Hi all,
I’ve read a lot of this forum, but this is my Inaugural post. I’m a moderately experienced weekend warrior, but my little brother (now deceased, in an untimely manner) was a sponsored NJ surf fanatic. He had some board shaping equipment, and my 5 year old has taken an interest (just got his first stand up when I pushed him into a wave on a beater board). I will be shaping us each (his mom too) a board, but here is his design (first hour I spent using Akushaper).
It is a 5’0" minimal with a 13.5 inch width and 2.25" thickness. I am thinking a thruster setup. I know this is retardedly small, but so is my son. I figured this would be a mini-mal sized board that would fit him for 2-3 years. Next summer when this thing gets wet, he will probably only be 42" tall, 40 lbs, with only 11" shoulder span. For him, riding the beater was like riding a wood door, and he couldn’t even pick it up.
I’m thinking Futures Fins, 2+1, EPS with 6 oz bottom and 6 plus 6 on top. It’s gonna be a captain america board. Any comments? i’d love your input - keep in mind i think the primary constraint is width. As it stands now, he can only get a 12" board under his arm to carry.
Thanks for the help y’all - he is really stoked to be helping me shape this.
just realizing the print is really small - it clocks in at 17.8L Also, anyone in NJ area know a source for 2# EPS sheets? This thing is pretty small, but thick to be shaping from a sled cut blank, i think.
I would be more worried about the lack of stability with a board that narrow than it fitting under his arm. A 13.5 inch wide board will be really unstable and setting him up for a really hard time of it. Unless he is a 5 year old wonder kid who already surfs really well. If you want to make it 5’0 I would recommend having a look at the blending curves website.
Just for ideas. and possible templates. I would recommend something like the egg shapes or maybe the Nug B. but make it about 17 wide at the narrowest.
There is a reason the definition of the word grommet is “any kid small enough that they have to carry a board with 2 hands”.
Maybe above his head.
Just my thoughts as a surf coach who does surf excellence at a high school and has seen heaps of people learn to surf.
There is so much work in making a board I would hate to think it ends up being really difficult for him to surf.
How wide was the beater he stood up on.
Thanks for your thoughts - that is very much my biggest concern. The beater board was the original 54, which is 20 inches wide, 2.5 thick, and 30L. It floated him like a dock, but width is a problem. it was so wide that he really wasn’t getting his hands in the water very far when he paddled. As a scale comparison, I’m 6’2 with a 22" shoulder width - that’s like me paddling a 40" wide board.
Ok here is my second stab. I liked the blending curves site - good to know about. I made the shape a lot eggier, but with its own little flair. Brought it out to 17" wide, which brings it up to 22L.
I think you had a point with shoulder width vs board width. 17" wide is probably exessive, but this 8.5 x 14" legal paper I have in front of me looks really narrow for a board. Maybe split the difference somewhere around 15"?
Unless you think he’s actually going to be able to time a wave and paddle into it on his own you might as well design the board to perform the process that will more likely occur in real life; namely that you will be picking his waves and judging when you push him into them, and he will be surfing those waves straight (to begin with ) and down the line (later on). He won’t be doing much of any turning to begin with.
So for getting up on plane early and being stable as he goes straight THAT process will work better with a body-board type design, maybe something like a modified McCoy or Simmons layout that puts more mass under where he’s standing and less mass out in front of him. Include some rocker to increase his margin of error in popping up and mount some low-aspect keels out at the rails and forward closer to where you think he’ll actually stand. A quad keel with really small keels would be even more stable going straight or down the line and have a bigger sweet spot. Not to mention having less risk of impalement when he falls on them.
If you don’t want to do custom keels (they’re have to be super small for someone of his weight), you could also consider longboard sidebites. Future’s SB1 has about 11" of surface area and is single foiled. Use those for the front’s and maybe a couple Sharktooth or Numbster for the rears. You only need those for directional stability.
So you’ll push him in, he’s pop up and the board will do the rest for him. To begin with.
The only things I would do differently would maybe move the thick point slightly forward (if he’s going to be paddling) and maybe adding a little more rocker to the tail, but that’s splitting hairs. Are those 50/50 rails? Also, I’ve been messing with AKU shaper and for the life of me I can’t figure out what the red line in the rendered view is supposed to represent. Care to enlighten me?
Thanks again! Yeah he will definitely be getting his own waves next summer. He is getting on his own white water with a boogie board now. Also, i figure if I’m going to push him, I will just use the beater board. Ostensibly he will be able to surf this new thing I’m making him for a few years thoough.
I know about Simmons, I didn’t know about the Nugget shape - it’s fun how much of board shaping is a history lesson about the development of surf. I copied a picture of one and used it to adjust my outline. I brought the length down to 4’6 so that I could get the width down while keeping most of the outline. I moved a little more of the mass back, to narrow it out even more - kept it at 16" (leaving him a little room to grow into it). Also, the nose rocker is more aggressive than I originally had, so i matched that. Yeah I was going to do a thruster, but a quad with small fins makes more sense. I wasn’t sure what to do with fins. If I did 2 fins I might try futures fins, but with a quad, I think i would just glass them on, no? Perhaps something like bonzer side fins? http://www.foamez.com/bonzer-runner-fins-set-of-4-p-805.html
Advise from a fellow NJ Surf Dad: Do not put your boy on an over sized and over foamed board. He will learn bad techniques that will last a lifetime. Better to keep him riding that beater board quite frankly. If you think he is ready for a proper hard board I suggest you build or get him a properly proportioned short board that is no more than a couple inches longer than he is tall.
I would take a close look at the Channel Islands Grom Series boards and build something similar. I will warn you that making a grom sized board is far more difficult than building an adult size board. Take that from someone who’s built a lot of grom size boards over the past 10 years. https://www.cisurfboards.com/grom-series/
Just my humble two cents as the father of 3 children one of whom I made the mistake of starting on what amounted to a mini-mal.
My third design didn’t land far off from the channel island design. Just a hair shorter, thicker and wider, at 19L vice their 15L 4’8". He will be under 45 lbs next summer, so if you think I could stand to go lighter still, it does look pretty thick.
thinking about the same thing for my daughter. Watching her start to paddle herself into some long white water rides on a 7’ soft top tonight. She’s paddling from her elbows instead of her shoulders and once up - which she doesn’t have a problem with - she’s just not heavy enough to turn the board. I understand the stability issue of a narrower board but if it is proportional to what an adult with their body weight can learn on I’m thinking it would be easier in the long run as they could experience some control. She doesn’t have any stability issues on a 6" skateboard.
How much she weigh? My kid is turning 5 this week and still like 36 lbs. He can stand on a frigging Mach 7.7 believe it or not! I don’t want to drop 1000 on a board he will out grow, but all the grommit soft tops are like 20" wide. He barely gets his fingertips in in those. Well, I think I have settled on a design, so I will do a build thread I guess. Might be until December or January till I get everything set up and purchased.
I think I would approach this in one of two ways.
A. Study kneeboard shapes and you just may find something that could be adapted to your son’s size and weight.
B. Find a fun board or egg shape in the 7’" to 7’-6" range and size it down to the 5’ range.
In either case make the board something that can catch waves easily. Wave count is more important at your son’s stage of ability than being able to rip like Slater.
Kids adapt much more quickly than us older folks. Give the kid a board that might be a challenging shape for you to ride and guess what…a kid will adapt and learn to ride it quickly. Put the kid on a oversized canoe for the sake of being able to boost wave count and the kid can get away with any sort of bad technique when popping up or riding because the canoe lets them, get away with it. Now is when technique is learned and becomes ingrained for life. Now is also when the child can adapt and learn quickly to pop up and ride a shortboard properly.
Right, but what if your kid is so small that every board you have or could be purchased is an oversized canoe? In that case, what would the perfect learner board be if you were shaping one? What shape and volume? That’s my dilemma. Right now, based on input here, I have a 4’6, 16", 2", at 17L in a slightly narrower and shorter McCoy nugget shape.
It’s all about the ride. The “oversized canoe” will give him stability and confidence. Let’s not forget he is a 5 year old. I’d save the rip and slash for later.
The rip and slash will come later. The thing is if the kid becomes a knee dragger at this age he will probably always be a knee dragger. Just based on my experience the child will best learn to pop up properly if the board requires it. Beware the board that lets the grom crawl to his feet and get away with it.
Here is a shot when he was younger. Not sure what the dims were on this board. At that stage his dad was still pushing him into waves. He is the tiniest kid I’ve seen who could really surf. He’s a seasoned vet now at 8.
