Aside from new applications of old ideas and their refinement, what mysteries remain in surfcraft design?
nanotechnology?
microprocessor controlled fin warp?
white carbon fiber?
every-day hydrofoil surfing?
boards that fly 50 yards off a 6 foot aerial?
boards grown hydroponically?
refrigerator lights that stay on when the door closes?
longboards with no leashes?
I give up. What are they?
how they work and why. Everybody has a pet theory…or several… but nobody has any proof.
For instance : what are the side fins on a thruster doing? Theres tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of thrusters out there, most of 'em seem to work, but how are they doing it? Toe-in vs cant vs lift…
Another one: concave - what does it really do? Not the Ohhh, duude, it does _____ version, I’m talking about something you can put numbers to.
the list goes on…
That’s easy Buoyancy & Foil. Everything else is just variations on the combinations.
Tom - You’ve just summed up in 3 words what I have been struggling to explain for years! What mystifies me lately are more personal subjects like where is my hair going, how is my spare tire self-inflating and where has my “get up and go” gone?
The Golden Ratio.
…what´s next?..surfin but without a surfboard, with an apparatus controlled by micro or nano chips installed on your feet.
you may float paddle and surfin with these…
you can afford all types of moves or tricks… all you can image in your head you can translate to these without any mechanical or physical problems or contradictions…it´s like… imagine a song (melody)but not be able to play that
Howzit Keith, At Hanalei we have a saying " No cords on longboards " so we can eliminate that one. Aloha, Kokua
Howzit Kokua - yes, I know, I think we must bring the Hanalei way - NO CORDS ON LONGBOARDS - here to Southern California. It’s an uphill battle all the way…
Ok with you if I put that saying on T-shirts and hand them out here?
I dunno man… I don’t surf a lot of longboard spots, but when I do there usually seems to be a fair amount of guys out there that need a lot more help than a leash.
Howzit Keith, Go ahead and use it there's no copywrite protection. The no cords on long boards is a compromise for the short boarders who used to cry about LBer's being able to paddle faster back to the line-up and therefore get more waves. This way if they lose their board they swim, and at hanalei that can take a while. The trick is don't fall and swim and the shorties can't B*&#h about it. Just another day at the Bay. Aloha, Kokua
How about a board that changes its shape as you are riding and the wave changes and contorts. Squeezes into a rounded pin as the wave steepens and begins to throw then flattens out into a fish or egg to glide over the flatter spots and then becomes a Slater-chip so the kids ( and Herb) can launge an air as the wave closes-out.
It’s a mystery to me, especially with the wealth of proven scientific data available on hydrofoils and leading and trailing edge characteristics, that all average surfboard fins are still only average surfboard fins.
So Wildy…watcha got?
I’ve had quite a bit of stuff for a while, but being subconsiously egotistical like most boardmakers, I have kept it to myself for a long time, and only satisfied myself and friends who were interested enough. Computer refined symetrical and asymetrical foil co-ordinates, optimum angles of attack, release angles, even stuff I don’t fully understand, bubble warnings etc. Curved outlines have been replaced by straight edges reducing induced turbulence.
Most, actually all of the fin systems I made were moulded for accuracy. They should be CNC machined. Hand-made the early prototypes with the help of the engineer who gave me the info. I then made knock-out fin box systems and have ideas for moulded radius inserts among other things.
The bottom line for me is they work better than anything I’ve ever made in over twenty five years boardmaking and experimenting with fins. There will be critics, I’m sure, and that’s okay. There’s always a critic.
After frequenting swaylocks for a while, and realising I was never going to start up a fin company, I realise perhaps it’s time to let go. Problem is my paperwork info is back in Oz and I won’t be back there till June.
Anyone interested please have patience for a few months and I will post what I can. I even have some reasonable video footage I can hopefully post. (Just to show it works)
We’re always open to new ideas and if someone actually adds value, then they should get compensation for their efforts. The problem usually comes down to generating enough demand to afford reasonable compensation.
Dale, Is the question you are asking rhetorical? TB
There will be no pinnacle board in our lifetimes or maybe any lifetime things change and will evolve past our 100 year allotments. Because of this ‘the journey is the goal not the destination’ cheesy cliche makes sense. I guess a cyclic yet forward evolution until man finally self-destructs. Well at least the the waves and wind will always be there.
Experimentation to me shouldn’t be for acclaim or compensation, its fun and keeps me stoked on a presonal level and curious to get out there instead of rotting indoors. The pursuit of acclaim is pretty ludicrous considering we are each one of trillions with only a century to mess around.
It is cool that people share their ideas and findings though because that allows all of us to experience different sensations of speed and control and intimacy with the ocean away from mankinds’ shortcomings and burdens and so forth.
shapesandhulls…
I was just curious to see different replies. The key word was “mysteries”… something that baffles understanding and cannot be explained.
This subject is also interesting because in many ways, surfing and wavecraft design are closed systems. We`ll never move with the natural grace of fish, marine mammals or birds. Yet we still seek freedom within our limitations, riding the gossamer layer between air and water.
Dale, I asked about your question because I have notice that in some of your previous musings your questions were loaded. I thought that perhaps someone had discovered “an original idea”. If surfing is a closed system as you describe it we must be satisfied with incremental improvements to the elements that make up the human and material aspects of wave riding. The waves will be waves in all their various forms. As for my own curiosity, I like to think I can still be optimistic and consider the possibilities. For example one the other respondents to your question mentioned nano technology. Our heads spin at (merely) the ability of machines to process combinations of 1’s and 0’s. Imagine materials in whose molecules were encoded with all the data necessary and programmed to perform let’s say… (You fill in the blank)(No pun intended). This is not to far off in the future as machines are running out of the ability to process binary numbers. So looking just at the possibilities for materials, maybe we are just scratching the surface. I am somewhat of an optimist. I like to use the analogy of Alice in wonderland when she gets to the fork in the road and she asks the Cheshire Cat which way she should go. The Cat responds “It depends on which way you want to go”(paraphrase). So at that point Alice’s apparent choices are to go to the left or to the right, but there are really at least two other choices that are somewhat less apparent. She could stand right where she was and go nowhere or she could turn around and go back, or…. She could go straight between the fork into uncharted territory. I think that is why the Cat is grinning. If surfing or any other endeavor seeks to make a quantum break it must solve mysteries and consider where it wants to go… I realize this reply is mostly philosophical but it is a good place to start. Keep the discussion going. Thanks
TB