Parabolic Power System. Paging Greg Loehr

General Discussion
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"The Parabolic Power System

Advancing to this level requires newly engineered surfboard technology. Not just better resins, not just better fabrics, but a completely new engineering scheme. Resin Research, in conjunction with Graphite Master and Walker Foam, is involved in just such a technology, the PPS, Parabolic Power System. The blank, resin and fabrics will soon be available to provide new directions of performance.

The body of the new blank is a very lightweight EPS foam allowing for extreme lightweight finished boards. The addition of the parabolic stringer arraignment stiffens the rail line, weights the surfboards perimeter (controlled buoyancy), and reduces fatigue by reducing dynamic twist. This creates drive, better waveface penetration and improves speed. Also, because the stringers are parabolic curves, the board is much more resistant to breaking. The rail foam is a high densityh urethane and has lower buoyancy which provides better rail set, a stiffer rail line and increased strength in the board’s perimeter.

This stringer arraignment also sets up some very good engineering possibilities concerning the core. It isolates the deck and bottom from the rails which will allow each to be engineered separately depending on the needs of each using different density foams and varieties of reinforcement in each compartment. For instance a deck needs dent strength, a bottom break strength and the rails ding resistance. This isolation of each compartment also gives the designer more freedom to pursue new avenues into flex/return, stiffness verses flex and lighter weights. This all can translate into smaller more efficient, more powerful, more responsive boards at far lighter weights (-4 lbs.) that have increased durability and resist fatigue far better."

You’ve got me excited. When’s it coming?

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is this the begining of the next space race …

watch this space …the following is an excerpt taken from a recent marketing blurb were doing on this side of the pacific …seems were thinking along the same lines …

nothing like some healthy competition to instigate some technological advancements …well done greg ,glad to see someone is actually on the ball …

Quote:

Bert tells us “ so much has been learned over the years , we just kept pushing new boundary’s on almost a daily basis , so now we can pick any point along the path of development and choose a level of performance and technology that best fits the customers performance requirements and price range …

While nearly all of what we learnt was in working with advanced composites and what we had to do to get a board performing better and make it more durable and lighter , all those concepts and performance features can also be integrated into standard surfboard construction …

2 of the first things we have that everyone can benefit from straight away …

The parabolic power rail , one key area to the performance of a surfboard is flex , flex has become somewhat of a buzzword lately , but flex is useless without flex return …

So the springback of flex is critical to the timing of your turns and how much speed and twang you get out of turns.

With traditional boards they have a stringer up the middle , the stringer is actually what makes a standard board perform , with out it a board becomes lifeless and floppy like a thong , but the further you push your board onto its rail the less effective the stringer becomes , because the rail line starts to flex off and let go of water somewhat like a soft boogie board , it then starts to lose drive and projection hard into rail turns , then as you come out of the turn your relying on your rail line to spring back but it wont spring back quick enough so the board lacks that twang out of a deep rail turn …

With the parabolic power rail , we’ve put the stringers on the rails so now your rail line stays more rigid and doesn’t flex off thus giving way more drive and projection , but also when you do load hard into a deep turn and it starts to flex , when you unload ,the timber in the rail line will spring back so quickly that its gives your board a noticeable spring and twang out of rail turns , timber has one of the fastest rates of flex return or memory in comparison to any known composite so its ideal in a situation where you need spring …this feature is ideal for the tight power surfer …

get ready …

its almost time to play ball …

regards

BERT

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There’s a lot of buzz about those blanks. I was visiting with Geoff Rasche a couple days ago and he’s really keen to get some. Too bad he doesn’t have time to come in here, he’s really dialing in his epoxy-specific shapes. Grokking the lines necessary to work with the flex & weight characteristics that are different from poly. And he only uses RR epoxy…

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Geoff is one of the guys to watch… for sure. Young, open minded, connected, hungry. Bert is right… again. The space race featuring the two most influental super powers in the sport, the US and Aus. Featured will be new generations of shaper/builders with their eye on taking this thing to a new level. Talked with Geoff for an hour about it yesterday. He’s keen, as are others. This is not about JUST shape but shape AND technology. It’s time for everyone to begin to see that technology is holding shape back. We can’t go places we know are better because the boards are too fragile. For instance, flatter decks, thinner boards, something we know is better… something we’ve known for a long time. But we can’t go there because the damn things break without the dome. The dome also inhibits flex, the kind we want. So here are the top guys pushing shapes they know aren’t the best because that’s the best the status quo technology allows. Imagine where we can go when we take that technological next step… with shapes! Here we are, on the verge of the first great leap of the new century. Perhaps the old guard will follow… perhaps not. Wake up call for everyone.

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… but when? Are we talking a matter of months? years?

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We’re working on it.

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Alright alright. For my whole 22 years in existence there hasn’t really been a HUGE break through in blanks. I guess I can wait a few more…

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Quote:

For instance, flatter decks, thinner boards, something we know is better…

The one thing that I’m having problem understanding is how do you handle floatation when the boards are thinner? Do that boards need to become wider (I remember Bert mentioning that his boards were wider) in order to float the surfer or does the surfer just need to become stronger?

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You have to go a bit wider.

But this allows the use of a floatier light weight EPS as the core like surftechs.

So you can get the same float as a urethane core going a bit thinner.

To go real thin like sub two inches you probably need to go wider.

Like Bert and Greg have said over and over when you start treading in this thin and flexible space you have to rethink shape… Conventional urethane-core shapes may not work in this new environment…

Hell look at kite, ski and even wave pool boards… They don’t look like anything you’d consider a conventional board. I think the Carl Eckstrom wave pool board designs might be the next migration when these materials start allowing real small thin and flexible devices to be made.

the new dawning is ever approaching…

Maybe “Doc” Lausch should give it a go… He did that whole USO thing for donovan and also

Dick Van Stralen(?) down in AUS doing those wood boards and aluminum boards for Rasta.

There’s enough creative souls out there to do something once this PPS blank becomes more widely available.

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I can imagine how hard it would be to retrain one’s way of viewing a board. As I’m progressing on my board I keep wanting to make it the way I’ve seen traditional boards. I’m starting to get the flat/concave deck idea, but I’m not sure I trust myself enough to try it.

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Who says boards need to float? Really aren’t we talking about paddle, not float. Greenough’s didn’t float. Obviously they need some positive floatation but the boards today have the least float of any ever made. I can give you 20 examples why floatation is overrated or even unnessasary for the top guys. And who here hasn’t caught waves with NO floatation (bodysurfing).

Personally, I happen to like some float at my age but there was a time in my life when it was completely unnessasary. In fact many times it was easier to paddle out if they didn’t float well. And float doesn’t always translate to better paddling. We’ve built boards that had minimal float that out paddled boards that floated much better. Paddle has to do with flex and some other dynamics that go far beyond float.

Again much has to do with the status quo of todays shapes and the resultant mindset of the past 25 years of little advancement. Just because they look the way they do doesn’t mean they couldn’t work better if built another way. We obviously are, and have been, working modern shapes around the shortcomings of status quo production methods. It’ll be interesting to see how shapes evolve when those shortcomings are eliminated and we are free to explore without board breakage and slam em out production expectations being an issue.

Many of the materials presently being called wrong for surfboards are simply wrong with todays status quo boards. Think about taking away unnessasary thickness (adding flex and reducing weight) and then returning a portion of that stiffness with better flex return through a better responding composite material (like carbon or wood). Overall you win big!

If you eliminate floatation as a nessasary feature and replace that notion with paddle excellence then you again open up performance. And going back to Greenough, his boards BARELY floated. He gave up floatation in preference to performance and still managed to catch his fair share.

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But I read once that Greenough’s spoon, due to it’s neutral floatation, needs excellent waves to work fine (this reason stoped me to build myself one). What is gonna happen to us, who live in places where the best is waist to chest high not-so-powerful beachbreak waves? In my local break floatation is a MUST, I’ve tried all thicknesses, from plywood paipos to 3’’ thick longboards, and found that the floatier, the better. Does the flex and “other dinamics” work in small waves too?

Jack

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Flex and flex return certainly work in small waves. Float is again seen as the only way to solve slow waves but planing area is more effective for anyone but below average surfers. Planing area can added in many ways. I actually shaped myself a 1.5 inch thick 7’6" fish a few years ago. Came out VERY light. It was made using the standards we used at that time and quickly broke. Sam Barker also had one which also broke. They did ride pretty good but we didn’t get enough time on either to really have a reasonable test. It did ride much smaller than 7’6" though probably from the weight and flex. Today there are many more options and now I could build the same board and have it hold up. Maybe time to revisit that one.

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Quote:
Paddle has to do with flex and some other dynamics that go far beyond float.

I agree that float is overrated, but how does flex help paddling? I thought that planing area was the key.

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i took a board down the coast about a week back , the board was for a guy in his mid 50s …

thickness was 2 3/8 but the deck was so concaved it was just over an inch thick in the middle , as far as float , it was minimal …

now the board looked very average , nothing really that pleasing to the eye as far as curves , yet he rings me back 5 days later and tells me hes been pulling some of the best hacks in the pocket hes done in years , and thats on a 16" plus tail ???

i had to paddle away from him the other day , coz he out paddled me for every wave that came through and hes 20 years older than me …

in general the board was thin and wide , it was designed to have more flex in some places than others , it was also designed that as the board changed shape because of flex , the new shape enhanced the turn…

he was all over waves barely waist high and super flat and soft …

volume is a total myth , it makes your board less responsive , and its actually slower in small waves because of the way water wraps the rails , creating low pressure drag as well as extra viscous drag …

one thing my customer did note tho , it caught waves unbelievably well and on the wave was unstopable with speed and sensitivity , but when paddling back out or just around on flat water he did sit a little deeper and said general paddling seemed harder , but with the slightest push from a moving swell was up and planeing with ease …

now when those comments come from a mid 50s guy you know its just not your usual hype …

as far as gregs comments about paddle having more to do with flex and some other dynamics , yes way more to do with those things rather than volume , if it was all volume we could surf logs …

i really think so much of this stuff is foreign to most board builders because there not progressing into advanced composites , there still relating everything back to the materials there familiar with , thus making false assumptions about things they dont understand , then you have these board builders still leaving there design interpretations on the general public …

but hey im not complaining , the longer they leave it , the bigger head start for those already on the track …

my last shorty was 1 7/8 with concave deck thats 1" in the middle , im convinced i can go 1" at the thickest point and still concave it as well …

but you cant even go there without stepping into the future of construction …

current construction is holding back the progression of surfing …

one of my team guys is doing air reverses and arial 360s on a longboard and poping from mid faced posistions on a wave purely coz his board can be loaded and unloaded to boost without a section , that combined with all the traditional walking and hang time and your seeing longboarding thats hard to believe …

to me the benifits are visably obvious …

regards

BERT

16

Jack,

You mentioned spoon kneeboards and paipos… for George Greenough and many other surfers, the answer has long been the modern surf mat: works great in small waves- waist to chest high not-so-powerful beach break, ultra light weight and compact, excellent paddling and widely adjustable buoyancy, variable thickness, adaptable flex patterns, etc.

George Greenough - Photo by Harold Ward - http://www.funfotoz.com/

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If you surf a wide variety of boards, you soon find the absolute WORST boards to paddle are the midsize/funshape/big guy tri/minimal set.

Low volume boards are like swimming with a pfd on - and with some extra glide & support - no problem & plenty fast. Big longboards get you completely out of the water & you glide along. Guns, its obvious. But those midsize ones, for the most part, float enough to get in the way, but not enough to glide. Have too much volume to really duckdive, but not enough to accelerate fast between waves to get outside. Have too much width & thickness to let you swim your arms instead of paddling, but not enough to give the option of knee-paddling. Enough rocker to take off deep like a board a foot shorter, but also so much that they push water.

I know so many guys who either go from a real shorty to a big guy tri because they got older or come from a longboard and get a minimal or an egg so they can get more critical, but they’re usually disappointed in the paddling. Sure, if you’re on the right waves, sometimes a midlength of some kind is the right call & worth the paddling disadvantages. But for all-around daily use & good paddling, go big or go small.

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Quote:

im convinced i can go 1" at the thickest point and still concave it as well …

My son just finished reading “If you gave a mouse a cookie”. I often feel like the mouse in that story… give me a little information and I want more and more.

What I was wondering is does the amount of concave matter or is it just the fact that the deck is concaved that matters. An example would be taking 2 identical boards but 1 is concaved slightly and the other is concaved a lot. Would the board with the more extreme concave have its rails be more responsive (back to your paper analogy) or would you just gain more sensitivity.

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hmm…doesnt response and sensitivity sound the like the same thing???

a lot has been said here that sounds incredibly tempting to try but im at odds…there’s pros and cons to every design feature…playing devils ad for a moment…my biggest gripe with extra wide boards is the sluggish rail to rail action…just seems slower with a really wide board…im not a twitchy surfer but at times when there are difficult sections to be made i gotta pump fast and hard…I would guess if I dropped 20-30% off in board weight, response/sensitivity increases and the sluggishness will go away…

thoughts?

so many variables, so little time…

PS - yeah my latest stick just finished is 6’4 x 19.75 x 2.3 x 6lb composite…wide for sure but the damn thing flies like crazy…very loose and responsive too…buckled the nose the second day in hard breaking surf…had to fix it right away (within 2 days) it was just soooooo friggin good!!!

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Quote:
What I was wondering is does the amount of concave matter or is it just the fact that the deck is concaved that matters. An example would be taking 2 identical boards but 1 is concaved slightly and the other is concaved a lot. Would the board with the more extreme concave have its rails be more responsive (back to your paper analogy) or would you just gain more sensitivity.

The more the deck concave, the stiffer the board gets and the lighter it gets. The flex would be more responsive and the sensitivity would come from the lighter weight and the thinner rails, and maybe the lower center of gravity. Also, just like on a skateboard, concave gives your feet leverage. Yeah, concave is good!