 1965 ad for the Morey-Pope “Snub” model. It was likely their first design with the ‘wing tip’ turned down nose rail. This one looks like it has a foam t-band stringer. It was a totally different model from the Peck Penetrator. M/P offered four different models with the same nose design. The Penetrator, Snub, Blue Machine, and “Standard”. I think an offset fin was first introduced on the Blue Machine, though it may have been an option on any shape they did. I recall an interview with Bob Cooper who said the offset was done to change riding characteristics relative to frontside and backside turns. It had nothing to do with avoiding cuts in the stringer.
Sammy thanks for info. I knew the blue machine offset was for performance not for stringer considerations…
Maybe the routed stringer creates a hinge point at which boards tend to snap? I’ve seen many a broken board that broke directly in front of the box. Have also seen quite a few boards with no stringers that snapped somewhere near center. Yvon Chouinard with Patagonia did some controlled testing and came up with results that led to Western Red Cedar stringers. I’ve never broken a board that had double stringers spaced so that the box was inserted between them - no stringer routing.
I’ll confirm that the Blue Machine had an off set fin… and yes, Cooper had them done that way for performance reasons.
D.R.
Well , there ya go, from the man that made them- Mr. Dennis Ryder