Okay, I went to the Hydroepic site and read some of their tech stuff. In particular "Center of Gravity
The center of gravity is the fundamental pivot point of the surfboard - the point on which the board would balance. By locating the center of mass, surfers can more easily find the “sweet spot” of their board.
Well, that’s not so. The main forces are the lift from the bottom, the rider’s weight from above, and the board’s weight. Each of these can be taken as a vector, and the resultant of these will NOT act through the board’s center of gravity.
Very ture. All of these forces are dynamic, not static. In addition, as in aerodynamics/hydrodynamics, it is the everchanging relationship between the center of gravity and center of pressure that creates relative stability.
“Hydro uses aluminum honeycomb in the skin to get the flex - radical, but expensive!”
Can’t resist…and I know it wasn’t aluminum back then…but W.A.V.E. Hollow boards 3 decades ago…Aquajet Honeycomb at that time too…just a nod to some from earlier down the line…
Nels
(Apparently I saw part of the future in 1972- always wondered where it went!)
how about aluminum honeycomb filled with polyester foam for a skin…alot of new different stuff around…what can be used for a surfboard and how is the big question…but I think its time we’ve moved far away for the 1930’s technology we’ve been lingering on…
Hmmm, hybrid cores and hybrid skin sandwiches, mix and match, why not, flex and spring or solid and shapely, curves and flats, ebony and ivory - living in perfect harmony. Hee Hee.
Stiff and flexible? Whatha? Hey Nels, I think we’ve been here before… dayjahvuuu.
Stiff and flexible? Whatha? Hey Nels, I think we’ve been here before… dayjahvuuu
;-)…and I thought it was pretty good even back then! The problem has been, throughout surfing history, that the businesses who put forth major technological changes frequently don’t get the opportunity to stick around long enough to work through flaws, weaknesses, and evolve into better “generations” of product.
It takes money, and to very crudely paraphrase what oneula perceptively said either in this thread or another, you have to be able to take care of business. It may not be the easy way, but it’s the Cowboy Way, my friends.
My mother, on her only return to Hawaii as an adult after living there in the early 1930’s, seemed surprised that surfers still had to wax their boards…not that she and her brothers waxed the redwood and koa boards they shared. She had followed surfing as it came to be more and more popular and we spent a lot of time at the beaches in Ventura and Santa Barbara. She naturally figured that somewhere between the 50’s and 60’s somebody would have made wax obsolete. It seems such a simple thing. The year she asked me this, on the beach at Waikiki in front of the Moana (one of the very few landmarks she recognized), was 1970.
Nowit’s 2005, 35 years later…and what’s the one thing everybody who has a surfboard needs on a daily basis…still?
Funny I said the same thing when I picked up the Aviso 6’2"… Having 3 surftechs at home I commented that I really hate the way the super light surftechs rode… With that the owner smiled at me and said it’s not about lightness… it’s about engineering flex together with lightness. You get the punch and acceleration from properly engineering flex into the board… Something he said Aviso and Surftech hadn’t figured out. Same thing Bert and Greg have been telling us all along same thing Dale’s mat’s are showing alot of guys too… In fact his boards were heavier than both but he was working on trying to get the weight down on his boards to compliment his design. Aviso was giving him some options that he copuld use in his designs…
You know the problem is everyone(including myself) seems to be looking for some magic bullet solution that’s gonna make them surf like slater or curren… Well like the magic single cure for cancer, it ain’t gonna happen cause there’s so many components so many variables. Like Honolulu said forget about the equipment just learn how to surf and understand the ocean better. I bet you Curren or Slater could look at a wave and tell you more about whats going on than you could ever comprehend.
What we all seem to not see past our “if it ain’t broke why fix it?” is that there are many sports industry proven efficient ways to produce a better product. To see a high performance surfboard better than any production model made out of materials that have nothing to do with current surfboard manufacturing is a definite eye opener for me.
The take away out of all this is that there are guys out there slaving away improving the way they make these things that want to have nothing to do with Sways or the rest of the “hey! look what I made ain’t I grand” crowd…They’re just doing their thing, thinking out of the box and learning as they go. The fact that they really don’t care about the rest of us or if their ideas make them a huge success cause their personal life and family values come first earns my full respect hands down. Family first… Everything else second
Like some one said here when the time comes things will be revealed but it’s up to the tinkerers to make that decision like Bert did in going to Qland to share his knowledge. I just pray that there’s not some “Economic Hit Man” hiding on the sideline waiting to burn him like Gary Young got burned.
The joy in the journey is the discoveries along the way and not in the final destination. Like alot of us newbies I know I’ve learned so much more these past 6 months from my many mistakes than anything anyone could’ve told me here or elsewhere. There’s no real shortcuts in my opinion so why keep asking for them…
The one magic lesson or factor I’ve learned that’s never discussed anywhere is the essence and importance of time…
…also, think in the jet age ´50´s ´60´s, all the FUTURISTIC materials and design (cars, gear, houses, etc), man, then in few years all the talk and blah blah were gone…every decade or time have got a personal VIEW of the future…
…Polystirene, carbon fibres, aramid fibres, etc are not the el dorado! for G .S! man this and the other plastics are in the market for decades…the CHANGE is in the PROCESS…this is the change.
…in other way i dont like the wine in a PET !!! bottle. These materials are industry crap, equal to PU polyester resin, etc… the process man the process. we ll try to involve in other build process
WE are the community socialistas, the incessant chatter and the buzz that’s blowin’ in the wind. The future (change) has a voice and that is the family at Swaylocks. The guys that are gonna make that change need their inspiration and directions and intentions and learning experience to be IMPECCABLE. Look that one up. I personally got side-tracked by Cerritos College, and the perception of surfers is chopper guns and polyESTER resin and cavemen. What can I do? We’ll see, the future is not yet written. Is it worth the little detour to leave a well-marked trail for a young person to find a path that is more clearly marked by us here with the blabbering voices or do I just put my head down and say every man and family for himself? Nah…
Process IS all of us, we are the dynamic beyond the materials. Why couldn’t we cover our boards with cardboard and fiberglass strapping tape? Not elegant enough for the big plan? Why can’t we paddle into a wave on a piece of plywood? Not very marketable or splinters?
They may be watching us but we are watching them too. The general public can’t decipher what is hype from what is real usable technology and couldn’t test it for themselves anyway, but we can. Take a look at a new product, say B.S., ask has anyone tried this, say I did that once, or if it’s really interesting send in our 007 corporate espionage expert - Oneula. Let the big names watch, hopefully they’ll clue in, maybe throw a quick million into research, make some advances which we can figure out, test, and make a how-to post.
No, It’s more like daddio’s latest fantasy fiction thriller…
Red-Ass Monkey Island.
Where the people in control are so unimaginative that they’ve created a reality where they sit on their asses all day and give the monkeys some advanced materials and see what they come up with from behind the one-way mirror. Whoah Charlie, check out Number 580 (Burt Ruttan) He’s got some fancy flying contraption that looks promising, call the boss.
Oneula’s right about what really goes on. And until we can think up a “new” mode of transportation and energy source besides oil, we’re just a bunch of red-ass monkeys jumping up and down on the beach. “Nice stick, Bra (Dude)!”
They’re just doing their thing, thinking out of the box and learning as they go. The fact that they really don’t care about the rest of us or if their ideas make them a huge success cause their personal life and family values come first earns my full respect hands down
It would be interesting to point out some people like Morey and Pope came out of aeronautical engineering education and jobs. Surfers who are fully intergrated into what we laughingly call the “real world” can come away with both new perspective and knowledges the choir can only dream about. Simmons is another…of course when I say “fully intergrated” I mean more in the sense of being aware of it rather than locked into it.
Honest to God family values within the surfing lifestyle, far beyond the little league surfing Dad thing, is fairly cutting edge in surfing; part of the Pro/Recreational Divergence.
2 surfers go to college. One studies hydrodynamic engineering or materials, the other studies business. Who will bring more to the party?
Just got back from FL … lots of new stuff in the works. Had a three hour discussion with a guy named Keith Notary who makes racing cats and tris and was part of the technology duo which originally brought sandwich construction sailboards to the US (with Gary Efferding). Lots of good info on core materials there and some that will bring us further forward from where we are now.
I’m now working with and at (part time) Segway Compsites … they make the hollow carbon Kolstoff and Halen boards along with other composite products. Nothing written here is any surprise. There is so much pent up technology just waiting in the wings that no one should be shocked when it starts coming online. What’s the answer from our “leaders” when the inevitable advance happens? Bad mouth new tech! It’s always worked in the past.
The modern surfboard is a beautifly cosmetic relic passed down to us from men with far greater vision, knowledge and creativity than the “leaders” of today. The next generation of leaders will have to prove themselves with far greater challenges than todays pretenders that only continue to feed off the developments of the forefathers (Hobie, Greenough, Simon etc.).
Compare the last 24 years (1982 to present) with the 24 years before that (1956 to 1981). We went from wood to foam and fiberglass to mal boards to noseriders to shortboards to miniguns to down rails to twins to fish to no noses, back to twins to threes. From 1982 to today we’ve gone from three fins to … three fins. We’ve gone from urethane/polyester to … urethane/polyester. The only significant step forward in the evolution of surfboards in the last 24 years was the concave. The men we look to for advancment have feet of clay. We should all be ashamed!
With all the progress in technology through the past 30 years, with all the structural comosite advances and we still slop out the same crappy product using resins that pollute so bad they’re illegel. We should all be ashamed!
In the void of knowledge and creativity it seems the only answer to producing new product is to dredge up something from the past. Is this the best we can do? We should all be ashamed!
The present generation of top surfers are so incredibly clueless about surfboard design and composite construction that they are incapable of giving reliable feedback on what’s good or bad. The continued polishing of antique technology continues to cast a huge shadow over any real advancments keeping them in the dark. The almighty buck rules the pros carreers and stepping out of the ASP line is considered so tabboo, that any advance in equipment has ceased to exsist. They actually FEAR advance!!!??
What I saw in that short time was other sporting industries (Golf, Tennis, Cycling, snowboarding, etc.) pushing for newer and newer technology, always looking for the next best thing, Pushing the envelope of advancemnet, and acheiving it. I never heard, saw anything about surfboards (only waterskis… some of the stuff the do with those are pretty amazing… Big time R&D). I wasn’t exactly attuned to surfing as I am from the midwest and started surfing after college when I moved west… my point is that I had no idea that the industry was lacking in advancement because nobody told us or asked us (I would have been more interested in surfboards than golf balls). We need to get the word out. I think we might be surprised what can happen when more people take interest in this sport.
That being said. I think we will see change sooner than later. Hopefully sooner. I want to see what people have been working with (selfish curiosity). I personally am excited by it (from a scientific standpoint as I am not the best surfer by any means… so a tricked out stealth fighter skinned carbon core surfboard won’t exactly benifit me right now).
If you want to see the world change, you have to wait until the world is ready to change. If you really want to see change, you can do it for yourself right now. No need to wait for others.
