Nose Riding- "nose blades"

I briefly saw a board in the lineup last weekend that had what appeared to be a large bead of sanding resin applied on the bottom of the board around the perimeter of the nose. Maybe 1/4" bead inboard about 1.5" from rail line, 6" back from nose and extending 12-18" on both sides of the board down the rail. Seems that these “nose blades” are tiny edges used while noseriding to give some directional control from the tip. Anyone got any tips on applying this design element on a board. Does it work better on a noserider design or enhance the tip time on a performance type design. (Gene Gore are you here yet?) Tom Sterne

I briefly saw a board in the lineup last weekend that had what appeared to > be a large bead of sanding resin applied on the bottom of the board around > the perimeter of the nose. Maybe 1/4" bead inboard about 1.5" > from rail line, 6" back from nose and extending 12-18" on both > sides of the board down the rail. Seems that these “nose blades” > are tiny edges used while noseriding to give some directional control from > the tip. Anyone got any tips on applying this design element on a board. > Does it work better on a noserider design or enhance the tip time on a > performance type design. (Gene Gore are you here yet?)>>> Tom Sterne Tom, Long, dual 1/4" tall blades positioned like that can definitely assist with lateral nose control if youre moving across a wave fast enough, and can even feel and work like a slight panel concave... I have used them on surfboards, kneeboards, paipos and my triplane bodyboards (see Swaylocks "experimental" boards section) for many years and well before that, George Greenough was using them on his carbon graphite kneeboards; mine have been rubber, vinyl or polyester/epoxy, Georges were wood. Today, they can be seen molded in many places on the bottom of high speed wakeboards. Dale

This brings to mind “speed beads” that Tom Morey wrote about a long time ago. His theory wasn’t so much nose riding improvement however. He was trying to deflect the water off the bottom in strategic locations to reduce wetted area and in turn, reduce drag. They may have directed water in a linear flow towards the back of the board and increased speed that way as well. I think Harbour’s channel nose may be designed to improve nose riding fuction too. Weber and Mctavish (to name two) have used nose slots also.>>> Long, dual 1/4" tall blades positioned like that can definitely > assist with lateral nose control if youre moving across a wave fast > enough, and can even feel and work like a slight panel concave... I have > used them on surfboards, kneeboards, paipos and my triplane bodyboards > (see Swaylocks "experimental" boards section) for many years and > well before that, George Greenough was using them on his carbon graphite > kneeboards; mine have been rubber, vinyl or polyester/epoxy, Georges were > wood. Today, they can be seen molded in many places on the bottom of high > speed wakeboards.>>> Dale