I was turned on to the Stinger design by a friend, and absolutely love they way the design responds in small mush, to super clean juice.
Anyone have some pics of Stingers? Thanks, would greatly appreciate it!
When I had my garage shop in Oceanside, I had cut down a longboard blank to make a fish. I took the other half whcih was 3’, and shaped my brand new baby girl a little mini baby stinger… I never glassed it, but I’ll post pics of it just for shits and giggles.
Just a word of caution…there is a good reason the stinger died out in the '70’s.
With the break up at mid rail, you will get way less use out of your rail in your turn.
They are ok if you like flat, low speed, sliding turns with no carve. It’s just really
rare that most want to surf like that.
It seems that the only use for them is on a longer board, where you still have 4 feet
of useable rail after the break.
When you carve a turn and your fins start poping out, or at least get into the
turbulent surface water, all that’s left to hold your line is that burried rail.
Be cautious when giving that up too!
But I’ve been wrong before, so if it’s really your dream…Aipa still makes them.
Don’t laugh, please…
I made this in 1990. At the time, I didn’t glass myself and I was a bit short on money so I never had it glassed… Therefore, we’ll never know how TERRIBLE it was… Lol.
Picture of me as a kid riding an Aipa Stinger. If I remember right, it was about 6’6", a round pin and had no step in the bottom. Single fin obviously. Long rake fin set waaaaay up from the tail. Note the wide, low and forward stance. That was pretty much the way you had to ride them. Oddly enough, a while back, just for fun I made a .brd file for a modern step bottom stinger. I keep looking at the thing. Tempted to cut it.
Well actually here is my Stinger…
And I ride this guy a lot. It’s super loose. Very fast, and when I ride it in bigger surf and the faces are steeper than normal, you can
really feel that rail help like a side bite kind of does. Also, I have the paddling of a bigger board, and the surfing responsiveness of a shorter
narrower board. However, I wouldn’t compare Stingers to a thruster.
I like the board so much, I’m think about building one a bit shorter, more like a 6’8’‘. This one pictured above is a 7’4’'.
Also, Bill Thrailkill’s twin center fin layout might compliment this shape in the way I’m hoping. The big downfall I’ve found with Stingers are, in some conditions
a single fin works best, but others side bites seem to work better. But it’s always back and forth. The feeling each set up is never better than the other.
Anyway… ya it could just be me, I like boards that surf as bad as you say Stingers do. 
I have actually had a great time rediscovering stingers as my last couple of “short” boards: 7’3" and 7’5" respectively. Can’t post pics at the moment, but here is a link to my last one: 7’5" x 2.75" x 21.5". Relatively light EPS/epoxy construction (30kg/m3), slightly thinner rails to compensate for the extra flotation, a fair amount of vee and a slightly flexible 8.5" single… I love riding this board.
http://www.surfrepotes.fr/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1158
Like most shapes, stinger performance is relative… to what you’re used to and what you expect from your boards. From my friends’ comments though, and the silly grin I’m wearing after each session, I don’t think that one can simply qualify the design as weak. I’m finding that I can generate great speed, carve, and bring it off the top really well. Keep in mind that I’m 6’5" and close to 200lbs (and am almost always on a longboard of one form or another) if those dimensions seem full to you.
I’ll try and get this new system down so that I can repost pictures of this one and the previous one.
Stoked that you brought up the topic, I’ve been wanting to do the same.
Quote:
Just a word of caution...there is a good reason the stinger died out in the '70's.With the break up at mid rail, you will get way less use out of your rail in your turn.
They are ok if you like flat, low speed, sliding turns with no carve. It’s just really
rare that most want to surf like that.
It seems that the only use for them is on a longer board, where you still have 4 feet
of useable rail after the break.
When you carve a turn and your fins start poping out, or at least get into the
turbulent surface water, all that’s left to hold your line is that burried rail.
Be cautious when giving that up too!
But I’ve been wrong before, so if it’s really your dream…Aipa still makes them.
My high school years were all about stingers and Bertleman/Buttons/Liddel worship. I loved the way those guys surfed. I recently bought a copy of “Many Classic Moments” just to see if it was all like I remember and, especially Buttons, their surfing is still relevant.
So, here’s an idea- why not combine the stinger with a Griffin style 5 fin set up? Griffin’s doing something with his rails that creates release. My take has been that everything’s releasing, making the board fast (the flying feeling everyone reports) and then 5 expertly foiled and strategically placed fins keep you in control and driving forward. Couldn’t the stinger just add that much more release, so even less water is sticking to your rail?
That said, I know Griffin doesn’t like wings or bumps in his outlines. They are always very clean.
Just wondering…
Anyone ever make a stinger with a thruster set up?
Let me tell you a tail, er, tale about a friend and rider that has been on my stingers for about 15-18 years.
Yes, you are partially right that they have a place with length, but the flat surfing and other comparisons are not on the mark. And the questionability of them holding is even further off the mark…at least with my formula that is.
BB rides 9’ or 9’1"s so they are contest legal. he’s now in his 40’s but a former ab diver and still in good shape and a strong surfer. He surfs some mighty powerful surf north of San Francisco. One point is a quality wave, but we will leave names out to protect the innocent.
He first started riding these boards when still living and working in Santa Barbara. I made him the usual type longboards but watching him at Rincon and other spots I could see that he consistently had problems cutting back. I read his wax pattern and could see how far up he was on the board. Unless he was going Mach 2 he couldn’t swing it 100% of the time. That’s when I went back to the drawing board and did a stinger for him. I had done shortboard stingers before, but all had been quiet on the western front until the need resurfaced for one.
Long story short, it not only solved the problem by providing him the forward pivoting point, but the addition of what I call an “hourglass concave” and refined edges made his surfing go futuristic. These boards were made in Clark Foam, then Dow extruded for a brief time, then stringerless ultralight EPS with stagger lapped Warp Glass…(see the thread stringerless longboards somewhere here in Sway’'s). He has ripped triple overhead NorCal grinders with these boards that were supposed to snap immediately if not sooner.
The other aspect to his surfing this design has been his use of tiny little fins…early on another shaper saw him with his new board getting ready to go out at Campus Pt. in Goleta on a double overhead day…he was told…that “WILL NOT WORK, DON’T EVEN BOTHER GOING OUT”!
Guess what…wrong. He has gone progressively smaller over the years. How small is small…well sidebites are usually 3-1/4" to 3-1/2" and he had smaller than that then…and his main drivng center fin was 5" then 4-1/2" then smaller. Yes the rails off the stings are sharp, and behind that, even sharper. The concave contour is pretty radical…but when we are talking about a nine ft. board that weighs 9 to 12 lbs. they turn heads regularly. The last one was a glass slipper. Liddle probably could relate.
Shortboards…in disguise…but yes, stings.
If I could ever figure how to post a pic i would…
Yes please post a pic. I would LOVE to see these boards. Mike Ewaliko, that shaped the Stinger I have, also does a ‘King Sting’ which is a longboard Stinger. I always thought the Stinger design would compliment a longboard well.
Thanks to all of you and the thoughtful posts!
Balsa,
I think it’s finally time you glassed that board and rode it. How did you keep it in such good shape all these years? If I keep an unlaminated board around for longer than a couple days I end up bumping, scraping, etc. 1990? That has to be some sort of record!
I’ve never ridden a stinger. They look ‘funny’ to my eye. Mike
Like I said, “I’ve been wrong before” so nothing new this time!
Sounds like you guys have had better times on them than me.
I better be careful or I might just have to try one again.
I agree with R here balsa, ride captain ride upon your mystery ship…
The stealth stinger.
Ahhhhhhhhh, Blues Image? Ride Captain Ride…
P.S.
I believe Aipa developed the Stinger for Kaiser Bowl or some spot on the South Shore that was a very short ride (like St. Augustine’s at Hollister) that you turned once set up a certain angle to get barreled once then BOOM! you were out on the flat with one cutback worth left…very short wave. So, a special board for a special wave.
Bertleman had it wired and the Stinger was the answer. The single fin he had was pushed way up and he liked it sloppy in the fin box. He said he would go into the cutback and when the fin slopped over and connected with the side of the box, he got an extra boost out of it…
Hearsay was that Aipa was inspired for the design by looking at the step aka sting in a Boston Whaler…
The design reality is that a wing that far up in that volume of the board isn’t a wing and becomes a sting. I made 7 boards for my personal quiver back in the early days of pioneering Santa Catalina with my local Panamanian friends and I made several of the boards with wings at different distances from the tail…the further up they got, the more the board would pivot. These were all single fins as this was pre Simon days.
To change the design into twins or twinzers or regular tri’s kinda is counter intuitive of what the design was.
Of course 99% of the people on this site have tried to reinvent the wheel…more than once.
To start making these
Here’s a go at posting an image of the 7’5"
Okay, I’m getting the picture thing down, for the umpteenth time! A couple of final details, this board have very sharp rails from the wings back and while they do soften up they remain relatively hard throughout the length. So far, in anything up to a couple of feet overhead, it’s great fun.
[IMG]http://img123.imageshack.us/img123
![[IMG]](http://g.imageshack.us/img123/img0752gh6.jpg/1/){kind=link}
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[URL=http://g.imageshack.us/img291/img0751fn7.jpg/1/][IMG]http://img291.imageshack.us/img291
Mike, I have really large drawers in which I keep all those futuristic shapes that I know are way too much ahead of their time… Periodically, I look them up, wipe off the dust, think it over and decide whether it’s time or not to unveil them to the surfing world waiting in awe… Lol.
Too late for this one, I gave it to some guy a few years ago… Haven’t seen it in the water since, though… re-lol.