Nice to see everyone awake Now! Nothing like a tread that mentions computers and Board Building to get a die hard group of Planer Pushers to get up in arms and cry The sky is falling.
I also did some work on Yachts, Worked on an Americas Cup contender. Yes much is still seat of the Pants But much of the guess work is first removed by computer modeling. Surfboards are a lot less complex then a racing yacht and even less then a high speed jet fighter.
Turbojet makes some good points about composite construction. The seminar at Stanford for the most part would be way over the head of most of us. However there are classes that can be taken on composite construction technique at community Collages that have relationships with The Aerospace Industry. Classes like that might have been the seed for Coil Surfboards.
Even back in The late 60’s and early 70’s I knew that there was more money to be made in selling tee shirts then in selling surfboards.
Artz, say there were a few shapes that were superior to everything else anyone’s ever made; could these specific shapes be patented? I heard it’s impossible to patent a pattern, but if it becomes patentable, that would spell what for the industry? The culture?..The Reef girls…?
hahaha, I went to Byron Bay High (Hippy) school, we had a board stashed in the bushes and the beach was a few hundred meters away…Double period of english, straight to lost property for some boardies and surf for two classes into lunch (or whatever) and back… Sexy Art teacher, Pot smoking English teacher, paranoid math. We were out of control while totally in control, Best years ever! …Byron was a cool, when I went… My bus driver used to drop me off at the surf before school (where ever the surf was good) and then pick us up where he dropped us off in the arvo and then home. He rode a surf Ski and even came to our surf gatherings on the weekend.
No web cams, swell models on the net, surfline, buoy reports, etc. Just watching and observing the sky and ocean and checking it out. No calling all your bro’s on the cell phone either. Worse than showing up with 5 guys in the car with boards on top. Get the f…k out of bed and look at it. Yes, I use all this stuff. Except calling up bro’s on the cell with a report. But, I liked it better before. Mike
I would submit that the surfboard would be more difficult to measure than the sailboat. With a sailboat it’s pretty straight forward to figure out performance and figure out results. With a surfboard there are just to many variables and the ultimate performance is dictated by the rider’s ability…ITS THE INDIAN NOT THE ARROW!!!. Everything from the rider’s weight to where he puts his feet to if he’s front footed or backfoot oriented when he surfs. Just too many variables to measure and too subjective as to results. What feels good to one surfer may feel terrible to another. Good luck.
Mako You make a good argument for the custom board except the vast majority of the surfing public buy off the rack. If it is The Indian then said warrior would be able to hit the target with just about any arrow in the quiver.
I think marine architects would have a thing or two to say about Sailboat design and performance.
