what would happen if you put like fcs plugs or likea fin box on both rails of your board mabie like half a fin length up from your front fins on your thruster, either at 180 degrees to the board or like 160 or something to help with the long, drawn out, rail turns. Would this work?
Wow, good imagination… sounds like fins that would really act like horizontal wings. I don’t know where to start with this one but if you’ve ever ridden one of thos chair hydrofoils dragged behind a boat… you have to concentate on balancing your weight forward and backward to resist hi-powered pearl dives… on the other hand if you got it wired you could produce some ridiculous vertical lift for airs… but they could slow you down the rest of the time. IMHO FCS would be to fragile for that application.
Ummm, try it! With removable fin systems you could always take them out if it didn’t work out.
cheers,
Brennan
but do you think it would be worth it to try and get boxes into a curved rail? or should I specally shape the rails so its like a flat spot or something? and if I ever got around to it it probally would be about next summer, so that was one of the reasons for asking.
Yeah, a completely different rail design would be in order… Tom Morey’s Swizzles withe the “TNT” rails might be a good jumping off point… another interesting concept. His rails have a flat spot that twists. I think the concept behind the design is to do the same thing your talking about - hold the face of the wave on a turn.
this picture isn’t great but here is the rail description from Tom’s website:“The T.N.T. stands for Twisted ‘N’ Tapered. These rails are flat double chined planes which, like a body-board, cling to the wave’s face when they are supposed to, but are easily released or engaged on demand for improved turning and speed. This rail angle is steep in the rear for greater release, shallow in front for better feed.” http://tommorey.com/yhp7.html
I just can’t quantify how much a new idea is worth… when I run with a new idea I make many mistakes on my way to a final product I’m happy with - but this is the fastest way to learn.
I think Ambrose said it best when he said something like: ‘Learning is just that, a learning process, if you get it right the first time you didn’t learn as much.’
cheers,
Brennan
http://www.drewbrophy.com/conceptBoards.htm Check out “The Tail”
Somewhere around '69 I place some fins like frog legs, hanging 45 degrees off center, in line with the stringer…and it worked just fine.
Rode it a couple of days thinking I was onto something, then one day, I forgottenly waxed up with pressure…oops. Didn’t try it again, ran out of ideas.
I think I remember this idea done in about '72? Maybe called the Rocketship or Rockettail? Thin runners resined into the rail of the tail? Maybe Craig Hayward? Anyways, never caught on and was rapidly replaced by “wingers”. I for one, wouldn’t want to be anywhere close to 'em during any loss of control. Can you say Vegematic?
I’m not quite sure of the year… Steve Walden had them on some of his longboards maybe in '83-'84? I think it was an early “Magic Model” - nose wings, rail fins in the tail and a concave bottom/step deck that blended into a glass spoon nose. Some of his team guys had them at a contest in Santa Cruz.
About 10 years ago, saw one of Derek Hynd’s boards, a Frye fish, that had a rail fin on the forehand side. Was told he got the idea from something that Bunker Spreckles tried back in the day.