Someone described the leading edge of a craft as being the first part of the hull to greet the oncoming water. Going by Naval Architecture of Planing Hulls this is also the part of the hull that generates the most lift. In a surfboard that is designed to stay high in the face and surf predominantly off one rail I would say the first part of the board to greet the oncoming water would be the rail. I’m assuming the part of the rail that would generate the most lift then would be around the widest point of the outline(?) as that is usually (using the term loosely) where the rail is the thickest.
The thickest part of the rail would also likely be the point where the most pressure or resistance (whichever way you like to look at it) is built. Once the pressure builds enough to overcome the obstacle in front of it (thickest part of the rail?) it shoots off the remainder of the rail at a higher speed than when it first came in. This area is where the rail usually straightens out. Or so I’ve come to believe. In plain English I’ve got too much time on my hands again but I though someone else find this bit of theory interesting. Real results will be posted before too much longer hopefully.
I’ll theorize that there is no actual acceleration possible–in terms of velocity of a water particle gaining speed–off any part of your surfboard, unless said water particle is enjoying a second of free fall and undergoing a momentary gravitational enhancement of said velocity.
Or if it was coming out of the vortational tunnel fin after travelling down the length of a quantum dolphin-kicking olo propulsion system/bananaboat.
Also Mike told me one key design criterion of a real high-performance surfboard is a really thinned out rail.
I’ve lovingly combined a few special (recognizable to the cognoscenti) keynotes of historical Sways elements here for my 2500th post.
Water that is stationary on the face of a wave, is accellerated to 37 mph by the time it reaches the exit point of an Olo tail rail. Surely you understand that! Don’t you? How could you have missed such a significant demonstration of quantum hydroetherial physics? I thought you knew better. Hee, hee. Oops!
following your theory do you think that additional speed might be a by product of better planing due to additional lift(?) provided by what I was blabbing about previously? And is water stationary when it is moving up the face?
One key design criteri…eh, whatever. You mean all the high performance surfing done on thicker Brewer rails and my all time thicker railed “Top Gun” that shredded in big Jalama wasn’t capable of high performance???
…damn, we all thought we were pretty high performance. Now you tell us.
Excuse me! was that verified by GPS, or is this another one of your assumptions!! I have personally verifed one of my surfboards going 65 MPH…and my leading edge wasn’t even touching to water!
