moves and shapes

General Discussion
1

How do you guys adapt the board your shaping to the moves the surfers your shaping them for do?

Lets say, for example:

What would be the difference between a board for a guy that surfs in a straight line, a board for a guy who is in to tubes, a guy that is into cutbacks, and one that is in to aerial (and so forth)?

If they all came to you and asked for a board the same size, would there be a difference in the shape of the board? And if so, how can we adapt the boards design to fit the surfers needs?

Thanks in advance

2

absolutly…

10 boards the same size , for the same size surfers …

1st board , fits the pocket only , good for sucky waves , top to bottom …

2nd board , is great for sucky waves to , doesnt like the pocket , but can hug the face high and train through barrels …

3rd board needs suck to work , can drop and climb deep in the pit hugs the face loves the bowl …

4th board can only be surfed in soft open waves , prefers cutbacks , floating soft sections , loves boosting…

you could go on and on , you could have a list of 20 boards …

your question is to open , even if you were given all the answers , it would still take 10 years to find the balance between all the variables for various conditions, rider styles , and rider preference for different moves …and all that is just the focus of good surfers for high performance surfing …

thats the beauty of having a career as a shaper , you wont learn everything about your job in the standard 4 years it takes to learn most trades…

ive been doing it over 20 years now and am probably learning more stuff each week and putting more of the puzzle together than i was in my first year of learning to build boards…

if you ask a question like that again … maybe ask for a more specific reason …

like good barrel board for a 70 kilo surfer , who drives off the tail , and wants to thread long deep barrels as opposed to pitching short bowls …

then you should get answers from others more closely related to what your asking…

regards

BERT

3

…well, this is where the shape design theories bring the basics…

…shaping a board is not only mow foam…

-basics:for a guy who rides straight line, -less overall rocker (he doesnt want maneouvers; doesnt need slalom), -more width in the back foot (seems that he s heavy), -fins without tilt, not pointed to the tip of the nose. etc

       -for tubes, may be more nose rocker less tail rocker,-flat bottom, -more rounded rails, -max width and wide middle up(depends on the board length),- fins without tilt and more parallel to the sringer, all the fins more back to the tail., etc 



       -for cutbacks may be add a hip in the outline..., etc
4

You’re right Bert, the question is to open to be answered, and i get what you’re saying about asking about specific cases.

Sorry for that! I’ll post back when i have a specific situation in mind!

I’m just trying to learn stuff in general and some times forget how complex it is to answer some vague questions like this one.

5

rail design and tail shape are what really adapts the board to the surfer (far more than the boards dimensions, IMHO).