A friend of mine wants me to shape him a board for a break here in RI. It’s a rock reef that is usually peeling and with offshore winds is a dream to surf. Nice long ride that doesn’t tend to section. What I’ve managed to be able to get out of him is that he wants a medium wave longboard gun that he can ride from the tail.
We’re thinking 9’ long so that’s it’s competition legal, with a tight pin, very narrow with a round nose. He’s that longboarder who sits wayyyy outside and catches the wave before you even think it’s actually gonna be one, so the whole point of this is to catch waves early and often. But he also wants something he can surf off the tail, with aggressive rails and lots more nose rocker than tail. I’m thinking 5" in the nose and 2" in the tail. Once we figure out the design the hard part is gonna be finding a blank, since he wants this one poly so he can just slap some suncure on it when it gets a ding.
Also any suggestions for thickness? he wants to go really thin, like 2 1/4, and i just don’t think it will work since the board is so narrow. Anyway, throw up some suggestions, it won’t get made until december, i’ve got time.
What do you mean by 5" in the tail and 2" in the tail? That is weird. What would the fin configuration be? These are some of the numbers for a high performance LB for light rippers in Hawaii: 9’ x 16" x 21.5" x 13.5" x 2.5". This what I use ride the northshore about 30 years and about 80 lbs ago.
On second thought, 5" of nose rocker and 2" tail rocker is not that weird. We use to use the clark 9’2"R blanks to make high performance longboard blanks. The rocker profiles are still on the www.clarkfoam.com website. I think I have a picture of a board I made with that blank. I’ll post it when I find it.
It usually breaks in any size, but he’s basically looking for something between his high performance longboard and his semi-gun. So around chest to overhead waves. He wants lots of speed and turning, so we’re thinking a pin, but to make it interesting, a quad set up with a single box too. The wave really changes based on the swell, around 3ft it can be mushy and slow, getting towards head-overhead it’s fast and peeling. This board is mostly for fast and peeling. Getting in early isn’t that crucial, he’s a very strong paddler so it almost doesn’t matter.
I think power carves is what he wants. He’s not afraid to move on the board, but he wants something that surfs off the tail for sharper turns.
Here is a 9’7" that I made two years ago with the same basic wishes from the customer: not quite a longboard, not quite a gun… Still very much in use as of today and the guy is still stoked with it. (In case you wonder, the tail is on the right side of the photo…)
A friend of mine wants me to shape him a board for a break here in RI. It’s a rock reef He’s that longboarder who sits wayyyy outside and catches the wave before you even think it’s actually gonna be one,
So, he’s just another one of those wave-hogging longboarders who have ruined Matunuck for those folks who know how to surf?
He’s not a wave hog, he just likes to sit way outside because he can paddle for that kind of stuff. Plus we all know Matunuck is a longboarders wave anyway. Just got to be careful of the kayakers and the SUPs these days.
I’m about to make an LB similar to this. About as thin as the one you’re going to make. A friend of mine has one of these in EPS/Epoxy that goes unreal. I haven’t measured it, but it’s about 2-1/8" thick. You could probably modify this outline to get close to what your customer wants.
If you need them, I can get the measurements for you.
Howzit Rachel, Sounds like what he wants is what we call a fun gun board, fast but long and fun to ride. Quite a few are riden at Hanalei when it’s 6’ to 10’. Aloha,Kokua
having surfed both hanalei and other similar reefs around hawaii, central ca…and having grown up surfing Pt Judith, and Naragansett in RI, Long Sands and Ogunquit in ME, etc. back east…my advice is shape a board for fast waves and one for slow mushy “typical” east coast knee slappers…Don’t try to make a one-size fits all board…especially given the extreme mood changes of your part of the world…also…there is now sun cure epoxy…so he’s not limited to poly…just my two cents…that’s why my back yard is full of boards, I suppose.
Yeah may as well tell your friend to get 1 sup 2 gun w at least one big fat stringer 3 the one with the flames. That way he/ she is covered no matter whats comin at ya. Plus its getting colder and you can spend more time in the warm shaping room whippin out three boards instead of one.
UncleD, I really like the shape of that board. That’s pretty much what I’m thinking of doing. Except with a slightly more narrow pin.
My dims as of right now are 9’ x 16" x 21.5" x 12.5" x 2.5". Is that too thin for a narrow longboard?
Does anyone have recommendations on quad setups for longboards? I have minimal knowledge on quads in general, so it would be really helpful. I’m also going to put a single box in it for versatility, and use ProBox for the quads. Ideally, I’d like to be able to use quad, single or 2+1 setups.
