Hi Bernie,
That’s so funny you ask, we had long (somewhat heated) discussions about the Reverse and how well it worked. The “Reverse” A_Symm is not completely backwards (ie. a regular foot board used by a goofy foot.) The Reverse was a reversed template but keeping the rocker(s) of a Standard A_Symm. The past paradigm for the Asymmetric was to loosen the Heel Side, making it shorter in rail line and adding more rocker. The Reverse was to LENGTHEN the Heel Side rail line, and have MASSIVE amounts of rocker, so much so that if the board was symmetric with that much rocker, it would be a dog (until you threw a turn, then it worked beautifully.) That rockered Heel Side was “carried along for the ride” by the straighter, shorter toe side (the toe side was slightly more than half the board, meaning the Toe Side features spilled over the the Heel Side, about 60/40.)
Anyways, we had a big chuckle about how we all, for years, were explaining and rationalizing the Asymmetric board, “shorter length, for more snap, etc.” only to find that nearly the opposite worked even better. Then after a long pause, “SHHHHH!!! This shows we don’t know what the f*#k we’re talking about…” which is CLASSIC Carl! ha.
Like Greg, I’m not a big fan of the pickle fork nose, it’s like a weed puller for human heads. Also the “unlimited hydroplane” concept of air induction, I’m not buying it, since we know the water doesn’t travel straight under the board enough of the time to warrant a positive effect. HOWEVER, the inverted Vee, which is nearly impossible to shape well by hand, along with the roll of the bottom panels is pure genius (bottom (left and right) panels actually “twist” as they progress down the board and continue to extract/translate falling/gravity energy into “forward go”.) More of the board is an engine, and you can see this in the incredible accelerations that are possible, it’s like at least an octave or two faster than conventional single-to-double and single-with-double bottom contours.
The overall morph of the board is quite salient. The twin tip is easily filled into a square or a diamond or a swallow nose: the end-effect being more PARALLEL OUTLINES of the whole board, and for a given length of board, surfs quite nicely. Jeff even got the tail block narrowed, still with parallel lines. The boards even paddle faster, still don’t fully understand why, but in the surf it’s true. NOT true for the racing SUPs and Canoes we’ve designed, just a note. It’s almost like tear-drop shapes do well in “straight space” like a wind tunnel with straight-moving air, and the parallel outline does well in “curved space” like the face of a wave. *don’t get me started on the acceleration gradient of the water going up the face of the wave, it IS relevant!
Notice Ryan’s boards make good use of dual-modulus carbon, very smart, he’s a top level surfer, so (unfortunately) he makes everything look good, but if you study when he compresses down onto the board, and you see the incredible amounts of extracted speed, you come to realize that he has tapped into a good flex pattern, thanks to smart construction.
That video is a great case study for what is going to be possible…
Best regards,
George
