Water coming over deck, slamming into back foot

I am in the rail stacking stage of an elaborate very labor intensive HWS build for myself . My weight fluctuates between 205 and 220lbs. I am  closing in on 45, been surfing since 11, been wave riding since 8. On a skill level on a traditional  longboard ridden traditionally, I would give myself a 8.5+ out of 10, on a shorter multifinned board perhaps a 7.5 to 8 on a good uninjured day, with 11’s  being Joel and Kelly.

Rode 60’s style  tankers in the 80’s and early 90’s  as much or more than I did shortboards, even in shortboardable waves, so  I can throw around big and heavy without issue.  I’ve always had heavily glassed boards since I stopped buying off the rack in the early 90’s.  I do not like superlight boards under my feet.

Current build is a 6’11" x 22 1/8" x 3 3/16" double bump round pin with a fuller nose at 15+ and a fairly deep triple concave. It will have 5 proboxes  with a Mckeeish  quad locations moved about 3/4" up the board from normal fin placements. Trailing edges of fins line up with trailing edges of wings.  Final weight will be about 13lbs. Hopefully 12 but that is looking to be a pipe dream at this point according to my fish scale.

Intended waves will be anything ~ chest high to double overhead, mush to hollow.  Rarely smaller, but maybe, depending on how this board goes in such conditions.  Currently I can’t even think under 7’ boards  unless it is chest high or better and juicy.

 

Lately, my correct ‘tool for the job’ has me choosing to ride relatively  heavy( 19 to 25Lbs) single fin thinner longboards 9’3" and 9’7" with old school more traditional 50/50 or 60/40  knifier rails, even in well overhead conditions, and when getting back on my 6’8" x 20.5x 2 5/8 double bump round pin in head high+ conditions, I have been overpowering it and having to back off the power on bottom and top turns to keep the rail and fins set, and from too much water coming over the deck on bottom turn or top turn, slamming my back foot and throwing out the sea anchor. 

 

I do get bad longboard hangovers, but mostly the pain is localized to paddling for waves I can’t catch, usually the shortboard flow once up and riding is reestablished  fairly quickly, but not this year as my leg strength has increased weight down to 207ish, and  it feels Like i can just sink whole board under a hard turn and come to a standstill, or  blow fins and spin out on a board  that I am Very familiar with and that has rarely been overpowered before.  My back foot rarely gets as far back as the fin cluster.

Water over the deck into my back foot has always been an issue, and I think it helped turn me into a more front footed surfer, but perhaps I was always riding an inappropriate board for my style and weight.  Back in the day, buying a board off the rack which was then my only option, a 220 Lb surfer one had to go longer to get the volume required, so I’ve always been on longer boards than others who are my height/age/ability and carried this though the last 25 years and with my tanker throwing ability a few inches of shortboard meant little hindrance  to me.

 

Anyway this new HWS build is thick at 3 3/16".  This thickness cannot be thinned without compromising structure and effing everything up.  Tapering the rails to meet deck being this thick, and my lack of shaping  experience/knowledge is causing a lot of chin scratching, as I am building a close tolerance blank, out of wood, and only have so much room for shaping afterwards.  Some previous HWS builds had rails somewhat boxier than intended, just becuase during final shaping, it could be tapered no more, something I will prevent this time, which means stacking the rails correctly from  rail apex to domed deck is of high importance.  the stacks are currently above the apex, i am in the apex to dome stage of rail stacking at this point.

 

Boxy rails  with a flat deck would be easiest to fabricate with this HWS, but I am not a fan of them,  from an aesthetic  standpoint, but perhaps a boxier fuller rail would keep water from slamming into back foot when I throw everything into a turn at speed?

 

But boxy and 3+ inches thick could be a bitch to lay on rail, even with and aggressive  and capable 200+ LBS pushing.  Would also be hard to hold onto when doing underwater cartwheels duckdiving as I cannot palm a basketball.

 

 More a domed deck with a more pinched rail ‘might’ cause more of the water into backfoot sea anchor effect which bums me out. 

 

Should I move the apex of the rail up higher?  More of a tucked edge under back foot?  more soft 50/50 in the  front half?

 

 

My high mileage  6’8" that i am now overpowering, which I was not really before, has a pretty hard downrail behind 1st  wing.

 

I am just not sure how to incorporate my desires and ability into the rail design of this highly labor intensive HWS build for a personal board given my weight style and ability.  I’ve already have hundreds of total hours into it, 15  hours alone this week hollowing out the interior rails that I have stacked so far, and likely a few more to go before the next stack, can be stacked.  

 

The only variables I can change at this point is the rail profile,  and the doming of the deck to meet that rail, and the toe in of the fins and perhaps their exact location by perhaps 1/4 inch.

 

Any thoughts on how rail profile affects water over the deck into back foot when throwing ones weight into hard turns on heavier boards?

 

At this point I just want a good wave count, be able to go fast and turn hard maintianing speed through turns.   Going vertical or above the lip antics for me, are not going to be planned for.   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I feel like more of an edge in the rear will help you.

My un-professional opinion…

 

On another note, maybe HWS is to be saved for when you have a shape DIALED.

You mentioned hundreds of hours… I used to try to build complicated vac bagged boards.

I didn’t have hundreds of hours in them but certainly a bunch more than a PU/Epoxy build.

My last went perfect. Just how I expected it and it surfed like a dog.

So many hours wasted.

PU/Epoxy is cheap and easy and you can dial your shapes, fin position, etc.

If you wanna remake that board bombproof later, go ahead.

For me, complicated, time consuming builds are a litte presumptious.

I mean why am I gonna spend all that time and money on a shape that I’m not 100% sure about?

Your an 80’s / 90’s power surfer style surfer, am i corect.
Heavy on the front foot in forward projection, then heavy weight during turns on the back foot.
It sounds like a rocker v rail curve problem.
Hove you thought about a 3 stage rocker ? And an insinuated hip curve starting were the rocker kicks up in the back 1/4 of the board.
This should help you from having to tussle your weight back and forward.

The bottom you describe has little to do with speed and projection out of a turn. The shape you have been riding is for snap turns and quick re-direction.To develop speed down the line on that board takes work, a lot of pumping. If you want trim speed, concaves and multi-fins are not the answer in your type of waves. If there is plenty of push in the swell, I'm guessing this is less of a problem. There needs to be a balance between turning and speed. With most waves you have to pick one or the other. The benefit of having  a quiver and being able to shape them.
 
Mr. Chrisp, a lesson well learned huh? When we work on our own money, the lessons come quicker and stick around. Good point to wait for the magic shape to add all the goodies and even then there is no guarantee. But the odds are in your favor. Is that a pebble in your hand grasshopper? Cheers.

I try and keep my longboarding and shortboarding distant with not much crossover. I would like no more than a 3 board  ‘goto’ quiver, Meaning an old school soft railed 9’7" tanker, a gunnier 9’ 3" singlefin , and a sub 7’ multifinned shortboard. 3 boards to cover my desires in 95% of expected conditions in my location. 

This new 6’11" is to push out my old faithful 6’8" RP HWS into backup duty, and also to get me off the  gunny 9’3" which I’ve been riding in most everything, just because it can handle such a wide range of conditions and almost always has the highest chance of making me smile when I leave the water.  I miss the shortboarding stoke, and this 6’11" is reviving it, I just want to ensure I have as few regrets as possible with its design.  I know I am capable enough surfer to make it go and have fun on it and convince myself it is not a dog, but I want it to have that eyebrow raising spark.

 This basic speed egg/ hybrid design of the double bump round pin/squash/swallow recipe was developed in the mid 90’s when I had access to a real shaper and was able to fine tune the feel desired over nearly a dozen foam boards, well before I first transferred it to Wood/HWS in 2002.  I call it my shortboard, most people would not classify it as that. No matter.  The swallow tailed foam speed egg I pulled outline and foil templates from, I still have and still occassionally ride.  But the round pin HWS ‘copy’  rides better in waves chest high or larger.

 

Old faithful has felt squirrelly the last few surfs most noticeably on backside bottom turns, and could easily be fin related (14 year old Weird 60/40 Walnut and white oak foils with fcs tabs  now developing too much flex), in combo with my overuse of a thin gunny 9’3"  singlefin pintail that seemingly cannot be pushed too hard on my backside bottom turns.

This latest and likely my final HWS build, is super labor intensive, and the foil and  rocker and outline  and bottom countours are all locked in at this point.   Well, I will have 1/16" to 3/32" at most, on the bottom countours to fine tune, but at this point there is no twist, and the bottom contours blend nicely and are accurate side to side.  So far i have achieved a level of precision on this board that was not even a consideration on previous builds of mine.  Not quite sure how I overlooked some things on previous builds, but the design was simpler then too.  Before, I was following a basic formula,  but this board required me to develop a new build formula applying more woodworking skills and  the meticulous nature I have developed since ,

To represent my advancing years and overall diminishing physical ability now and in the next 15 years, if I make it that long, I want more volume, and more precision in terms of rail shape, and hope to dial it in via different fins  in proboxes for different conditions. 

 The  only variables remaining with my specific build, as this point, are rail profile/ thickness and how to blend it to the deck, and some slight  wiggle room in probox location.

I’ve never had a 3+ inch thick board which was not a longboard.  New territory here, for me, and I have not made a board in a decade, adding to my confusion and lack of confidence.

I basically don’t know if just having a comparitively thicker rail is the best course, or if I should seek the same general thickness and dome the deck more.  If this board were only 1/8 or 1/4" thicker than previous shortboards I have made, then I would have much less issue deciding, but I am stepping up just over ~9/16" in total thickness and have no experience in this area to pull from…

Also stacking the wood rails inward  to reach deck from outline has to be done precisely, or it will be either overbuilt and even heavier than already necessary, or underbuilt and too weak when shaped. or worse, both.

Water coming over rail onto back foot, well what is the main and contributing causes for that?  How could it be influenced by raid shape, thickness/profile?  Perhaps This is my only real question and i am guilty of posting too much info.

 

From riding 60’s tankers from such a young age and light weight, I know I move my back foot  on my shortboard not only front and back but from rail to rail too.  Water slamming into backfoot seems to happen to me most on frontside bottom turns and backside top turns.  Perhaps My back foot is just too far over on rail.  So much goes on unnoticed when riding a wave or forgotten soon after.

I miss having an experienced shaper  to surf with, and to ask questions of in person.

I appreciate the responses.

 Thanks to all shapers past and present that helped surfboard design get to the refined  point where it is today that guys like me do not ‘have’ to first imagine, then reinvent the wheel.

 

Time to go pop another Coors an scratch my chin, looking at my rails.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve done a few midlengths over 3" thick, what has worked best for me is adding a rail channel, and using that as a step up / step down point, from thick deck to thinner rail.  Don’t know how that would translate to a HWS, be a bit of a challenge for sure.  My boards are thick but not difficult to turn.

I have thought about the rail channel/step, but transferring this channel into wood complicates things vastly as you know, and I am already stressing the weight, trying to shoot for no more than 13Lbs.  I do like the idea of a place for the heel of my hand to rest for duckdiving and popping to my feet.

 

Having the deck go from flat then a quick taper to the rail is a consideration too, but for the aesthetics and my multiple non parallel stringers throw the monkey wrench into that possibility.

I am leaning at a ‘normal’ thickness rail just domed as smooth as possible to meet deck thickness, and repeating ‘it is what it is’, and making it work.

 

 

Yes, the rail channels make a board vastly more user friendly.  Duck diving, climbing back on after a wipeout, pop-up, carrying, lots of benefits.  But easy in foam compared to HWS, agreed.  I also did the quick taper rail, and it worked great performance-wise, but I later added a rail channel to that one too, for the above reasons.  For my HWS I have always done the dome deck, and never had any problems or regrets.

Simple. Your feet are too fucking big.  Chop off your toes or go with a wider tail.  McTavish is rumored to build custom boards around surfer’s foot size.  I suspect that foot size affects tail width in his designs.

Awuful purdy board there Huck.  your workspace though…

 

If my feet were too big, then I’d be more popular with the ladies too.

 

I only have a size 9 foot, and my tail on the boards in question are ~15 inches.  I just happen to weigh a lot and apparently unconsciously move my foot to the inside rail when shortboarding as I do when longboarding, as it was necessary when weighing 120Lbs riding a 60’s style 35#+ tanker in my youth.

 

Apparently My longboard hangover is 30+ years old.  Rarely does my back foot stay planted over fin cluster.  Guess I should work on that, when shortboarding.

Haha, thanks, the reason I posted is that was a thick board, over 3" IIRC, with a dome deck to thin out at the rails, which was what I was trying to show.  But I’ll have to remember to clean shop before pics, or maybe photo shop, lol.

I didn’t read every word of our posts but it sounds to me that you have a habit of stepping back and shoving your heel into the wave, if so its’ not a “water flowing over the board” problem but basically you are adjusting your stance too far to make up for big floaty wide heavy boards that don’t turn fast enough.  If so your issue is going to be easier fixed with fin/rocker adjustments, not rail shape.  (a mckee set up with fins pushed forward won’t help, I suspect).  And/or forcing yourself to turn from the center of the fin cluster instead of forward and railward.

Your mileage may vary, of course.  If all you can work on is rails, you may be hosed.  Try to get a bit more rail rocker if you can…hard edge bottoms with a bit more vee might help some.  I’d suggest more toe in for the rail fins and try riding it as a thruster first to get a bit more of a head start on your turns.  Put the quad fins in on a day when you need more down the line speed…