In a never ending attempt to completely plan my new longboard, I was wondering what “dynamics” are achieved when you have quite a bit of tail rocker (i.e: Cooperfish’s) along with a deep nose concave, as opposed to alot of tail rocker with NO concave in the nose. My Nose Devil has a lot of tail rocker and a fairly deep and long spoon in the nose. While it noserides great, it seems that my old Takayama Step Deck was easier to get up on the nose most of the time. This could also be due to the pronounced “belly” on the Cooperfish, but I was mainly wondering how much effect the spoon actually has when there is more tail rocker. I ordered a Walker 9’8" blank and had them lower the nose rocker by 1 1/2" and kept the standard tail rocker…Wondering if I should go with a spoon, no spoon, or add a stepdeck like I had originally planned (Takayama was a step and I LOVED it…Could just be mental, I don’t know).
Rocker… last week Bert B suggested a lot of rocker would go well in slow waves but limit speed in faster stuff. I’d go along with that.
Think about water flow and energy. Water wants to flow tangentially off a surface. It costs energy to change flow direction and velocity. This tells you in gross, qualitative terms how the flow will work, but what YOU like, how YOU ride, and where YOU ride will of course be different than what I and everyone else rides/likes.
I wouldnt reccoment any nose concave at all, keep it flat. nose concave is entirely overused in the longboard industry. robert august doestn use it in any of their nose riders, except for the “what i ride” model. flat surfaces nose ride better in my experience. nose concaves just slow you down. just keep the nose rocker fairly moderate and it will work fine. trust me.
a more than FLAT nose rocker with zero concave will likely push water and not ride or paddle the way it should. just keep the nose rocker toned down and put a gentle concave in it…you’ll wind up with a great board.
put a concave in, look at it this way- the worlds best noseriders have concaves,takayama’s model-t,bing- nuuhiwa , tudors noseriders use a concave, tylers etc…the list goes on. At the sprout movie ,i got a chance to meet and talk to C.J. Nelson about surfboard design esp. his no- concave pearson model, he told me he is starting to use concaves longboards now, in choppy conditions-
Thanks for the replies…Think I’ll go with no concave and keep it flat. For what it’s worth, I can’t stand the way C.J surfs.
honolulu ??? did i say that???
anyway …keep it flat, then its reliable ,predictable…
i reckon the nose concave is marketing hype , just another bell and whistle to the uneducated…
regards
BERT
o by the way if you run nose concaves , the only way you can get them to function with out making the board spin out while on the nose , is to put heaps of tail rocker in …or something else to keep the tail at the back…
not a nice package , unless you just want to hang in the curl and never go more than 1’ away from the whitewater…
Thanks bert! That last paragraph was exactly the answer I was looking for…
Tenover - Tom Wegener has some good articles on design that I found in siteful as to 3 different types of noseriders (location in the wave, wave size, and speed).
All articles in total might be 10 pages, not much to reed for some good insight (at least 1 perspective).
http://members.cox.net/austinsurfboards
enjoy
Thanks 4est, I’d love to read the article, but you put up a link to Austin’s site…??? Am I missing something here?
Oops guess that was still in my mouse’s paste buffer.
This should be Tom’s site/articles…
http://www.tomwegenersurfboards.com/articles_page.htm
enjoy that one instead 
hopefully you enjoy ours aswell. haha. that happens to me all the time.
AustinS.
marketing hype. i could not agree with you more bert burg. nose concave is a joke.
Thanks for the replies…Think I’ll go with no concave and keep it flat. For what it’s worth, I can’t stand the way C.J surfs.
Hey Tenover,
I’m no noseriding expert (mostly shortboard), but I had a 9’1" Yater Noserider which had almost no rocker and a dead flat bottom, and a really rakey fin, and even my big chump ass could noseride that board. I’m 210lbs.
Almost done restoring the mellow yellow, then I’ll be able to compare.
Tenover-
I know that we both like Cooperfish boards, so I thought you might like this. I met a Cooperfish team rider down in Baja last weekend who had a 10’ 0 Device with him. In fact, it was the only board he had with him. He let me ride it on the first (smallest) day we were there. The waves were about waist high that afternoon and wrapping around the point. After about the third wave I realized that the Device was the BEST noserider I’ve ever ridden. I hit the fast inside section on one wave and stuck a ten at the the bottom of the wave. On another, I actually leaned forward to stall while on the nose. Just a crazy good board.
What does this have to do with your post… The board had the deepest concave running about 1/2 the length and almost beveled rails the same length. The concave was DEEP. I’m not normally one for that deep of concaves, but this thing was the best. I wish I had one…
Also, you were talking about rocker… you couldn’t fit your foot under the deck when the board was laid upside down. Flat.
Good luck!
Ben
if you need to look at my board again to see differences b/w yours and mine. mine doesn thave much tail rocker, and no nose concave…
btw, isnt it just a lot of tail kick in the last 6 inches, or foot of your board, not neccesarily the rocker as whole?
hey tenover, i don’t think concave is needed to make a good noserider. creating a low pressure around the fin with tail rocker or roll(belly) is the most important thing. lately i prefer roll because tail rocker can cause too much drag.
boards with deep concaves tend not to trim as nicely unless your right on the tip. the device is an exception because it’s really flat but sometimes you pay dearly for that. for that reason the device is best in the conditions that ben discribed. everthing is a trade off.
i’ve gone full circle on the concave issue and i’m back to liking just a nice clean hull.
below is a picture of chris vail on a malibu foil. no concave. just a simple board designed with noseriding in mind. chris says it’s the best board i’ve made him so far.
my vote is for no concave.
Thanks Gene, I appreciate the explanation…I decided to go with a clean nose, no concave, and I had already planned to belly the bottom, like on my Nose Devil. Should be interesting…
I just got back from a jaunt to Scorpion Bay and took my 5 year old prototype for Dale Dobsons noserider I built him.
Glued-up kick tail, a slight nose lift near the tip, but with a reduced nose rocker overall and a really long blended concave that takes out the bottom break in the frontal rocker and gives a super long planning area.
I’m 58 years old and couldn’t get any farther up on the nose without walking on water.
The other approach is a down rail wing nose with kick tail like the blue machine