@Byzantian-
Hi Rohan! Ha, NEVER a bother Rohan, yes I recall those exchanges, I hope it got things going the right direction (re. fins, ha)
Very good question “…which traits of a normal symmetrical board on its forehand and backhand have you been working to eliminate or enhance?”
I want to address the surfer, before the board. “Biomechanics” of the rider. I designed suspension systems in 3 rockets (up to 40 ton payloads going 6,000 mph through the jet stream (150 mph **side **wind,)) and our main “skill” that we learned was to visualize the “load path.” Looking at a surfer, **WAIT! **Better yet give this a try: standing on a floor with feet in surf stance, lift your heels off the floor a little bit- now hop. Note the muscles you used, visualize the joints moving and how much they moved, “What stays tense?” NOW, standing, same stance, raise your toes off the floor, the weight on your heels- and hop. Totally different feel isn’t it?
Dang it, if we surfed parallel like a skier then we could really exploit a symmetric surfboard, but we put one foot ahead of the other and created a SURF STANCE. It is the mechanics of the rider in a stance which may dictate the need for asymmetry in various aspects of the board. To anwer the question in part, I’m trying to enhance the use of the board for both heel side and toe side turns. (Toe Side Turn would be front side bottom turn, hopping with heels off the floor. Heel Side the opposite.) Herein lies the rub, as humans, we adapt, we get accustomed to, and we tend to exploit, what we have. With a symmetric board we have adapted our two stances to one board, nothing wrong with it, just know that you adjust to make it happen. For example, when riding a shortboard, andyou are driving down the line frontside and want to go into a cutback, you will take a half step back onto the tail and set the heel side rail. This shift costs speed, you’re “checking” yourself (bringing up your chest, or your forward bearing weight, or drive, to make the shift in order to ride the other rail into a turn.) Just yesterday I had a 40-something y.o. surfer, very good, who thought he had plateaued in his surfing, comment how the A_Symm board constantly maintained speed, and held speed through manuevers like figure-8 cutbacks and backside off-the-lips, he laughed at the board the day before, dismissed it.
A board can be built to exploit these two stances- enter Asymmetry. Aussies, Carl Ekstrom and several others understood the need to accommodate the fact that we have a stance decades ago, like a half-century ago. First, asymmetry was expressed in the obvious aspect: the Outline. Delving further and further into it, the realization came that other aspects like bottom contour, rail(s,) rocker, and fins must also be addressed. Right now I am into making the outline a little more subtle rather than trying to make a visual statement. I would say rocker is more important but must be adjusted in conjuction with other aspects, as mentioned. Also, I see bottom contours being varied from one side against the other, in fact the supposed “centerline” of the contours gets shifted as well.
Overall, I think it takes quite a bit of understanding of how a board works, and each of the constituent parts, can add or subtract to an end-use behavior. That said, if you have a favorite board that backsides really well, and a frontside board that does the compliment, then “weld” the two together, (the challenge then being which side is “how far forward” relative to the other side, to eliminate checking and stance shifts.)
@TaylorO-
Dale! Tell him I love the 'Nuematic he custom-built for me 10-15 years ago, it’s saved my sanity on many occaision!
Yes, biasing cloth is a great trick, amazing what some salient placement of common materials will do. That filler cloth (also called a “bulk modifier”) was nylon-based at first. A company called Innegrity came up with the biaxial version so you could use it in conjunction with performance fabrics, instead of 30 layers of expensive pure carbon graphite on a project for example. Typically, the “in-between” layers on multi-layer jobs do not get put to work like the inner/outer layers. Enter “foam sandwich” construction- then I took it a step further and used thick weave burlap (with a very fluffy microsphere matrix,) as the in-between layer. This might be what Dale is referring to, I later called it “Liquid Foam Sandwiching,” because it was pretty easy to go around 3-dimensional curves, unlike veneers and foam sheeting.
Quads- Built a LOT of them. Story time. My business partner and I were approached by a Peruvian pro-surfer/shop owner who wanted some of our boards. Well, not boards, SHAPES. He wanted to SHIP shaped blanks to Peru then get them glassed there for a fraction of the cost. They were our normal thruster performance shortboards. We built crates around 40+ shapes and this pro guy’s Dad’s shipping company got them to Peru UNSCATHED. Two months later I go to Peru, took what I thought was a good quad, 5’10" x 19-3/4" x 2-3/8" Round Tail, fins were: front 11 x 1-1/4 + 3 rear 5-1/2 x 1-1/4 + 1 (my nomenclature is “from tail x from rail + pointed off nose.”) Chicama can get PERFECT, it’s not a death wave but VERY machine-like when it’s good. I was lucky and got it for two weeks, and the guys I was with had the place to change our my Future boxes, literally machining right on top of the old ones, allowing for changes in position. I focused on the quad rear boxes. I found that during long bottom turns, the shore-side fins would both pop out at the same time. For what I was doing, those drawn bottom turns, it meant I was checking myself (my chest would come up, disturbing the forward drive I had.) At times it felt like the fins were letting go too harshly, like an almost spin out. So I moved the rear quads inboard and found that about 2" in from the rail (for THAT particular round tail) allowed the fins to release SEQUENTIALLY, and I could bear down all the way through the turn with a nice transition. I also felt the board needed a little more yaw resistance so I shifted the quad rears AFT more, too much, then came back a bit.
The ideal position on that board was 11 x 1-1/4 + 3, 5-1/4 x 2 + 2. If I had a “formula” it would be to “take the front fin position, 11 in this case, divide by 2, then subtract another 1/4”." The distance in from the rail have been roughly like the thruster up front then double it and take away 1/2 to 3/4" As for pointing at the nose, I mimic the thruster in the front for common quads, and do a little less for the quad rears.
Here’s a dedicated quad I did recently for a board you’ll be seeing at large Maverick’s and Peahi:
17 x 1-1/8 + 3, 8-1/4 x 1-7/8 + 2 (see bottom of post)
@surfteach-
Hi Brian!
How you been?! I think we should have qualified that question a little bit, because on that wave, I did absolutely nothing, just sat there. A right hander called Rifles in the Mentawai chain. A special day, about 8 ft faces, and it was fuckin’ perfect, all day long. Then all the guys went in, the wave came right to me, looked like I would never make it but was committed. Dropped in, set trim and it was like being behind a sheet glass water fall for the entire ride. I was on a 6’3" x 18-7/8" x 2-3/8" round tail thruster. MAN that one particular wave was perfect, “I was intoxicated with the exuberance of my own velocity.” I think if I could build a decent one, I’d try a FINLESS, minimal board, maybe a modernized alaia, out of carbon or a metallic? about 16" wide, very sinky, so I felt more “involved” with the wave, rather than ‘a jockey on a big horse’- “Me and the board, as one…” ha, I’d want the board to drop away into the wave and with my sage experience, land in perfect stance. But really, it seems that’s where we are headed, to the aesthetic of the** entire** ride, rather than the flash glamour of another backflip gymnast platform move. (I’ve pulled a few air reverses/allie oops in my day (banging my cane on the porch,) so I can talk those moves down a bit…ha) BUT you said 60+, maybe instead, have a protective suit, like a motorcross/Imperial Storm Trooper type deal with O2 supply, ha, and just body surf the perfect tube. Maybe shape the body plates out of foam so the suit would plane, thinking Squirrel Suits/Wing Suits but for surfing…
Thanks guys.
Best regards,
George
