Hey Guys, I am new to this Forum, have looked around a litle bit and found amazing how much knowledge I found here! So, before anything, congratulations to you all!
Welcome Alelordelo
I dont know if my question is valid, because I will ask something from a customer/surfer view, and not a shaper view. So, if this is an unapropriate question, I apologize from now on. But anyway, here it goes!
All questions are appropriate
I am now about to order a new surfboard. As I have always done with shapers for the past 10 years, I just give my height and weight, say that for ex: I want a 6’1" for small waves and then that is it.
But this time I wanted someting more, so I started looking for shaping info on the net and found a lot of concepts that fascinating to me.
Fantastic! You are on your way to a magic board. Knowledge is everything, then comes skill to arrive at what you know to be right.
Knowing that a WP below center is better for back foot surfers, or that depending on the rocker curve the board gets more difficult to paddle into the wave, but gets more maneuverable, etc…
Be careful what you begin to believe based on what you read. You can find almost every theory written as fact. Like wide points back are better for rear foot surfers. There are very few hard and fast rules though many are presented that way to create believers and devotees mostly to improve the image of the supposed masters, presenting the theories as facts. Surfboards, Surfing and Board Construction is very, very subjective. Don’t grasp onto any beliefs until you have personally ammased emperical data based on actual experience riding and testing the belief. Even then, know that you might be feeling something that you think is caused by a certain highly visible design factor like the shape of the tail when in realality, the cause is a very hard to see characteristic in the proportions of the bottom curve.
The thing is: Shouldn’t the shapers that I have been ordering surfboards, asked questions about my surfing style?
Absolutely!! This would seem to be just good business sense, wouldn’t it. But remember… Surfboard making is a “Glory Business”. Therefore, most who are drawn into it don’t do it to please the customer. They do it to please themselves. Because of this, the value of a customer is different to them. Their primary need for customers is to establish that they are popular. The more popular they are, the more COOL they are. The more cool and popular they are the more Glory that gets heeped on them and the better they feel about themselves.
While in normal… nonglory businesses… the customer is the portal to financial success and stability. Therefore, everything is focused on the customers happiness and pleasure. The surfboard and the customers buying experience is the product being sold. The purpose is to make the customer very, very happy at all costs. It is not to make the business more Cool. Being popular and cool, will be a natural result of many happy customers but it must not be the goal or driving force behind being a shaper or surfboard maker. Sadly, this is rarely the case. As the social value in being the cool shaper dude, is so powerful that it easily overrides and smothers the customers need and desire to have that experience first.
Oddly, in an immature surfing society, sometimes getting a board brand that is considered popular and cool often transcends the value of actually getting a board that has been designed specifically for you and your waves and actually works well.
Most people don’t really know how good a good board is because the best board they every had or tried was simply the best board THEY every experienced. Not the best one they could have experienced. There may be many boards better than that one but if you never get to feel one of them, you may think you are riding the best board you could ever get. When in reality, you are just riding the best board you have bummped into so far. Sometimes this can be a fantastic board. But you can only know that for sure if you have been in a quality relationship with a great shaper/designer who will get you there or beyond that after exhausting all other possibilities.
I good shaper should be able to take you rapidly past mediocre boards that seem great due to your lack of experience, and into the realm of the best designs in the world suited to you and your waves. But as you have indicated, very few shapers take the time to achieve this for their customers. But in support of shapers everywhere, there aren’t really all that many surfers who really understand this either. Nor want to go to the efforts it takes on their part to get a Magic Board. Most just want to buy a socially approved famous model from a famous shaper (even though he probably didn’t even shape it) and have it work Magically for them! Of course, that is the lazy man’s solution to a much more involved process. One sadly, that few want to indulge in no matter how great the boards produced might be.
You are clearly one of those few surfers who are graduating out of “board design middle school” and are now ready to go on to board design university. Hence your great question!
Or should I get them infos about my surfing to feed them with info, so that they can get the magic stick I want?
If they aren’t asking you for it or have a system in place to draw that data out of you, they probably don’t care much about having it. If they don’t care about having that data, it is because they don’t think they need it and therefore wouldn’t know what to do with it if they had that data. Besides, it would only mean more work for them and remember… they aren’t looking for work, they are looking for Glory!
So, what I want to know is: What kind of information should I give to my shaper?
He should want all the measurements off of every board you have ridden recently and he should want to know all the details about how each of those boards worked for you. That way he could figure out all the features in the boards that created positive experiences and results for you and all the ones that were negatives. Then when he makes your new board, he can fill it with positives and leave out all the negatives… PRESTO!!! You will have a magic board. And if you continue going to that shaper and he is truely skillful enough, it will continue to get better with every board you get.
I will order it from www.wetworks.com.br with Claudio Heneck, the guy who shapes for Neco Padaratz, Peterson Rosa and many other brazilians on Tour.
I do not know this shaper and nothing I have said above should be construed by anyone as me intending those comments to apply to him.
That said, it takes a lot of time to measure customers boards and talk to them about how and where they surf. So you need to find a very skillful shaper who will take the time to work with you on a very personal level and you need to be sincere and devoted in return.
The board I just shaped for a customer was a 9’6" Longboard. Over several weeks he brought me 5 boards to measure and disect. Then we talked about what his experiences were with each one and then we distilled this data down into a written order that specifically detailed each of the measurements he needed based on all these boards and their performance characteristics.
Then we shaped his new board over 2 days, making sure to hit precisely on each measurement. He was there with me the whole time watching over the whole process and the outcome to his satisfaction. That is how it is done and should be done if you are paying for a CUSTOM surfboard. Of course, this kind of service is not the cheapest. Nor does the most expensive shaper guarantee you that you are going to get that kind of service or a magic board.
Thanks very much to you all! And sorry about my english (I’m brazilian)
Your welcome and your English was quite good!
aloha!