WHAT IS A LONGBOARD.....REALLY?

General Discussion
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Quote:

Is there an agreed upon MINIMUM LENGTH, where a surfboard IS A LONGBOARD. That definition has been different over the years.

What is it today, in your opinion? - Jim

Quote:

You know”, said Larry, “I think eventually there are going to be two sports. And they’re going to be called Surfing and Short Boarding.” - Bill

Well, to examine it further (or nitpick I suppose) I guess LENGTH no longer determines if a board is considered a “longboard”. We all know of gun-type boards that are directly grown from shortboard design. The word that I’ve tried and failed to keep out of the equation is “performance” as that term is too subjective…but for lack of a better word maybe that one fits. The notion that there are “two sports” makes sense, as there are definitely two styles or schools of surfing.

I think “conventional wisdom” (and remember, 10,000 flies can’t be wrong!) is that a “longboard” is something not only just longer but ridden differently than contemporary shortboards, featuring moves and style that can’t be or aren’t applicable to contemporary shortboarding.

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It always seems to me that if competitors can gain an advantage by riding a smaller board, then the judging criteria in longboard comps is all wrong. By admitting that a shorter board is an advantage, we’re accepting that the style and maneuvers being performed are not true “longboard” maneuvers.

If the competition is about finding out who rides a “longboard” the best, then the optimum points should be awarded to moves that are based on the skill of riding a long board, not just slowed down shortboard stuff. In this scenario, we wouldn’t need to measure people’s boards because riding a shorter board would be a distinct disadvantage.

It also seems that the way surf comps are judged has affected how most board designs have evolved, ie: to enable surfers to perform the moves that get the points. If setting a rail high in trim and shooting through a section without pumping or driving was a high scoring move, more people would be riding flat rockered, longer boards.

Having said all that, I reckon surfing competitions are ridiculous because there is no objective way to say who’s ridden a wave better than someone else. As far as being a credible competitive sport, surfing is up there with synchronized swimming and figure skating!

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for me it started as “3 feet taller than rider” back in early 90’s

but now,my longboard is 6’10… for me its more in the shape and how you ride it… fuller/rounder nose, 22+ wide… something you can do cheater fives on…

but that brings me back to my next personal definition, and that is you must be able to perch on the nose and ride in trim while doing it… thats longboarding, what is under your feet to get you there can be 6’10, or 12 ft… or…

great question

enjoyed the genius’ version… somehow a guy w that nickname it is not suprising to me he had a way to measure exactly what his deifinition was/is

just a rider…

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my friend rides and 8’10 dano longboard and noserides it good because hes like 80 pounds, it depends on your size!!

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REALLY?

Competition derived limits

allow for establishing a criterion

to objectively 'judge 'a collection

of contestants.

outside the ‘contest’ format

a long board is a board that is

obviously longer

and more efficient wave catcher

than the one you might be

riding at the time in case you dont

have something to base discontent.

Catagories to stratify board identities are convienient.

relative lengths are oversimplified.

thers is so much more

necessary to deliniate design diffrences.

A Long board was a nine ten when everybody was riding

8’10s then quance got a 10’1’’ caster

with green cat eye fiberglass nose blocks

many called it a new board.

dale ,skid row, dobson still won the contest

nobody measured his board

it was long ago

only a few will bother to remember

mike burner rode a hansen with a big balsa stringer

mickey madden took a million steps to the nose

Joe Tarrintino was there too.

I rode a 9’10 olsen haut model.

they were all surfboards

none of em broke in half.

…ambrose…

a short board is short.

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I consider my 8’0" Liddle, a longboard, but I don’t have to walk it to get it into position on a wave. Other that these very uniquely crafted hulls, I would name all boards, no matter the length or width, that you have to walk to weight and unweight into trim, a longboard.

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I believe this was formulated after a number of Hawaiian events, the Hawaiian contingant was riding long…boards, but with pulled noses and tails.

I may get called on this, but I think the number that was ultimately arrived at was 54 inches, combined width of middle, nose and tail for a minimum

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…yes, due to that 9´is the minimum; however in some competitions in the past not all the 9´ follow exactly that rule

so the shapers have been taking measurements on the deck to obtain such 9´

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Hello Jim

I believe th number was 47" not 54".

Joey Kramer was riding something not much bigger then the 47 back in the early 90’s when He was longboard champ back in the early 90’s

Quote:

I believe this was formulated after a number of Hawaiian events, the Hawaiian contingant was riding long…boards, but with pulled noses and tails.

I may get called on this, but I think the number that was ultimately arrived at was 54 inches, combined width of middle, nose and tail for a minimum

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I guess I agree to what Bill says is kind of open to your view and we just generalize what it is from our own opinions.

To me its its 9’0" but thats just me and a gun is a gun that 9’0" its just something else.

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Howzit Jim, The big question is when a shaper marks the length does he measure on the bottom or thr deck. At our longboard classic one year there were a few boards that were marked 9’0" on the stringer but when measured on the deck they were under 9’0". These boards were all shaped by a very well known and respected shaper that we all have heard of, when he heard about the boards being diqualified he stomped off in a rage and has never attended the contest since. It seems to me that most shapers mark the length on the bottom, how do you do it.Aloha,Kokua

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I’ve always measured board length, on the deck, with the tape drawn tight.

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So then…

WHAT IS A LONGBOARD…REALLY?

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kokua, we could have a whole thread on the debate about which way to measure. There are definitely

two opposing views here. The people that measure on the bottom insist ''that’s the way everybody does

it", while the deck straightliners point out that measuring along a curve doesn’t yield a ‘‘length’’. Boat’s

LOA sure aren’t measured over the curve of their stems, for instance.

The truth is some do it one way and some do it the other, it’s doubtful a convention can be forced on our

‘‘industry’’. And in small boards it’s only a dif of 1/2’’ or so. When you get up to 9’0’‘, it’s usually about 1.5’',

enough to raise hell with contest definitions all over the world.

Thrailkill has started one here, huh?

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Aloha…K!

I always have measured surfboards on the bottom.

Why?

The rocker length of the bottom is the length rrunning through the water MORE THAN THE DECK.

By varying bottom rockers, I can make a long 7’4" or a short 7’4" and so on and so on. I don’t really think any of you out there that are prescribing to deck rocker measurement can make quite the same claim.

Take a straight deck line rocker and put a curvy bottom rocker template on it…sure top & bottom rocker lines ultimately equate to foil…however if you reversed yhe two. you would get an entirely different ride…

…point made?

P.S.

I think the well known shaper that got P.O’d was enitrely right to get ticked off. I’m with him.

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Howzit Mike, To tell you the truth I’ve watched other shapers for over 45 years and never seen one measure the deck for length. I was taught to measure on the bottom back in the 60’s and have done so since. When you think about it when doing it on the deck and the tape is tight then you have a big air space between the deck and the tape. This will make the board read longer due to the downward angle towards the tail, think of a right triangle.Aloha,Kokua

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Here is some food for thought. My first VELZY and JACOBS was an 8’ 10’’ balsa ‘‘BUMP’’, that was Dec. 1958. The La Jolla Shores grem’s were on boards of

8’ 6’‘, on down to 8’ 0’‘. I built a board, that same year @ 7’ 11’', that I rode at Windansea. That was 1959. All the afore mentioned boards were balsa.

Nobody called them anything except surfboards. Perhaps my question should have been ‘‘At what length does a board become a Shortboard?’’ I don’t have an ax to grind, on this topic. I’m trying to get a grip on what people think constitute a longboard. And at the same time, wondering why they aren’t simply all surfboards, as they were in the past.

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Quote:

always have measured surfboards on the bottom.

Why?

The rocker length of the bottom is the length rrunning through the water MORE THAN THE DECK

Another tangent…I’m not in the board business…never gave it much/any thought…my immediate first thought would be some arbitrary vertical lines coming up from nose and tail while the board floats - obviously impossible to measure there or on land even unless finless…while the case for the bottom measurement being key as it is the one that contacts the water makes sense, I suppose another case could be made that we stand on the deck…that dichotomy would default in my book to the old “wave measurement” quandry…science measures waves from the front and that’s the part we ride, so measuring from the back seems pointless although this wave height thing is far more fruitless to debate IMHO…

Thinking on it I guess I have paid attention to length as it applies in relation to other boards, impossibly subjective for craft application.

As to the definition of a “longboard” and when is a longboard not a shortboard, maybe some percentage of obvious design genesis prior to the “shortboard revolution”?

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Your answer is pretty much my answer…I shaped a “6’10” longboard for my brother’s son. He was a little guy and I just SCALED it down to him…so in his case the 3’ over the head applies. Guess if you are 3’10" it’s long…

The shape dictates more than the actual length, but when you hit the contest criteria, that’s when boards have to qualify within certain parameters for sake of competition. So they standardize or define for competition’s sake.

When I was an urchin I used to walk up the cove from Goleta Beach toward Campus Point and envision myself as 6" tall dropping into perfect overhead waves…that would have put my longboard at 9"/

Guess everything is relative?

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well, I’m sure enjoying the heck outta listening/reading what you and many other experienced shapers have to say, this is a great topic, does not need to be asked any other way, but like most things in the “sport” of surfing, there are rules, regulations, dividing lines that keep this group over here and that group over there… not unlike American political parties imo… don’t get me started… I think Ambrose nails it in in his response and in his general “online demeanor” (is there such a thing?.. oh boy…) - competition surfing brings on “divisions” of all kinds, ages, board lengths, skill level, and I am sure those involved would have a much longer list than I… we are all just surfers, they are all just boards… but in some circles, and imo this redefiing and segragation if you will is brought on by competition rules/regs, this has been redefined to now “some of us are surfers (as long as you do this/that)”… “some of them are surfboards (as long as they are this/that)”…

I bought my first longboard from Skip Hutchison (Rastaboard) outta Ft Laud FL in late 80’s/early90’s, cannot remember exactly, and at the time I was 6’1, so I got a 9’1 because I wanted to possibly surf in few contests and Skip told me if so, it needs to be “3 ft over”… never surfed in any contest but sure enjoyed learning to “longboard”… whatever that is… I did more or less the same moves with greater ease on my 9’1 than I did on my 6’1 shortboard… this was the time after Tom Curren fireball fish trip to Indo was published and when Jeff Kramer was at the forefront og modern longboarding… the first “revival” I suppose, at least for me it was… its funny I rode modern longboards for hte better part of a decade, maybe more, after shortboarding my whole life, and got into it because, well, firstly I lived in longboard territory, secondly it was a natural progression in my surfing life, thirdly to stop flailing and start surfing (I was gaining weight filliing out and I went from 165 to 215 pretty quick)… riding a longboard taught me more about the wave and how to judge it, postion for it, surf it, and on and on than any shortboard ever did, and it improved my perception, my physical surfing, and just flat out put a lot of smiles on my face… and all my friends were and still scratch their heads and give me shit for riding “logs” for so long… in fact, two of my best friends jabbed me recently and said “hey at least he’s on shortboards again”… yeah, and I’m the only one of the three of us who’s surfed throughout our entire friendship and kept going, kept the fire lit and actually surfed… I kept my mouth shut, their my friends, and they know whats up. I skimboarded at an extrememly high level too, still get on it today and can bust huge airs and huge gaffs… of course I feel it big time in the morning…its all surfing, its all ocean… they’re all boards

so where does a longboard begin… who knows… I have an opinion, my current “longboard” is a 6’10 Streth What quad with a round pin in eps… I can surf it like a “longboard” if I feel like it, but I feel something in the truer sense of longboard brewing in me… 8-9+ ft kinda getting a craving again…

my boards range from 6’0-6’6, with one at 6’10

where does shortboard begin… well, I have seen plenty guns like someone else said that are 9-10 ft but damn if they dont look like a shortboard to me… won’t be perching on any of these

this conversation about “measuring” is very enlightening, its really a pleasure to hear shapers opinions… after thinking on it a bit, I would compare it to measuring a boat’s length (which I have absolutely no clue on) but it would seem to me they measure a boats length from the top, from the bow tip to the stern tip, “with the tape pulled tight”… if not, your 17 ft Boston Whaler measure from the bottom hull along the curve of the fiberglass would (I think) produce a measurement greatly in excess of this 17 ft…

but i see the point and understand the thinking on measuring the hull’s bottom as well, but to an outtside htrd party non-shaper, this boat example makes the most sense to me… measuring along a curve makes less sense to me

its an endless conversation to q wide open question, I look forward to the continuing thoughts from Jim Phillips, yourself (Thrailkill), Mike Daniels, Kokua, Oneula… Ambrose… Deadshaper… its one of those questions that brings out a lot of opinion and every now and than the odd fact or two, and we all learn from this kind of question and those knowing participants answers

its rainy, tornadoe warning all day, and surf is tiny… so here i am.

Aloha to all.

Warren