My opinion - based solely on theory and minimal experience. Take it however you want…
ANY transfer of energy is not 100% efficient. Loading of a fin/board and then letting it unload will never give you more energy than before. Certain materials/structure designs will be more efficient than others. However, I think the benefit of flex as a energy storage device is that you can use it to store energy when you dont need it for when you do need it. Example: dissipating speed/changing direction going into a turn, executing the turn on the desired arc, then getting SOME of the energy back to accelerate/“project” out of the turn.
And thanks DS for the history lesson and lengthy explanation. I feel smarter
Frankly, I was bored out of my skull with “standard” surfboards, so I started picking up pieces of stuff that have been laying around since, you know, the old days, reconfiguring them with modern concepts and materials, and seeing if there’s any life to them.
Gettin’ all cubist, and shit (turning things inside out).
There’s a world of possibilities if people want to explore and play. I’m not sure if its the best use of my time and energy, but I’ll keep at it as long as it stays interesting.
Somewhere in this thread I read something about making two identical boards....one with flex & one without to see the difference......but that would be missing the point.
Flex in the tail allows for a different outline to be used.....straighter, because the increased tail rocker under load allows it to turn tighter....this also means wider tails & faster boards in weaker waves.
Flex in the tail enables the board to fit the contour of the wave better & keep driving where a conventional tail would break out.
The resonance of the flex needs to be tuned to how you want to ride....I like powerful long wavelength [not flick] for load & release......but there is a place for more relaxed flex if you want to smooth out your surfing....could improve a jerky style.
The boards I ride & have made [both stand-up & kneeboards] have an independent flex for each side of the tail.....on one [a 24" long split tail] I had the option of varying the flex by progressively tightening down between the two sides until the flex was only about 10%....I found it killed the board....made it dull....& I couldn't get out of the water fast enough to change it back!
My boards do have suspension to create a faster memory.
Flex allows a rapport with the wave that you simply don't get with a conventional board.
If a formula one car didn't have any suspension it would dance off at the first corner.
To say that stiff boards = instant response is much like saying that the formula one car is fastest with super narrow tyres for less rolling & wind resistance......but we wouldn't say that.....would we????
Soooooo many variables to take into account......but good discussion.
i was thinking that the more pieces you make one of these composites out of the more joints you create and the more joints you create the more you disrupt the timbre which i would think would disrupt the harmonic created from the skin and core construct. the simpler the construct the purer the tone. I think Jarrod wrapped his veneer around the shaped blank instead of doing soild rails.
all i know is the following
almost everything flexes. how much, how long and how quickly it sprngs back is the variable.
a glassed custom PU made by a master craftsman who knows what he is doing is still the standard to beat by all this new technology. its more in the durability element that the new materials come into play.
the overall goal is in designing something that most efficiently transforms the energy captured from ocean by the engaged rail and fins into some type of forward motion. George and Tom bascially converted the craft into an extension of the fin. and discovered the benefits and leverage achieved by a lower center of graviity. Probably why George is on mats today as next to body surfing its the closest of board and body being the same thing.
Try riding one of these modern flex boards or fins with your feet togethor standing straight up like we did in the old days and you’ll see it won’t work. But crouch down in the classic stinkbug stance and do the hippy hippy shake and you’ll an pump your self to mach11. Bertlemann, Liddle and Buttons had to surf their aipa stings with the big flex fins with their butts about 2 inches off the board and one foot on the nose and one on the tail. that’s why its become spastic and skateboardy like but you were creating something (speed and acceleration) from nothing instead of tapping into the natural energy of the wave. And this is what became modern surfing although the alaia/mat/bodysurfing phenomena is probably a regression to find and tap into that natural energy line again. But it goes in cycles anyway.
its all good and in the end its just a surfboard and surfing least we forget…
I couldn’t get the edit button so I’m replying to myself…this should read DOESN’T USURP… the spell check feature should be easier as I’m murdering all my posts and sometime messing up the meaning in a few of them…I’m not illeterate as these posts seem to indicate.
DS - I’m using Firefox, and wondered why their sweet spellchecker wasn’t working… But, when I click on the “Input formant” below, and then click on “Simple Editor,” the auto spell works… But, if I want paragraphs, I have to go back to “Advanced Editor…”
Oh well - Mike kicks ass for “hosting” this party, so all “props” to him…
I know it’s only Sway and boards, but I like it…
And Bernie… Come on man, I know you are level headed… But I love my surfboard obsession… Ha!!!
I like your “transfer of energy” statement, because actually this is what we are really talking about. When Bill brought up this thread, he said does anyone like stiff…and he cites immediate response as a likeable feature. Let’s face it, getting some degree of immediate response is REQUIRED, but subject to personal preference.
I, for one, always hated those Morey Doyle and other soft top boards because you would punch a turn and all your energy expended for directing the board was dissipated and like a vinyl record on 16 RPM…great if you want to pretend you’re listening to dinosaurs, but not much good for anything else.
At the risk of sounding like a politician, transfer of power is a key ingredient in what you ultimately experience. And I think you are pretty spot on when you say a transfer of power offers some degree in a loss of energy. But there are other ways to approach it that can lend more insight for everyone. If you think o f surfboards being junkies, they are heavily dependent on leverage. Not just rail leverage, but fin and bottom leverage too. The Orbelian or whoever it was link that depicted surfboard bottom as fins is very good…it helps me illustrate the point that an ultimately stiff board MAY appear to have the most immediate response as you transfer power to the board, but that stiffy may not FIT into the moving mass of concavity to produce the optimum result.
Anyone that thinks stiff equates the ultimate transfer of power is ultimately naiive. We have to start thinking about other concepts like angle of attack…something I lived, breathed and ate for a decade while windsuring. I never saw this subject (A of A) come up with surfboards until the fin guys starting feeding it to the surfing masses.
Angle of attack with sailboards encompassed not only fins and the enormous R&D we were doing to fight off cavitation, but it was also completely linked to our quest to be the fastest naturally driven hull in the water, in the world…and we did that. But that only came when we could start using wind tunnels and sophisticated measuring devices on trucks out in the desert…then we brought the sails up to speed with improved drafts, RAF’s (Rotating Assymetrical Foils) Camber Inducers, and wiinged masts with many different FLEX patterns for surfsailing, recreational slalom racing and timed speed trials. Flex became HUGELY important in many critical areas throughout the 80’s. And there was money there for me to plow back into my business to stay at the leading edge.
I did my best to crossover as much of that stuff to surfboards as possible…but then again, there were still surfers complaining about a surfboard costing $300.
Anyway…the flex aspect of a surfboard is a big deal right now whether you believe it or not. The blank guys I have contributed R&D know this and have gained a lot of ground because they have placed importance in that area. I think a lot of people that have posted here are missing that point that when we talk about flex in a given spot on any one board, that we are talking about small amounts of overall flex…or more correctly, it would be good to go the way we did with sailboard masts and quantify the ‘flex patterns’.
Someone earlier brought up snow skiis…and this too has been a long time quantified aspect of skiis. If you ski powder you aren’t riding the old K2’s that were notoriusly stiff…but if you were skiing ice or hard packed powder and like to go fast, you look for skiis with stiffer tails. There are many different flex patterns to skiis, and they have done a great job in clarifying which models have what.
The other thing I didn’t pick up (I honestly haven’t read ever post in here cuz of time restraints) is having the shaper adjusting the rocker (esp. the tail) for anticipated flex. Obviously a ton of tailrocker with a super flexy hull is going to net a different result than a moe flattened tailrocker expectiing that generous flex to do its thing…
So all in all…yeah, there’s a bunch of variables to consider.
…oh, and Gibbons mentioned his boredom with the current day boards too, going back to look for something fresh…glad I’m not alone. I’ll just say, keep watching the guys getting air for another year or two and you’ll see what I mean.
Fascinating discussion. As a working associate of George’s there’s a couple of points that he has shared with me re: flex.
First, the hero POV shots in Echoes were shot at Lennox Point from a mat.
Try and get your head around that reality.
Secondly, the Mitchell war surplus cameras that George retro-engineered were already high speed cameras. He completely re-built them to fit hydro-dynamic water housings.
Thirdly, after taking a Mitchell Rae flextail up to George’s he identified for me what was the most important advantage of flex: The ability to create variable rocker and thus more effectively utilise power regions in the wave.
This has been identified by DS.
You only have to watch George ride a mat and see the sections he makes to see this theory in action.
But since I already broke promise “a)” I might as well break promise “b)” to say that I remember way back when ('77 or '78) watching Greenough screaming through the Rivermouth at Rincon on a big (double + overhead), grey, chopped up, rainy, south wind day. On a mat. It must’ve made an impression. Granted, you can get away with things prone that you can’t standing up, but on a mat? Flowing over the ridges, stuck like glue high on the wall.
Anyway, for me, at least, the flex thing is just one avenue to explore- something different that works well and feels pretty cool.
Excellent…I figured someone from OZ would chime in with relevancy sooner or later. Say hi to George for me!
Yes, I did NOT mention that some of the most incredible footage came from being on his mat. I kinda thought I’d spoon feed a little at a time, and here you show up with the whole Big Gulp reality. A good amount of footage was at NIGHT TIME in big ass waves to boot…another mind wrapper if I don’t say so myself.
The variable rocker that can lay down straight with flat out speed is likened to McTavish and the first vees in a parllel world sort of way. The similarity being that both offer planes that want to go flat out floored pedal to the metal for the rider. Horsepower.
The other aspect of this is if you have ever ridden a board with a paper thin tail, the water wants to release off it quicker than all get out…there is an absence of resistance there…different than a thick tailed razor edged sailboard…just very noticeably different.
So Lennox and Gibbons and a lot of the age old SB to OZ connection (largely due in part to George’s rather regular migrations), kept this flex infused, hungry for more power design school of thinking not only surviving but thriving.
With the exception of say McTavish, Young, Lynch, Cooper, and a few others…the lesser known guys like Cundith, West, Peter and others in and around Wilderness just kept on doing their thing without media fanfare.
The contribution remains as impressive to me now as it did then…even though I was representing the alternative design school of natural rocker and full length downrailers. These were the two schools that would go head to head on any given day in the water at Rincon, the Ranch, Jalama…sometimes quite vocally but all in good spirit.
Although I’ve already had my shout about the current stagnant state of professional suring, I will say that the bulk of hard driving cutbacks by today’s best surfers resemble George riding his spoon…hand on the rail, the center of gravity is lower than ever before for stand up surfers…my point is…the new guard has never looked more like George’s surfing on any given day of the last century…yeah, all those mag pix look like kneeboarders,half men, GG diciples…without knowing it!
I know if I said this in front of George he would just look at me and laugh and shake his head…but it’s true.
Maybe the best pro surfers of our day are just catching up?
To Allan Gibbons, going down the way back when road(1983), my whole lifestyle and career was influenced by my buddies and I, as young lads, watching you on larger DOHish days at a cold left point up north, Prater’s Place, doing the squarest bottom turns I’ve ever seen to this day on a little 5’4" or 5’6"ish quad. The legend still stands that to do a proper ‘Gibbons’ you must turn so square off the bottom that you cross the wake of your drop-in to smack the lip.
I now engineer flex for a living and get the honor of working with some of the top pros in the world.
Thank you Allan for the great influence and teaching us what was possible to achieve while standing sideways.
Al, the artist, could also paint a fine female birthday suit or an excellent Duty Now For The Future symbol on foam.
“No leashes, black wetsuits, white foam, I didn’t sell this show down the road.” I also won’t forget the wise quote of shaper Florida Phil, who I caught further north one day with a leash.
I’ve often wondered the same thing. Some boards I understand require fine tuning by building up additional glass panels or grinding glass off.
Have you heard the analogy of golf clubs and surfboards?
Most golfers carry a variety of clubs to fit various situations and one golfer’s set of clubs is generally a bit different from the next golfer’s set of clubs. Different shafts, flex, head designs and grips allow personalized “fit” for each.
My point is just that although I think it’s a great concept, a standardized formula for flex and rocker in surf craft might not work for everyone. A specific rider’s weight, skill, personal preferences and wave conditions in which the boards are ridden would likely need adjustment from any given standard.
A bellyboard I made for a friend awhile back has slight reverse rocker in the end of the tail but no specific flex apparatus was built in to the board. It is more of a “slab” than a flex board but it rides OK.
I’ve yet to see a discussion here between slab addicts and flex spoon/hullophiles but it would be interesting to hear from the various experts in both areas!
If that’s what Greenough said, I’m in agreement. Flex is more about changing rocker than loading up energy. that’s the primary thing I think about when I’m designing a board’s flex - where the rocker changes, how much force will be required to get the rocker to change the way you want it, and what effect that change will have on other variables, namely speed.
When I talked about flex in a shortboard in pitchy beachbreak surf, it’s all about getting the board to flex easily to get the rail curve to change easily, to make your turn mid face rather than at the bottom. Flex in the tail is obvious - more rocker in the tail on a turn or in the pocket, less down the line. Flattened nose rocker on a noserider for trim when your on the tip. None of this relates to gaining energy. The old belief that “flatter is faster” does have a lot of truth to it, but it’s not an absolute.
For me it’s a balancing act between flex for contol and stiffness for speed and responsiveness. A 2x4 will not surf well because there is an absolute lack of balance. In fast, steep, thumping surf, when you’re in the most critical part of the wave, where the most energy is, you can feel the board flexing under your feet. There’s no doubt about it. And without that flex, you’d be riding a 2x4. You need the board to flex to fit into the wave, and tap into that tightly coiled ball of energy. But what is it… half?.. half of your board is out of the water? Two thirds? The part of the board that’s being flexed the most, the tail, has to have the flex, while the middle that’s half out and half in, needs to stay relatively stiff to create a balanced curve - I mentioned how a longbow flexes. That’s how I think of it. Too much flex through the middle and you’ll bog.
It sounds like the solution might lie in the stringer design.
A composite stringer, laminated with different materials. The tail 6 inches in glass laminated with latex enriched epoxy, where it would flex. The next section is carbon reinforced with as little flex as possible. Maybe even a parabolic stringer in this area only to resist tortion or twisting.
The nose two feet would have a more conventional stiffness in the stringer. Allowing it to flex over impact from either the lip or the steep drop.
1 pound EPS to act as a dampener to vibration, much the same way that a tennis racquet sometimes has a rubber dampener inserted between the two longest strings.
The stringer would have an I flange where it meets the top and bottom glass to tie it together. Skinned with your wood or Corecell of choice.
With the Greenough designs translated to stand up surfing, the whole human engineering would be different. When kneeling you have much more of your body in contact with the board. You can control flex with knees feet and hands, with legs running parallel. Stand up surfing you have two relatively small points of contact - your feet. Try riding an air mat standing up and you’ll see what I mean.
Greenough flex designs work only if you have 3’ long feet, and stand parallel like a snow skiier. Also you would need to be two feet tall.
Interesting reading, with some very definitive comments;
• Flex allows a rapport with the wave that you simply don’t get with a conventional board.
• Anyone that thinks stiff equates the ultimate transfer of power is ultimately naiive.
Still can’t subscribe to the flex dogma (especially as it relates to fins).
Even in the most heralded example flex can be a detriment.
There are points on these rides where I can see the flex robbing speed, the bottom turn at around 1:33 stands out the most. I’m not dissing George, there’s a fellow at my local that owns one of the expensive velo remakes, even on big perfect days he can’t ride it anywhere near GG. I think good surfing is as much wave knowledge and ability as it is design.
Could be that each board has it’s own unique rapport with any wave and I’m ultimately naive.
One thing Ive noticed is that magic boards don’t stay magic for all that long. It seems like when they loose there springback they loose the magic.
One major benefit of flex are the crazy turns these days. If you look at guys that really surf on rail- like parko, fanning, etc- they are getting those figure 8 turns from the increased rocker that the flex adds on hard turns courtesy of ultra thin foam and glass.
On bottom turns, Im with NJ Surfer. I don’t think there is an “energy load up”. I think the “thrust” felt is due to the shift from a flexed (increased rocker & less efficient plane) springing back to a flatter more efficient plane. You guys see it this way?
“the flex thing is just one avenue”…yeah, what most people don’t realize is on any given day George would choose his mat over his spoon. There were days when people expected him to grab his spoon and he decide it was mat material. And these were not just crappy off the shelf mat’s from Thrify Mar tor Big Five.
The ability to ride those mats and get them planed up on one or two of the floats required a lot of wave knowledge and coordination. I watched George make sections that guys on stand boards couldn’t.
Some days “Rubber Duckie” was king.
Those pontoons aka floats had curves and inflated properly with enough air to get the hardness desired, created yet…another displacement hull. But displacement is ultimately a tricky design that takes power to get, and keep moving up on a plane. Battleships displace, and they take a helluva lotta power to get them going…but once their going, get out of the way.
The spoon’s were for potetnial power situations…forget riding one in gutless mush…they were harder than hell to ride period…but given the right situations, with the right rider…look out!
And as far as the comment of the spoons being an extension of those big hanging flex fins…that’s not too far from the truth…all glassed on for maximum transfer of power, flexible to conform to the power that was there, resulting in maximum propulsion…bouncy, doubled up, snotty conditions doesn’t sound like the stiff board fits it real well?
However, keep in mind the graduated flex was what I termed “engineered”. The board’s were stiffest in the front with 8 layers of clloth and the foam rail then 7, then 6 then 5 then 4. With that big power hungry flex fin glassed on.
So the ‘leading edge’ of the board so to speak was stiff by comparison to the torquing flexible tail that was malleable to the wave face…initiate direction with a stiff front and derive power with TORQUE by allowing the stern to lay flat and peak out with what it can. Then lay into it with all yo got to where you want to go. If you are ever fortunate enough to see footage of GG on his spoon(s), you will see very apparently the amount of weighting and unweighting that is going on.
And the deficit of what could be accomlished on his knees compared to standing up becomes very obvious. The amount of directional force you can apply on your knees is even greater than what force a surfer can apply on his heels while turning backside versus frontside…frontside turns are finesse and when powerful focus on a power surfer’s knees and thighs. Backside turns are largely mor rotational but have the heel and ankles to handle the force.
George had his knees and body exerting tremendous weight on turns and extended and projected turns from an entirely different position. You would see him come around on a powerful cutback and sometimes elect to straighten up, unweight, and throw the board up into and over the mass of churning whitewater before heading out of alll that turbulence…basically just challenging and screwing with the wave.
Think about having your postiion of power about 1/4" away from the water’s surface! Stand up surfers don’t enjoy that dynamic! No wonder everyone is getting lower!
Maybe we will all eventually regress or return to the womb as body surfers and Dolphins.
