He said he was going to cut some of the nose off.
Nose rocker slope appears to be steeper closer to the tip.
Removing center fin should reduce drag some also.
Shouldn’t going to a twin with retro/swallow tail make the board looser?
Should also change swing/spin radius.
Reducing length at tail and removing swallow cutout should reduce tail rocker and Coanda Effect (tail should lift up more, ride higher on plane) and change center of mass/buoyancy – combined with shortened nose length (overall effect changing nose rocker?).
By my calculations, removing 1.56" from the nose would make nose rocker approx. 4".
Creating the 10.25" wide retro/swallow tail removes approx. 4.47" from the tail.
New board length would be approx. 5’10".
My brief observations: 1) The nose rocker extend through about the forward 40% of my board with just a bit of tail rocker; 2) most of the skeg surface area hangs outside of the rail line; 3) the photograph tends to make the skegs/skeg box look very canted.
I’d consider cutting of 8 to 10 inches of the nose but trimming back the width of the nose as well or it will be a very stubby entry. This would relieve some of the paddling drag and increase ridability. Recommend considering small side bites, maybe large Bonzer runners. This would also reduce drag on those very toed-in and canted skegs. Use a smaller center fin, maybe even a knubster, and provide some drive on turns without inducing drag.
The apparent fin “toe-in” did/does scream drag to me (or lens distortion/optical illusion?).
Beyond that, center fin, center of buoyancy (and possibly nose width), I think we are in the realm of experimental.
Would still like to see actual tail rocker to get an idea of current Coanda Effect. A board with that much nose rocker is frequently accompanied by a lot of tail rocker. IMO too much tail rocker can be as bad as, or worse than, a lot of nose rocker — harder to catch waves that aren’t Big.
It would not be uncommon for a 5-6 Fish to have 1.5” tail rocker and 3.5” nose rocker — speed.
A lot of camber, combined with a lot of toe in, will make the side fins act like a snow plow and slow you down. Maybe thats the problem with the board ?
I think I’v got my plan down, I’m taking enough off of the nose to make it a 5’6"
I wanted to go smaller to 5’4" but worried that would take off too much rocker… at those dims it would be 3.5" nose rocker…
tail rocker is right at 2" right now (to the foam) with the tail chopped off…
will have to pull more of the glass off of the top because of the delam, just wanted to get it started. I’ll ‘resurface’ the foam (q cell mixture?) as it has some imperfections.
biggest concern right now is blending the nose curve into the rails to make it a smooth curve… but I’ll get it figured out
There must have been some serious tail rocker if it is 2” now with a section of tail cut off.
What is your nose rocker now at 5-6?
Toe-in is the major drag factor. How much toe-in do the current fin boxes have? You could try it with current toe-in and re-do the boxes after if you still don’t like performance.
I believe Lemat said he uses 5 degrees of cant for a flat bottom.
I like the wings you made. How did you remove the glass from the bottom side of the wings.
I worded that incorrectly, at 5’6" there is 3.5" nose rocker.
the deck picture against the door was taken before cutting off the bottom & side glass, you can barely see the start of the cut in that picture but I decided to delay it for when I was not a few beers deep… I just continued that line down around the rail and under, using the same template I used to cut the swallowtail.
I’m hoping to do a little color on the deck when I reglass, but keeping the yellowed old glass as a border & bottom
What did you use to get that clean cut on the old glass?
BTW it is easier to get a new nose template/planshape curve to merge seamlessly at the widepoint.
oh, I used a dremel with a little skinny disposable cut off discs, .025" is the thickness, just for the glass, then sawed the foam
these little guys… which I would not recommend for someone who did this often, because they have a tendency to break, although I’ve never broken one while in use. I just take my time, sometimes it took 3 passes to cut all the way through… it works for me
Yeah, I bought a set of Dremel saw blade attachments off the internet for similar use. Not sure how durable they will be.
For a 5-6 Fish, widepoint would be around 36.6”-37” from the tail.
Don’t know if that would match the widepoint of your current, modified board planshape.
I wish I saw this before you cut the board. I’ve reshaped old boards over the years. I’ve done similar things like what you’re doing here. One thing I learned is that it is better to sand the glass down where you will make you cut before cutting. It will make a nice clean bevel of glass to work with later. With the hard edge, the foam tends to get cut into when you try to sand the glass.
I did a full deck replacement twice and I’ve cut boards from one shape to another. Here’s a shot of a board I did which similar to what you’re doing. I turned a 6’ “Morning of the Earth” style board into a 5’ 6” fish.
In hind sight I probably should have left it as a 6’ board, but I wasn’t using the board and I thought I could give it a second life. That was close to 10 years ago, today that board is a 4’ 10” standing wave pool board.
Here’s what I’m working on now. I don’t need another new board, so I’m taking old boards that didn’t work and seeing if I can make something that works much better. This is a 8’ compsand that I did probably 15+ years ago. I was seeing how far I could go with a thin pinched rail, and went too far. Luckily, this board was close to 22” wide, so I think I can make it 21.5” wide with more traditional rails. I’m also pulling the tail in. My brother and I were making wide tailed boards back then, but I’m going to make it more of an egg with wide point forward. I drew out the new shape about a half inch narrower, and cut the rails off. I sanded the top and bottom along the edge enough to laminate over the new rails. I cut out new rails to match the outline from a 8’ long piece of blue Dow XPS I had and then glued them on with Gorilla glue. Next step will be to redraw the outline and shape the rail. I’ll glass the rails, but not the whole board. Hopefully this will end up with a much better board, but I just really needed to do something. The weather has been crap all February, and I haven’t surfed since January. I hope March brings some surf and better weather.
