Short and wide

General Discussion
1

I’ve been kind of watching this “new” movement towards short and wide boards.  The latest Surfer Mag design section ((the ultimate fashion catalogue for trendoids-  oooo what’s Kelly riding?) features more sub 5’-10" by  20" plus boards than 6-1  x  18-1/2  thrusters.  Major paradigm shift?

 

I have not really liked wide boards in the past.  I feel they are harder to put over on rail-  “skimming dishes” as an ancient yacht designer might have observed.  Also I have smallish feet- size 9 ( footsize being the  most overlooked design consideration IMHO).

 

So what do others feel the disadvantages of short and wide are?  Are there a lot of others who do not like wide boards?  Just wondering.

2

“Fin placement for heel and toe sounds like another refinement to balance out extra width.”

 

I do agree with that. Setting your side fins further away from the rails will loosen the board quite a bit.

3

another ''New'' movement

from the bowels

of surfer magazine

as the astute commodore mc Tavish

so aptly puts it in his interview...

plenty of people have made,

multi fins (not to mention wide short boards)

that it was simon the anderson who brought it to the world!

and of course mc,nat and brewer who made the first

8'6'' short boards popular and desireable!

our dear mesianic promotional surfers add 1 1/2''

to the width of the greatest surfboards

in the history of mankind are truely deserving

of laurels of bay leaves and adulation

from the consuming crowd .

that rancor released

lets get on to what the puck .

take the plunge

make a real wide board and then learn to ride it.

Wide starts at over 22 1/2'' and ranges up to 31 1/2.

research parameters require courage ,tenacity and ....

there has gotta be something else besides money...?

lemme think three things...cour,,,,tena,,,,, oh yeah wanna do it...

When the Validating factor is published lauditz,dates with tabloidable fembots,

and contestable skills on shockingly narrow spectral surfboard designs

no one player wishes to stray far from the conservative middle.

shoe size fin placement as is prescribed

by dr.Mc will be a manufacturing boon

as shipping un finned boards to point of sale

and immediately 'customized to fit'

will throw the tizzy into consuming frenzy.!

now back to wide,to bury the rail on a W I D E BOARD

the rider has to move his,or her back foot.

hard concept to grasp I admit

but revolutionary when you hink about it

the stationary rider manufactured over the last few decades

will indeed be challenged yet the footloose strollers and gamboliers of ancient long and longer

surfing disciplines may again become the oganisms of the hour!

oh yeah after the turn burying the rail

the foot must quickly be moved again for trim

and again for every redirection...

the Fast twitch muscle atrophy

hinted as a cause and effect relationship

for this design change is well taken

although a well thought out execution

of a given manuvere trancends the need

for twitching so popular with the flambouyant

grenadiers of youthful exhuberance.

...ambrose,,,

the corky feature of a wide board

can be overcome by reducing

the thickness by up to 1/2

why not 1''thick 24''wide boards?

{be afraid be very afraid}

[the world about you is changing]

(in ways you will never expect)

life in a box is so secure

my cat loves to sleep in boxes

especially if they are open on top

the box that is.....

4

Hi Llillibel

The feet thing is interesting. McTavish is promoting some new insight on this for tail width and fin placement.

http://www.driftsurfing.eu/

 

Fo me wider is definitely better planing in softer waves and as fast twitch muscles go into decline, but they can hang you up in the lip zone.

I've been going from 18 3/4 to 19 1/2 on small waves boards (and 14" to 15" tail), and flat bottom quads, but playing with cant (go Probox) to compensate for the extra width to help untrack the board.

Fin placement for heel and toe sounds like another refinement to balance out extra width.

Karl

 

 

5

oh yeah one fin is enough

no fin is better

especially for getting rail working.

fins are for riding fins...

hello my name is

...ambrose...

and I am

a finaholic.............................

6

…these not even new in this forum

Ambrose is right

check and you ll see threads that others and me were talking about these (short+wide+thickness and small feet+fins+strength+wide tails+average female rider)

I as a real custom sboard builder, have been in mind the back foot size, position and power or not in the last 15 years or so

and have been using the shortie concept for ALL my customers from mid 90s

 

–sometimes, you should change the platform

an example that comes to mind is fishes more than 6…bad design

enormous 10´ x 24 1/2  x 3 1/4 - 3 1/2 tankers for average weight  riders…bad design

there are better designs

 

etc

7

[img_assist|nid=1045541|title=kp 69|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=270|height=640]

8

Dims, please.  Looks good.

9

I got into shaping due to the lack of selection of shorter / wider boards (2000).  I am 5’8” with size 12 feet and think that played a big role in it.   I skateboarded a lot back in the day and think that also influenced the transitioning into shorter / wider boards.   I mostly shape/surf 5’6” – 5’11” 19.5 – 24.
I also prefer  a quad setup with all fins close to the rails (and each other).   Most of my buddies don’t like my short wide ones at 1st.  All the guys that have surfed them long enough to adjust now have one in the quiver (mostly for smaller beach breaks).
I just sucked a koa skin on this baby last night  5’7”  20.75.
llilibel03, I was so stoked on your squid I got a small sheet of pink/green abalone for this one.
[img_assist|nid=1045542|title=|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=480|height=640]

10

Looking good Slash.  I shied away from Koa because of cost.  It is the prettiest wood out there though, IMO.  Coincidence it comes from Hawaii?

 

I read the foot thing from McTavish and I’m stoked to hear someone actually considering it.  Like he said- it’s so obvious.  But he says he relates it to fin spread. Just set the fins according to foot size…regardless of tail width. A wide tail will have the fins set further in.  But I thought the whole advantage of rail finned boards is having the fins out by the rail where they pick up more energy.  I’m  parroting Griffin here, but the fact is his recipe worked for me. Worked splendidly. So I will set my fins according to my foot size, as says McTavish, but then size the tail width by putting the outside fins ±1" off the rails.

Oh, and the shuffling the feet side to side, rail to rail doesn’t work for me, especially in the quick dumpy beach break I mostly surf.  For example,  you’re going down the line backside, in the pocket and you’ve got your feet positioned so your heels are close to the rail, pumping in the pocket. Then all of a sudden you’re out on the shoulder and go to cut back and your toes are too far away from the now inside rail and you fall flat on your face.  If you try to shuffle your feet you’ve missed the moment and you’re way out on the flats.  As maligned as the 6’-1"  x  18-1/2" thruster is, I think there are reasons for the ubiquity of those dimensions.

11

Hi llilibel03

It's tome time (as LeeV might put it)...

My guess would be that you already get it, that is ultimately whatever dimensions you go with something tends to be conserved – and that it involves bottom surface. Mind you it's the wet stuff not the dry stuff. That is, the bottom surface that's interacting with the wave. For a given set of conditions and surfer, there is at least a minimal requirement regarding wetted bottom surface that must be met, or surfing just isn't going to happen.

If you add technique, -i.e. objectives of the surfer, then we move more towards this idea of providing an optimum range of bottom presentation to the surfer so that he/she can meet their objectives.

(By the way, this really isn't meant to be just a lot of jargon. I'm just trying my best to avoid relying on metaphors and similes.)

The really crude composite below helps to illustrate this. The red shaded area might be the optimum wet area for some shortboard, but if you move to different dimensions obviously you're going to wind up with to much or too little for some other shape. Of course, this assumes nothing else changes -i.e. as if all of a sudden, your surfboard just changed to some other board. Of course if it did, you'd automatically make the necessary adjustments in posture, stance, board orientation etc.. and ultimately that would produce a different wetted surface, but not necessarily one that changed in total wetted area. (Assuming the weight of the exchanged boards weren't all that different.)

But the above is still too simplistic. There is something else going on which tends to reveal itself with increasing board length - that is, the level of contribution to the force of planing made by a given region of wetted area – as not all wetted area contribute equally.

For example, during longboard nose riding - most of the board is surely interacting with the wave, but the most of the forces of planing are localized around where the surfer is standing. It's almost as if the all that board behind him is being dragged along by a surfer riding a shortboard. (By the way, this has its upside in noseriding, but that's another thread.) But this not-all-wetted-bottom-area-is-equal analysis is also true for shortboards, it's just not as obvious.

Consider something like Morey's (or Y's) The One. Here we have a pretty short board, and it's finless too. My guess would be that, given the limited bottom real estate, most of the wetted bottom of this board is making an almost equally significant contribution to the force of planing – it truly is a minimal piece of equipment (and of course, not the only one out there.) But minimal here is referring to the physics, as there is obviously a lot of choice regarding the actual shape or that range of bottom presentation that is offered to the surfer while still maintaining that minimal (total) bottom surface area.

Slipping back into metaphors and similes... there is a nut here, a nut which must have a minimum amount of nutrition to get the plant/tree past the germination stage, its shape, its shell, etc. all tend to address other, but not completely independent issues, but are nevertheless secondary.

Once you've got the 'nut' taken care of, then this notion of making that optimum range of bottom presentation available to the surfer becomes the issue – the second level of design, you might say. And by range, I mean, that which the surfer can bring on or take off-line, while still maintaining that 'minimum' nut. For shortboards this generally accomplished via changes in posture, stance, etc. for longer boards the option of moving one's actually position becomes more of a possibility.

It's the wetted surface that matters, and if you start to visual design in these terms then the highly significant role of rail curvature tends to become obvious. Rails are simply the fixed limits demarcating the bounds of the bottom. Once they are defined, a lot of the play (range) in bottom surface will then come via length – that forward bottom surface, a sort of free-rail, capable of change.

Now add some rocker, fins... etc.

Tome time is over...

kc

12

youll still see the guys on the "dream tour" riding 6'0" x 18 1/2" or whatever...but for the most part we are not those guys and we are not always riding those waves...so for the most part im on sub 6' x 20" + boards just to make paddling into and catching more waves easier...lower rockers on most of these boards too...because god knows i will not be caught on a funshape...hahaha...only my 5'11" egg

13

every board is a fun shape but it depends on how suitable it is for you in the waves you ride on just how much FUN.....

14

I think shorter and wider has been well and truly proven to plane better than longer and narrower. Shorter and wider planes, longer and narrower displaces. Take your pick I suppose.

15

Something I've wondered...

If you took a board that you regularly ride and like, cut it exactly down the stringer line. Add a couple of inches of board where you cut it and re-attach the two pieces.

What would happen?

My guess: a board that would feel somewhat similar in many respects, except in rail action. It would be more sluggish rail to rail and there would be a loss of rail sensitivity. Both affects would not meet my approval, esp the latter.

I think using the narrowest board you can get away with and still catch lots of waves and have fun is the general goal. Super Width is primarily for getting on plane quicker in weaker surf which would be great if thats all you surfed, or maybe in crowded competitive surf. But losing the feeling of the board's rail is not something I would be eager to jump on.

If it wasnt for rail surfing I probably wouldnt even surf. I went from 19" to 20" then almost 21" then back to 20".

I think what has happened over the last 15-20 years is that boards got unreasonably narrow for the general masses. The percentage of guys that can ride 18" is not great, but that's what most pros use. So now width is latest fashion trend. I never left it. 

Moderation is the key. Unfortunately, moderation doesnt sell thread views on Swaylocks ;)

I wonder what would happen if you started a thread named "Moderation is the Key"?   

16

to make this hypothetical experiment accurate

after cutting your favorite board down the middle

and adding in widening splice,the thickness overall

must be reduced to maintain accurate volumetrixs.

another factor would be the contour of said addition

enhancing or detracting the bottom contour would

easily enhancing slugishness and affecting rail sensitivity.

Finning and rail shape articulation could easily be adjusted to

maintain or increase performance.

The thought that the width paradime

is the formula that brought placement

evolution to the favored relationship

for perhaps your shoe size may be

a feature to look at when grading

the hypothetical wider board.

With width the fins set wider

become more contrary to directional flow

and then moslugish?

N'est ce pas?

(my wife told me how to spell that I was gonna write nez perse misspelling an indian tribe)

...ambrose...

at 21'' a outline doesn't even open up in the flats

31'' now lets just see bout never left narrow...

fin is 9 1/2'' in from the rail...

for rail sensitivity.

17

for those that didnt get it i assume the board huie posted is from an original 1969 Kevin platt template

18

he was 40 years up on us

19

Shoe size !!!..er…maybe, sometimes, with certain shapes, style of course…I have average size feet (together they average a bit less than size 7).  Oh, and width…an ‘E’.  Wide…not quite like a duck…good, except  when buying shoes. Maybe that first board, narrow and long, wired my brain to move/walk/jump all over a board, any board, though sub-6’ would be/is a challenge. I do tend to flatten my left rails,from going backside. Whatever…I think the issue, like so much, is personal…now, what is your sign ?

20

go wider and use a loaded dome or hully bottom for the rail roll?

go narrower for your bird feet and add some volume?