…can anyone tell me what the shape on the bottom of Walden’s boards is called???
Was recently trying to describe it someone that has not seen one and the best I could come up with was “a single to double concave with a wide bevel under the rail…thingy.”
Pretty sad that I rode one for two years and never thought to ask what it is called.
Any idears?
I’ve never seen a Walden but it sounds like your talking about a rail “chine”. I think Stewart surfboards uses them on their Hydro-hull design.
Hi Spud,
I thought of that too, but the thing that throws me off is the width of the band from the bottom of the rail towards the inside of the board. It’s set about 3" in and runs parallel to the rails. I once had 9’8" from Malibu Sports and it had true chined rails from nose to just ahead of the sidefins.
Hola Pato,
Not a clue. It would be cool to see a pic of it, though that would be a tough thing to get a pic of. Think I’ll leave this to the pros.
later man . Eric
I have heard alot of people call them rail chines, but I think that type of design used to be called a tri-plane bottom. Some old windsurf design used to have a deep double concave down the middle with about 3 inch wide flat section at the rails and they were called planing rails.
ps Since you rode one for 2 years, how do you rate that bottom design?
I really liked that board because I could ride it in a variety of conditions. High performance surfing off the tail was it’s highest attribute but you could still noseride with ease. The thing that bugged me about it was that it would stall in the center of the board. You couldn’t just trim out and glide from the middle without the thing hitting the breaks. That was exactly the reason that I moved on to Hap Jacob’s 422 model. It’s an insane noserider with perfect glide and I can really pump it off the tail when I need to.
Of course these are just my opinions. Actual mileage may vary. See a store for details.
It is a dull channel, kinda like Al Merrick’s Tri Hull of the 80’s. Steve Walden is good people. I think he might have even shaped for Channel Islands long ago.
Yea, my experience with Walden didn’t turn out so well… After promoting him for years , (I do like the Magic longboard shape) I was thinking of getting the new 10 footer boardworks model. The shops didn’t have them in yet and wanted me to pay for one up front to “hold” it for me… I e-mailed him to see if I could find out any thing about the shape and he returned message with … He was not going to tell me the specs and if my shaper was so good let him figure it out … I was never going to try to use any specs he had … I think it is pretty impossible to copy a board like that … There is so many things that go into a shape as you all know … That was it as far as my loyalty to Walden… Pretty Lame of him I say… The funny thing is now that the board is up on the boardworks website it has all the specs…
The Walden Magic has a “Chine” from tail to nose at the rail. The single concave that starts at the nose, morphs into a double concave about 1/3 up from the tail. Stewart’s Hydro-Hull boards have the same type of bottom, at least on the longboards. One of the guys at the Stewart shop in San Clemente told me it was their best seller. I’ve mostly heard that bottom called a hydro-hull.
Alot of guys who surf the Walden really like them. I surfed one in Hawaii on a vacation there and found that it turned quick (lots of tail rocker) and was stable on the nose (lots of tail rocker) but it was slow in trim (lots of tail rocker). When Boardworks was making them, it was their most popular board, according to Thane Pope. Doug
A couple of my friends have Stewart funboards. The chine starts as a subtle bevel in the nose and goes into a very noticable bevel through the middle section of the board and fades out about 1/3 of the way from the tail. I want to take a better look at it to really see how it is done.
On the website they call it the hydro-hull.
Is this board an example of the chine of which you guys are speaking?
Tigermeat,
Yep, that’s it!
…
So I guess “Hydro Hull” is a good enough name for it. Chined rails with a single to double concave. With the chines being extra wide.
Hi Hotcoat,
I’m not surprised by your story. There seem to be plenty of them floating around here regarding his attitude. I’ve never had a run-in or problem with him but my wife has. A couple of years ago I bought her the Wahine model. It was gorgeous with a really nice blue aloha print cloth deck and blue sparkle paint job. She loved it and rode the board exclusively for the summer. One afternoon she surfing at the point and Walden kept dropping in on her. Blatantly!!! After the third or fourth time she confronted him and he basically told her to get over it. Must have really pissed her off because she drove straight to Ventura Surf Shop and put the board up for sale. Said she wouldn’t support someone who treats his own customers that way.
On the other hand, my friend had a custom 9’6" that Walden made for him a few years back and he thinks the guy is the greatest thing since peanut butter. Apparently he spent good amount of time going over the board details and answered all his questions. Told him to stop by anytime. showed him the shop, blah blah blah…
Pato-
he has burned a lot of people and bridges for sure.
This thread was bouncing around in what’s left of my brain, when a friend said he wanted a new longboard. Really, I said what do you want? Something around 9 ft he says. Anything else, I asked. No, surprise me.
Still working on the tailblock, but we’ll see if he likes the surprise.
there’s a guy out here, Tom Eadon, that’s been making what he calls a “hull” that has that double concave and flat “bevel” along the rails. I’ve got one… 9’2" EPS performance longboard…some concave under the nose fades into a double concave displacement “hull” with a pretty sharp ridge along the stringer but flat under the 50/50 rails… smooth, continuous rocker throughout…squash tail. I’ve been riding it with a Harbor single fin and no sidebites, but it works great as a 2+1 with a cutaway.
Works best when the trim angle is slightly down and into the wave face…but overall, pretty slow. I’m thinking it’s a design that is intended to get one rail completely into the wave, nose to tail, and the other rail completely out of the water. Good for smaller, weaker, slower surf.
Anybody else got a theory?