I’m planning a midlength for chest to overhead conditions at the mushy North SD County conditions where I surf. I don’t do real pitching waves so it’s not about that. I do want to cut through the winter chop a bit and this is a 15" nose so I’m thinking a touch of vee in the first 18" or so might not push TOO much water.
I’m soliciting opinions on the matter. Vee or no vee, and if there is vee how much and where?
You might want to go very soft on the V almost a roll just a touch 12" To 18 at most. If you can get down to Birds She’d check out what Caster was doing in the mid to late 70s. A touch of V with Flater Egg style rocker would make a chop cutting board.
A nose vee was a popular feature around '56/'57/'58. It was dropped in favor of a gentle belly. In many instances the vee nose would ‘‘track’’ on the drop, not in a favorable way for the rider. It just did not ‘‘cut the mustard’’, as the expression goes. I do not consider a vee in the nose, to be a positive design element, for the purpose you stated.
Artz, that’s exactly what I’m doing, a 2+1 eggy thing, with a moderate rocker and a UEO-style elliptical nose. I’m using a 6-11 Mitsven blank and just following the natural rocker.
My default for such a board would normally involve the same bottom that I put on fishes - flat with a real subtle chine and dropping into a shallow vee in the tail. But since Eaton was apparently using some nose vee in his UEO design I thought I’d run it by you guys because i’ve never tried it.
We, I helped design the UEO, used a soft rolled nose and slight crowned bottom. “Visually flat” would be the term…I still use these concepts. Bet you will never guess where the nose outline came from…
Well, you’re right about that - I can’t guess. But i’m always interested in your ideas on design.
The transition from the main curve at the wide point of the template to the nose cone has turned out to be the toughest combination I’ve ever attempted on the CAD software, and that’s WITH the ability to quickly do lots of iterations and check the renderings to further refine it. I can only imagine how long it took you guys to do it by hand and without a visual reference.
Back to the nose vee, in the design article on the UEO I was looking at the vee measurements topped out at 1/4" at the rail, which seems like a lot more than a subtle crown. I take it you guys eventually toned it down some as time passed?
“I can only imagine how long it took you guys to do it by hand and without a visual reference.”… The ''visual reference" was in in my head…Got to see it before you can shape it…The nose kinda smudged of a little more at the tip but still not too extreme. I SHAPED them until I left. After that there were a few different shaper scrubbers that came and went. Things might have changed a little after that. The UEO was a pretty basic surfboard with a slightly different outline from the racy pointy nose stuff at the time. Selling point was you could ride a little shorter board because all that was lost was a unnecessary point…We used to have some “interesting” brain trust surfboard design theory new idea sessions…
I do not know if it will generate the nose shape you want. But placing the midpoint of a half ellipse at the wide point of a template should create a seamless curve.
The curve is definitely seamless when you join two half-ellipses of different lengths at their midpoints (wide points).
Forgive me for saying so but the 1980s version in the book is more appealing to my eye than the ones currently being sold under the Eaton label. There’s another Eaton midlength in that book, too, which looks more similar to the baby longboards currently being sold. But I still like the curve on that older version as well.
The 1980’s version UEO were shaped by me. I left mid 1990’s After that I do not know…
Looking at some of the “new” twin fin boards and twinzerbeing presented as some radical deparcher from the past. Me thinks the Zinger was ahead of its time.
Some good info here. Like many threads this one goes slightly off course and and we find more Vains of gold. I have two Sups a touring SUP and what they call an all a rounder. The touring has av forward into a flat and a lot of v in Wide tail the forward V cuts chop and the board paddles much faster then the all around Board… A surfboard is different by the basics of moving water away from the board and not pushing it under the board would be the same.
Hi - One of the best paddle-in entry bottom I had was on an Eaton Longboard ‘fun-gun.’ It had a slight rolled belly that peaked perhaps 1/3 of the length back from the nose. Another factor to consider is the overall balance of the board. That goes for the foiling and the outline. As an example, too much ‘pull’ in the tail outline compared to the nose might create a ‘tail dragging’ situation resulting in late difficult drops. It all has to work together but you definitely have the right idea with a convexity in the forward bottom to make dropping in easier.
“balance of the board”…
I like Vee in the nose but I follow it with a double concave under the front foot. Just shaped a 6’0" quad for a kid with heavy Vee in the nose down the rails and into the tail with super heavy concave through the center and he loved it. It was basically an exaggerated Triplane hull. He said he couldn’t believe how fast it was. Me happy.