I know there is not often anything new under the sun so this shouldn’t come as a surprise.
For those who have seen The Surfers Journal Biography video on Cheyne Horan, you may recall seeing some other strange boards under his arm which weren’t the Lazor Zaps that he is most associated with.
Here is one of those of his personal boards from the mid to late 1980’s.
it is not too dissimilar to the Tomo Modern Planing Hull designs such as the Vanguard and Evo in its outline (ignoring the nose shape of course). Apply some modern rails, thickness, fin set up and bottom contours, and you wouldn’t be a million miles away.
Yeah, somebody posted that pic a few days ago and I thought, “Well look at that.” Nothing new under the sun. Makes me wonder how a modernized version would ride with a single fin.
This board looks fun. I personally am not a board maker, I have shaped one board in my life time and that was with an instructor, so my opinion has very little weight to it. But I feel like board makers from the 80’s were on the right track with volume and rails. I also feel like the 90’s and early 2000’s were a funky experimental stage. Potato Chip thin boards worked well for Slater and T. Knox. With volume being added back into some of these “off the rack” boards I feel like the weekend warrior is getting a better board now.
That was me that posted it on the other thread.
But I thought it deserved to be out in a thread of it’s own.
It must have been Cheynes attempt to keep the Lazor Zaps float/support with its wide tail but improve its rail to rail response and make it more stable on the rail by narrowing the middle of the outline. I wonder who shaped it for him.
Some image grabs from the aforementioned Surfers Journal Biography video showing another similar board.
All you need is the kite.
My eaxr thought.
Ha ha you guys
But seriously that fin (and most all singles really) never cut it for kiting. Maybe if it was a lot bigger it would hydrofoil tho?
I still look forward to trying some tomo shapes when surfing or kiting, but usually go to my round tail, fish rocker with pointy nose for both sports.
There is something to having a round or blunt nose for better airs though, that’s for sure, pointy flipped up nose is like a sail, and usually sailing wrong way: