If the government (or a rich uncle) agreed to subsidize your surfboard/fin operation 100% for 10 years, where would you go with design and construction?
While government funding would make some opportunities more readily available, necesity is really the mother of invention. And, since we don’t have a government grant, and others do, do you really think it would be in my best interest to post ideas that may only need sufficient funding?
Tom-
My question was aimed at unencumbered free-thinkers who enjoy sharing their ideas in public forums. I wouldn’t expect anyone to post something that would go against their best interests.
I think I would pursue the use of a material whose use dates back thousands of years. A material that I work with everyday, that many of us take for granted. Its a material that has proven useful for freeways and ship building alike. I’m willing to share with this forum freely, my vast knowledge and experience with this material. That material, gentleman, is concrete. I propose to build a "HOLLOW CONCRETE SURFBOARD " !! I’ve lost some weight recently and thought it would be a useful trade off to put some of that weight back into my board. The obvious advantages are : 1) not adversely affected by strong offshores 2) very useful as a deterrent to those who would consider dropping in on you 3) very strong 4) shark resistant
- will not delaminate 6) last for years 7) extra weight will provide momentum(this may be debated, and has been, and will be, I’m sure)
Some draw backs are that you may not be able to some aerial moves. But thats a small sacrifice. Also , you may want to abandon the use of a leash. (Although, my wife has encouraged it for some reason.)
Well there you have it. Any questions ?
It may be on hold til we get a democrat in office, so I can get that “government funding”
ooops… I thought you said “freak thinkers”
While I don’t post about things that we have on our wish list, I’m always happy to post about stuff that we’re in the process of doing. New software is allowing us to cut shapes with more accuracey and control than ever before. Finite element analysis and computational fluid dynamics are allowing us to analyze specific attributes when optimizing designs. New materials are allowing us to go in new directions that were previously limited due to material flexural modulus. There’s alot we can talk about and a lot more we can’t.
I would make an effort towards sourcing and testing new recylable surfboard materials…
Clear Titanium alloy vessles w micro flex inhibitors for proper load & release. This coupled with a built in lightweight micro sized 200 ft lb torque battery operated engine, that recharges from friction from salt water, it’s about the size of TV remote. The clear board lets you look at the reef in between sets. and you don’t need a surf rack to get the board home, you can just drag it behind the car.
-Jay
Back to the 3-piece adjustable flex. Taylor
a three piece “smart” board, made out of concrete , with a vacuum bagged balsa veneer, that could be recycled and made into vegetable oil.
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a three piece "smart" board, made out of concrete , with a vacuum bagged balsa veneer, that could be recycled and made into vegetable oil.
I’m going the opposite way: balsa vacuum bagged over vegetable oil for the ultimate in flex and when the shape is obsolete, the boards will stack together to replace CMU’s in retaining wall applications.
If you have the right kind of haircut ala Trent Lott, you might get it thrown into some pork barrel spending bill. Now, how could we get some of that Katrina $$ ?
Government funding (Taxpayers) is wasteful, while rich Uncles will make sure it works first.
While it’s not a surfboard or fin making operation, strictly speaking…by a funny coincidence I was discussing a ‘blue sky, expensive research’ project of this sort quite recently. Namely finding out what really makes a surfcraft work and how, with development of a software design system of the sort that aeronautical engineers have at their disposal for airfoils and the like. Kinda like Tom is talking about but taken several steps further.
This would involve many hours, hell weeks and days, of tank testing ( or flume/Flowrider testing ) of models to get some hard numbers regarding planing area vs weight vs speed, turning forces, all that sort of stuff. And developing pretty much from scratch some pretty sophisticated mathematical modelling software for modelling waves, planing hulls on waves and so forth. Then you get into datalogging packages to be mounted on or in test boards - to see how theoretical performance and actual performance stack up against one another.
Heh…yeah, this would probably drain the rich uncle’s bank account pretty quickly, unless somebody happens to be Bill Gates’ nephew, or have some compromising photos of the president of MIT stashed away. At a rough guess this would be several times ( or several orders ) the complexity of the modelling and development of America’s Cup boats, and a figure I read some time ago put that at several million dollars each, even with some very significant portions of the R&D donated by corporate sponsors.
Will anything like this ever happen? Doubtful…
doc
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… and you don’t need a surf rack to get the board home, you can just drag it behind the car.
-Jay
thats the funniest thing I’ve heard all day, especially because whilst browsing a local shop the other day that I don’t particulary respect much(the salesmen are quick to reccommend a board that would not be good for you at all to make a quick buck–I was just in the shop because they have a ton of boards to get inspiration from)—the salesment tried to get me to buy a surftech that I happened to pause by, and actually used that line. “You can practically drag them behind your car, these babies are so durable” I thanked him for that great advice and left…haha. Thanks for so quality humor Jay!
a three piece “smart” board, made out of concrete , with a vacuum bagged balsa veneer, that could be recycled and made into vegetable oil
yeah Dazza !
DO it !
… photos please !
ben
[you might need to post photos of your hollow concrete board in the “fun” thread , the “not surfing, but funny” thread , or , as you suggested "freak thinkers " [a new thread, along the lines of the “different” thread ?]
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If you have the right kind of haircut ala Trent Lott, you might get it thrown into some pork barrel spending bill. Now, how could we get some of that Katrina $$ ? Government funding (Taxpayers) is wasteful, while rich Uncles will make sure it works first.
Kind of like that billion dollar bridge to nowhere they just passed for Alaska’a Senator Stevens…
We get alot of Pearl Pork here in the islands from Inouye but no wjere near the same native cash compensation as the natives in the 49th.
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Heh…yeah, this would probably drain the rich uncle’s bank account pretty quickly, unless somebody happens to be Bill Gates’ nephew, or have some compromising photos of the president of MIT stashed away. At a rough guess this would be several times ( or several orders ) the complexity of the modelling and development of America’s Cup boats, and a figure I read some time ago put that at several million dollars each, even with some very significant portions of the R&D donated by corporate sponsors.
Yeah Doc too bad Seattle’s so far from the ocean and the water’s so cold, would’ve been neat in the day to have turned old Bill on to surfing instead of making money with computers… At least as a past time, then maybe we might see some really neat stuff coming out of his “hobby”.
I’m sure Larry Ellison is spending some of his billions on sail boat technology so he can win one of these days…
I would think materials science and software development for production purposes is where the biggest economic payback would be. Machine made boards crafted by an artist’s imagination… Custom design 100% machined production boards… Liek Greg’s story somewhere here…
Now if surfing could somehow be equated with global terrorism we’d have some of the homeland security billions thrown at it we might have a chance…
So here’s the business proposal…
start a mega global construction program (funded by oil?)) to build mega surf parks through the desert middle east and africa and start teaching the disenfranchised uninitiated the art of riding waves. Mellow all the dry hotheads out with a decadent (me/now) surf lifestyle and put an end to the iron clad hold of fundalmentalism and the hatred of the white devils… The clerics won’t stand a chance, just like the failure of the missionaries to stop the joy wave riding brought the populace here where it started. This is the pandemic the world should fear.
Make it a world of surfers riding waves everywhere whenever and you’ll have peace.
social re-engineering… yup that’s it… no need to worry about pushing US democracy just surfing…
Yikes, Doc…that sounds more like work than play. I guess which it is would depend on who’s funding the project, though.
I guess if I had ten years to play with I would go with softboard technology. Wouldn’t ten years take us through a couple of technology improvement cycles in new materials? Reading about Surflight manufacturing steps makes that sound so complicated, but some of the steps should be adaptable. Softboards would invariably lead into built-in controllable flex tech. But then it seems to me the number one problem with “contemporary” softboards is a lack of commitment to making progressive designs (i.e. performance in any surfboard design catagory). Or maybe that’s just a marketing thing where the manufacturers don’t want to try to sell them as being “real” boards? I haven’t tried them all. Maybe for ten years I’d just try to sub-fund decent ideas and then buy magazine ads saying that it really is okay to ride something non-standard…
Maybe I’d just spend ten years buying magazine ad space telling surfers to lighten up and try having some fun…or fund “contests” with laughable judges and no competition but big beer gardens and a lot of different surfboards available to ride. We used to have these things called “car bashes” when I was in high school - they would sell three whacks with a sledgehammer on whatever dead or dying car was the victim of the day…for a dollar back then? Something similar to that would certainly go a long way to settling the durability debates, not to mention being fun.
Alot of venture capialists are from silicon valley in CA, I wouldnt be surprise if some were surfers. i think what you would need to do is alot of market research and cost analysis, get some backing from the big manufacturers and see how much demand there is, write up a business plan and hopefully you could get some investors. If there is a program out there for sailing I don’t think it would be so hard to program it for surfboards, same fluid dynamics and equations…I’m surprised there isn’t a program out there already…If they already poured millions into research for sailing purposes, it might not even be that costly to reverse engineer the program for surfboards…Just my two cents, I only have limited experience with this stuff. Some one who has more experience in programming or engineering might know more about it.
shoot if i got a government grant i would run down to clark and pick up a few hundred blanks and go nuts. think of all the weird shapes you could try out if money was no issue.
*Wetsuit Idea
I may great giving this one up, but hey…who ever makes it can give me a million bucks…
I’d make a wetsuit that heats up like those electric blankets do…Then I’d put a car battery inside by board with an outlet to provide power and shark defense. Imagine a great white taking a chunk out of your board and getting jolted 15 feet in the air…that’ll teach em…
I just thought of another really GOOOOOOOD one…too good to share, but I’ll post the proto-type in a few years! I’m going to be ritch!
Cheers,
Austn