Seen at Surfermag.com . . . .
Aloha, Roy!
I had posted the “surfing board of surfingboards” post. The vessel has
no name but your surfboard inspired the post title. I can assure you
the surfbaord is complete. I resized the image to fit the screen
without considering preserving the aspect ratio, so yes, the surfboard
appears to be extrememly wide in the specs picture. In person the
surfboard looks like a spear.
Truth be told, this surfboard needs a long sloping wave face due to
the minimal nose rocker for such length. We built this with big waves
in mind and too much rocker we felt would compromise performance with
both paddleing and riding. We are talking about 50-70 foot faces and
the surfboard catches waves well before they are beginning to break,
allowing the rider ample time to choose his line and shoot for it!
The largest swell yet far was just over 30 feet face and the board
really starts to shine the larger the wave is. Lots of rail line and
not much curve and a smaller wave, the board is difficult to maneover
and has a mind of it’s own. Once over 20 feet, the board loosens up
and allows the rider more control off the tail which is what we aimed
for.
Well, if you are in the Islands (Maui) you are welcome to come take a
look and try the surfboard for yourself. The gentleman we commissioned
the board for received the labor money back and we ate the cost for
materials.
Mahalo,
Lin
Also seen at surfermag.com. . . . the lack of logic is painful to behold
Aloha Lin,
Thankyou for your message.
It’s interesesting and heartening to hear of yor big board. The frontiers of big wave paddle in surfing, and unbroken swell surfing are only beginning to be explored. Judging by the dimensions of your board and what you are telling me about it, you must have built the most advanced big unbroken swell catching board around!
It would be really nice to see some video of the board in
action.
Presently I am repairing my seventeen footer, which is the largest board I have built so far. Our boards are taking a slightly different tack from yours, in that I am using more rocker (and more width). This means that the boards are very maneuverable, a quality which we decided was worth sacrificing some wave catching ability for. I have been testing our boards at regular beachbreaks, and the biggest waves I have used the 17 foot Star Board in would be around 18 feet (that’s Imperial feet not Hawaiian) I surf the board in beachbreak conditions where hollow sections and flatter sections are all mixed up, and I must say that it does a fantastic job and gets some very long rides, often on unbroken sections. The Star board is also perfectly functional riding hollow little shorebreaks,and taking off late.
I was talkng to Tom Wegener recently. His 16 footers are built using a Philosophy similar to that which created your surfingboard of surfingboards, and his boards are thus on the flatter rocker side of the spectrum.
Some interesting goals for big board riding which I often think about are:
1) Aiming for the longest ride (In time and distance, measured via gps)
2) Aiming for the biggest paddle in wave ( One of the great things about paddle in big boards as opposed to tow in shortboards is that waves can be ridden unbroken and more gently sloping, allowing the game to be safer than tow in and allowing older gentlemen and regular surfers to take up the big wave challenge).
3) High speed surfing. It will be very interesting to discover how fast very long boards can go compared to shorter boards.
4) Big board surfing video. Big surfboard riding is very nice to watch.
Mahalo,
Roy
PS I am always interested to hear of developments!
Why then did Lincod say ‘April fool’ on his post? I await photographs.