i have watched innermost limits too many times. i shaped a short 5’6" stubbie like the one david treloar rides in the movie. now i wanna make it a hull.
what exactly is the hull bottom? i have never seen one in person so i dont have that great of an idea. it is a rounded bottom i know, but how pronounced is it? and does it begin at the nose? 12" fromt he nose?
how do you shape a rounded bottom most effectively? alot of very shallow cuts making a terrraced bottom and then use a piece of foam and screen to round it all off?
A hull bottom to me (and most other folks here that ride em) is a rounded bottom. I tend to think of it a more a pinching of the rails that extends almost to the stringer. There is a flat spot on the stringer (6" on either side) so its not really round all the way across. The depth of the hull is measured from the apex of the rail to the bottom. The location and depth of the deepest part of the hull in combination with the rocker will really affect how the board rides.
The more forward the hull the longer the turn radius (usually) and the more forward you stand on the board. As you move the hull back the turn radius begins to shorten as the sweet spot moves back. If the rocker and depth is just right, you can get just as much drive from a “back” hull as a “forward” hull. Most hulls use a soft rounded 50/50 rail although McCoy’s Nuggets’ loaded dome (a hull by any other name) uses harder rails.
The hull bottom doesn’t plane as well as a flat bottom so they are usually found on mid-length, wider boards to make them more versatile. Sub 7’ hulls really need some good waves to get them going. At lengths less than 6’ you need good waves and excellent technique as all the curves in the the board start getting cramped up and the nice flow you see on the longer versions goes away.
To shape one you can make rail-band-like cuts on the bottom, just make them shallow and wide, then blend. The real key is blending everything together. If you want to make one, I would really urge you to find one and study it to get a feel for what you have to do. Words will not suffice. Frye, Liddle, Anderson, Andreini, McCoy and Spencer Kellogg are still making them although I think you have to be related to Skippy-san to get one of his.
If you do an author search in the “Archives” and punch in Paul Gross…he describes the design process in a couple of threads and resources.
depth is generally around 1 and 1/8" to 1 and 1/2 ".make the tail flat -ie, no roll.(from fin back).just some general guidelines…
as Lee ponited out, a hull that short really needs some umph to get it rolling.7’ is the range where all the elements of rail, bottom rocker and outlinr seem to come together.under 6’ and there is not enough rail to drive it (unless you are in a smoking, inside out wave…
Also consider where the widthwise “crown” of the hull is located… not just the foil/thickness profile.
Hulls can have an evenly rolled cross section, or a bottom where the mass of curve is concentrated toward the stringer becoming flatter toward the rails, and vice-versa.
Even more complex are hulls which blend more than one of the above design elements.
In general, the deeper the hull, the longer, larger and more powerful the wave needed to drive it.
i have watched innermost limits too many times. i shaped a short 5’6" stubbie like the one david treloar rides in the movie. now i wanna make it a hull.
what exactly is the hull bottom? i have never seen one in person so i dont have that great of an idea. it is a rounded bottom i know, but how pronounced is it?
...I wonder what year George stopped doing "hulls" ... and why ? (I find this VERY difficult to ride)
'74 or '75 was the first I heard of his edge boards with the triple concave so it was sometime in the early '70’s. I guess you could still classify those boards as hulls and he still rides them except they have a big pole and a sail on them.
