Limitations of modern shortboards (based on obs from pro tour)

General Discussion
1

This has been rattling round my brain like an old tin can after seeing the Aussie leg of the Pro tour and a few comments from Mike Daniel and Paul Cannon on other threads.

I’m wondering if anyone else is seeing the limitations of modern high performance shorties as ridden by the pros and questioning whether they really are riding the best equipment for the conditions on any given day.

You often hear the comment in relation to new tech and designs : “Well if it was that good the Pros would be riding it”.

I think after seeing the Snapper and Bells comps that the Pros are locked into a very narrow and confining set of design parameters that is in fact holding the progression of surfing back, particularly in less than ideal conditions.

Examples?

Watching big Jordy Smith, the supremely talented South Effrican bogging and struggling on undersized equipment in weak waves at D-Bah and Snapper, when slight increases in planshape area (ie volume) would have had him planing and flying.

Watching the pros struggle in onshore, flat-faced sloping waves at Bells on their thin, rockered 6’1"s when changes to their equipment might have yielded much better results.

It seems to me the whole concept of a quiver has no meaning on the WCT (Pipe and Chopes excepted) and since the disapperance of Tom Curren from the Tour pros now ride the same 6’!"s in every comp regardless of the conditions.

What really cemented this thought was the slight contrast in equipment ridden by Kelly Slater. During the Snapper comp he rode a shorter, wider swallowtail and had so much extra speed and flow available at his disposal in the small weak point waves which he used to devastating effect…making guys half his age look stupid.

Just for good measure he repeated the dose at Bells using similar (or the same) equipment.

Are the pros and their shapers that ignorant or myopic that they can’t see the design benefits of a slightly open mind when it comes to equipment choices that respond to the prevailing conditions?

Slater is making them look like amateurs yet again by application of the most rudimentary intelligence when it come to what is the most suitable surfboard to ride on any given day.

This is not esoteric knowledge either…this is stuff that has been known and proven time and time again.

It’s almost as if pro surfing has become an anti-evolutionary force in surfboard design.

Anyway…not that it really matters a phuck to me…just felt like throwing it out there and seeing if anyone else felt like riffing on the subject.

Steve

2

A lot of competition surfing’s gotten as repetitive as the equipment (or maybe its the other way around?). Its probably the nature of being on the tour, and of judging criteia, and who knows what else… I don’t follow it very closely any more.

But, for what its worth, on any given day at the crappy little beachbreak down the street, which happens to be the home break of Davey Smith, his son Brandon, Bobby Martinez and now Tom Curren and his boys Pat and Frank, as well as a crew of other young rippers, will show a fine level of performance surfing on all types of boards. Just the other day Tom was out on a piece of wood- 7 feet long by 16 inches wide. Ripping, of course. Its pretty cool!

3

You can debate the merits of slight tweaks in board parameters that would benefit pros in a given condition but in the end they have to pack maybe ten boards a week in advance based what they think the surf will be doing and live with that decision. Will they pack 10 different shapes? No way, they will pack maybe 3 or 4 reliable shapes that they know will work for them in what they predict the surf to be and some backups of their favorites in case they break.

Professional competitive surfing is not about pushing the development of better equipment but about the ability to shop up and blow up at any given break at the time they are here with the equipment they have at the time. There has been a lot of talk in the recent past about pro surfing. To me these guys are limiting their equipment choices, not because they don’t know that there are more alternatives out there, but because they need to know their equipment intimately. If you pack a quiver of 20 boards with 10 shapes you can end up second guessing yourself and riding something that you do not know like the back of your hand. You end up losing not because of your skill but because you’re not familiar with what you’re riding.

4
Quote:

Professional competitive surfing is not about pushing the development of better equipment but about the ability to shop up and blow up at any given break at the time they are here with the equipment they have at the time. There has been a lot of talk in the recent past about pro surfing. To me these guys are limiting their equipment choices, not because they don’t know that there are more alternatives out there, but because they need to know their equipment intimately. If you pack a quiver of 20 boards with 10 shapes you can end up second guessing yourself and riding something that you do not know like the back of your hand. You end up losing not because of your skill but because you’re not familiar with what you’re riding.

Hey, Kim I respectfully disagree with you. These guys do nothing but surf. If they can’t dial in a better board for small, sloppy point breaks in the two and a half months between Pipe and the start of Snapper then they are pretty phuckin limited in general intelligence and at a disadvantage to a guy like Slater who can.

About 90% of the waves I saw ridden during these two comps were ridden at what I would estimate to be 70% of max. performance. I saw two aerials successfully landed, one of which was the winning wave by Slater in the Bells’ Final.

I don’t think your arguement holds water and in fact the recent example of Slater disproves it. ie Why could he dial in a better small wave surfboard and not anybody else?

5
Quote:

But, for what its worth, on any given day at the crappy little beachbreak down the street,

What beach break ?

6
Quote:
Quote:

But, for what its worth, on any given day at the crappy little beachbreak down the street,

What beach break ?

In English: Donkey Gulch

edit: That would be Donkey Creek

(My Spanish es muy malo)

7

im starting to think that on any given day at any given beachbreak

yur gunna see some more inspirational surfing then you will see on the tour

but i guess this predictable simplicity is what appeals to the people that “watch sport”

rather then participate in sport

look at NZ and there almost psychotic addiction to watching rugby

you know fat lounge lizards that drink beer and hog down kentucky duck all the way to an early grave

yet are seemingly experts on the game,fitness, player ability and show an overwhelming loyalty to the “brands” associated

with the sport

with surfing, the more it becomes mainstream for this kind of audience

the more it must conform to the desires of the audiences needs

they need to understand it

you cant have some 16 yo join the tour rookie year and be doing backside air reverses on 20 inch wide disks

they audience just wouldnt get it

they want see the “name” do the routine

8

I remember questioning the choice of the boards the pros were riding at Bells a couple of years ago when it was solid in a thread and getting no response.

Good to see a well thought piece of reasoning getting some attention.

I’m with you.

Maybe they are all scared of becoming another Cheyne.

(Solo can chime in on this one).

9

The thing with Slater is simple and comes down to three things:

A) he’s a freak

B) he’s from Florida so learning to excel in crappy surf has been his life

C) he has more corporate backing than anyone else on tour (he essentially IS Quiksilver).

As far as dialing in off season stuff, a lot of these guys spend their off season surfing anything but crappy beach breaks. Is this the best way to make stab at the title? Probably not. If you look at recent trends the guys who actually TRAIN, versus going on boat trips, etc, are the guys who are making it.

I love to watch professional surfing but I do not have any illusion that it represents the other 99.5% of the surfing world.

10

I can see where you are coming from. In less than optimal conditions, the pro chip can be quite limiting. With regards to Bells this year, look at the difference between the bowl and the rest of the wave. Take a board like the Merrick Sashimi, the board works well in knee high slop and weak gutless waves like the section between the Bells bowl and the inside. Put that board in the bowl where the big points will be scored, and you are really going to see the pro struggle.

I think a more important place to look regarding this issue is the wqs where contest are held in less than optimal conditons. There is a local kid who I watch surf all the time, who can do a 360 reverse airs any day in NJ regardless of the conditions. what does he ride? anorexic rockered out potato chip.

If anyone says that the top 44(and some of the amazing freesurfers like Jamie Obrein) arn’t breaking performance barriers in good waves is kidding themselves.

11

If history repeats itself, there may be a time when someone rides a different board from the rest and manages to beat the others at their own game.

Rolf Aurness in 1970 comes to mind. Riding a board quite a bit longer than the norm, he won the world championship at Bell’s/Johanna.

“There, in dwindling daylight, on May 13, 1970, Aurness rode his 6’10” Bing Foil to the World Title, clearly dominating the rest of the pack, most of whom rode shorter boards."

http://www.surfline.com/surfaz/surfaz.cfm?id=751

12

I think a lot of it is the safety blanket syndrome. Pro’s get used to winning on a particular board and they become afraid to ride anything else, regardless of the conditions. The reason Slater was able to change boards was he really doesn’t care if he wins or loses, so he’s free from those mental shackles. I do it too, I’ll have a favourite board and I’ll ride it in eveything just because I was ripping on it in my last session. Interesting though how the Bells contest got good when they shifted to Winki - which is a wave more suited to what most of them ride. Like Slater said, they should run the contest at Winki. 80% of the time it’s a better wave. This natural ampitheatre shit is meaningless when they can stream contests live online.

13

When you have a tour whose sole purpose it to promote clothing or the big business side of the industry. Your going to have problems. Twig Thrusters are easy to shape and sell in mass, they fit on retail racks more and they look racey. It’s just part of the larger circle of promotion with the illusion of fairness and drama. What should we expect?

14

True, the tour promotes big surf business, but then again their ones picking up the tab for the contests. It does not however promote big board business (at least not to the same level). You’re not gonna see the Channel Islands Pro at Teahupoo or the JC Pipemasters. I’m an avid tour fan and can only tell you what brand maybe a quarter of the pros ride, and that’s not set in stone. Some of them actually change board brands based upon where they surf, especially in Europe and Brazil.

As far as alternative shapes, many of them do ride things like quads when not competing but I don’t think anyone has ridden one yet on the CT. Last year (I think) CJ won the US Open on a quad though.

15
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True, the tour promotes big surf business, but then again their ones picking up the tab for the contests. It does not however promote big board business (at least not to the same level). You’re not gonna see the Channel Islands Pro at Teahupoo or the JC Pipemasters. I’m an avid tour fan and can only tell you what brand maybe a quarter of the pros ride, and that’s not set in stone. Some of them actually change board brands based upon where they surf, especially in Europe and Brazil.

As far as alternative shapes, many of them do ride things like quads when not competing but I don’t think anyone has ridden one yet on the CT. Last year (I think) CJ won the US Open on a quad though.

Still 95% of them ride 6’1’’ or so…11 x 18 1/4 x 13 1/2 Skinny nose…wider tail. Like the Talking heads song says…Same as it ever was.

Uniformity is a must for what they do. Unfortunately. It’s a colletive mindset. I have nothing against the pointed little boards for those that can ride them well and enjoy it. I still ride them sometimes when the surf is good.

16

Interesting thread. I’ve wondered about it myself. I love a more carving style of surfing (Tom Curren comes to mind…Derek Hynd at J Bay…rastovich…). Instead the ASP is about the snap/hack/slide. A big move…that basically stops the surfer in his tracks rather than keeping the speed and flow going.

I went to the ASP site to see how they were judged and I really liked this from the first sentence- “…Speed, Power and Flow…” (their capitizqation). I don’t see the Flow…

That said, the best surfer I see at my local beachie is a 48 year old grom, probably 6’-2" tall and skinny. He catches 4 waves to everyone else’s one, never falls and somehow is always going fast and throwing spray out the back and gets rides all the way to the beach. What’s he ride? 6’-1" x 18-1/2" x 2-1/4" squash tail thruster.

17

Very interesting thread. I had the same conversation yesterday. Slater turned up at bells with a 5’10 and a 6,0 , I think it was 6 to 8 feet. I have been doing some research because we have a guy here on the qs and I was going to do a board for him to try.I was thinking 6,3 or 6’5 but will go 6’0 as this is all he is riding. They seem to be going short and putting huge fins in so they hold. At places like Margaret river where a bigger board alows longer carving turns they are still riding this really short equipment. I personally don’t agree with this concept and the pro’s seem to be following slater who has been riding ultra short for a long while. maybe they need to go outside the box.

18
Quote:

The thing with Slater is simple and comes down to three things:

A) he’s a freak

B) he’s from Florida so learning to excel in crappy surf has been his life

C) he has more corporate backing than anyone else on tour (he essentially IS Quiksilver).

As far as dialing in off season stuff, a lot of these guys spend their off season surfing anything but crappy beach breaks. Is this the best way to make stab at the title? Probably not. If you look at recent trends the guys who actually TRAIN, versus going on boat trips, etc, are the guys who are making it.

I love to watch professional surfing but I do not have any illusion that it represents the other 99.5% of the surfing world.

I disagree with the whole assessment that Slater is a freak and thus somehow not playing by the same rules as the rest of the mortals ( the other top 44 WCT surfers).

Slater is a supremely talented surfer who is able to play the contest game better than anyone else but other surfers in the world closed the performance gap on him a long time ago. That is. in a freesurfing session there are now many, many surfers who could be the best in the water with Slater out there.

Slater’s genius extends into the tactical realm and now by subtle shifts in design he has again found a performance advantage in certain conditions.

As far as training in crappy beachbreaks for a shot at the title this is a time honoured and proven technique for gaining a world title. Tom Carroll used to surf the worst waves he could find to train for his two titles when the world tour “climaxed” in crappy Sydney beachbreaks.

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the Goldy but in between swells there is a very high likelihood you will be surfing either weak, sloppy pointbreaks or shitty D-Bah. Therefore if I was a WCT surfer I would think it a very sound investment to have my small wave act (including surfboards) totally honed before the Snapper conny.

2 out of the last 3 Snapper contests have bben decided in weak waves, both of which were won by…you guessed it…Kelly Slater.

Sure Slater grew up surfing weak waves in Florida but how much time would he spend surfing them now? Not much I would suggest. Not when you have the wherewithal to surf the best waves in the world at your disposal.

I think it is merely an application of superior intelligence for him to realise that by tweaking his small wave quiver he could gain an enormous performance advantage over his rivals.

The question is , why are the rest of the Top 44 so locked into their narrow design parameters that they can’t also similarly adapt?

Steve

19
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Very interesting thread. I had the same conversation yesterday. Slater turned up at bells with a 5’10 and a 6,0 , I think it was 6 to 8 feet. I have been doing some research because we have a guy here on the qs and I was going to do a board for him to try.I was thinking 6,3 or 6’5 but will go 6’0 as this is all he is riding. They seem to be going short and putting huge fins in so they hold. At places like Margaret river where a bigger board alows longer carving turns they are still riding this really short equipment. I personally don’t agree with this concept and the pro’s seem to be following slater who has been riding ultra short for a long while. maybe they need to go outside the box.

This is more about planshape and slight increases in area which give massive increases in planing ability and speed generation rather than length.

By having slightly more width in the planshape up front under his chest (and thus more parallel outline) Slater can utilise more of his rail line thus effectively enlarging the wave size range that a given board will perform in, whilst at the same time the board is still very manouvreable because it is so short.

Most of the pros boards are so narrow nosed that their effective rail line is diminished…the nose is out of the way for modern moves in the lip but cant’ have any pressure applied to it during a carving turn. The design works perfectly in clean waves with adequate shape but is limited in flatter faced waves where the lack of planing surface under the front foot causes them to slow down between moves.

It ain’t rocket science.

Surely Merrick and Slater aren;'t the only two guys to figure this out.

Steve

20
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The question is , why are the rest of the Top 44 so locked into their narrow design parameters that they can’t also similarly adapt?

Steve

Because they are sheep following the bell of the same goats that pay them. Were a surfer to break out of the pack the way a couple of others have…they would be penalized the way those were. I heard from many who saw him that some of the best surfing on the north shore one winter was by Curren on single fins…but you never saw that in a contest.