Im shaping a pintail funboard for my wife who is 55kg and 5’6"
its her first board but she wants a retro shape that is easy to paddle and turn…
we looked at some boards and she kept picking up 6’10"s to look at so I though this would be a good length.
The problem is that Im not sure how wide to make it. I have measured her between the arm pits and that was 15" but the outline I hve dawn so far is 18" in the same area.
What are the rules of thumb for shaping a board like this to suit a specific person??
I have sketched our dimensions of 6’10" long, 19" wide, 17" nose, 11" tail. I was thinking 2"3/4 thick but Im not sure if this is too wide?
Riff, I had sketched this one out for a future board.
Feel free to take the outline and play with it if she wants a smaller pintail. A roundish nose is always helpful getting into waves. Don’t bother with the 15" you measured, shape what feels right. Unlike swimming, you kind of whip your arms out to the side when you paddle, especially on a longboard with up to a 23"+ width. It means the stroke isn’t as full, but a wider board picks up speed faster and therefore deep strokes aren’t needed.
Most important is how easily will it catch waves and maneuver – not how perfectly it will fit under her arm. A 6’10" just won’t be that heavy and if she’s reasonably atheletic she’ll get the hang of things fairly quickly but a narrow board is not the place to start. Some nose width will definitely aid the learning curve and some tail width will make the board ride up in the water and turn nicely. An eggy shape with a round tail or a squash tail would be my call.
Something around 6’10"x15.5"x20.75"x14.75"x2.75" with about 4.5" nose rocker and 2.5" of tail rocker. I would hold some thickness in the tail and put the wide point about 1.5" forward. I think a nice calm bottom with a soft concaved entry and reverse vee it very subtle concaves on either side in the tail would work very nicely. A full bayne box and sidebite boxes will server her well. She will be able to surf it with fairly large center fin very small side bites and have lots of directional stability a little extra rail punch to start with then give the board more life by down sizing the center and up sizing the rails some.
I hope an idea or two here is of help.
If you’re close to Santa Cruz I know several shapers that can make you something really sweet.
