Thinking about doing a standard nose concave to full shallow concave or triple concave on my next 9’6" longboard with shortboard type tucked edges with hard edges in tail area (with 2 + 1 fin set up).
Thinking this will give the board some “pumpability” and down the line speed. Don’t know if this will hinder manueverability.
Has anyone tried this combination and what were the results?
There is a shaper up in CC that runs his nose concave out into a channel like run to the V in the tail. It looks to be about 8 inches wide and maybe 1/4 inch deep. He too has hard edges through out and he labels these boards as high performance. Most of his shapes are over 10’ and a little thick. I dont know if it works, havent seen 'em in the water.
I did shape a long board a few years back that had a slight concave throughout the bottom and it tended to track when paddling into a wave and was a bit of work to get it on rail. Might have been some thing else doing it though, board was weird and one of my first.
You can take a single component such as the concave bottom design to which you refer and combine with suitable tail rocker, outline curve, rail foil, fin set, etc up to make a ripper. The combination you come up with will be key.
My current longboard (custom from Mike Russo/Rusty that is 8’6 x 22.25 17.5N 14T) has fairly deep single to double concaves with shortboard rails. It has plenty of nose and tail rocker, and has excellent down the line speed,as it can be pumped like a big shortboard, and is very maneuverable. I ride it with 3.5" sidebites and a 7" Dale Dobson fin from Fins Unlimited.
Steve Walden has been using that bottom design for decades on his longboards, which are known for their speed…
http://www.waldensurfboards.com/96-Epoxy-Magic-Model-P591C51.aspx
During that ultra high performance longboard period of the mid to late 90’s it seemed like Stewart had some proven triple concave designs.
I remember older guys grumbling " thats not a longboard" and " get rid of the training wheels"
Ride what you want but don’t be a wavehog. Surf with Aloha.