Well…my latest 6 10 x 20 shortboard (for a heavy guy …ie me)…has a tuck of a shade more than 1/8"…
The rest of the rail is a very “down” rail, and the whole of it has sharp release edges…
Goes just great…super speedy down the line!
Others seem to be balking at my knives…what do you all think?
zero…
edge-boards from the early-70’s. I made a 5’5" fish edge-board back then, it was FAST.
Rail-to-rail motion was not so hot. Maybe if I was heavier…(then).
Hmmm…no edge at all…could you bury the rail?
how much do you use nowadays?
I shaped maybe 20 - 30 hard downrailers in my day, and none really caught edges or tripped over themselves in rideable surf. Always needed to be balanced with continuous rockers, tapering outlines, a fair amount of V in the back half, and best in glassier conditions.
Fashion changes, and by the early '70’s, the pros were getting away from the RolfArness hard downrailers towards soft thick tucked forwards tapering to thinner, tucked by cornered edges, so I just followed along, not choosing to swim upstream.
could ya post a pic?
Yes, hard edge nose-to-tail with no tuck. They went all right as long as the surf was clean (which it is where we are). I think there is video of one in action in small Pipeline in one of Hal Jepsen’s films, but I can’t remember the title. Also Bunker had a few and there may be photos and film of him doing “total involvement” just to show what is possible with that genre. Lee is right on with the continuity of your curves: be careful if you dare to tread in the direction of edge-boards.
(Not to condemn the concept, but if it worked markedly better than everything else, you would logically assume that a world title or something would have been won with an edge board by now- IF that is your standard of design success). It’s too hard to measure fun…
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I remember RolfArness’s '70 World Champ board is a full downrailer, from tip of nose to tip of tail.
7', red, turned down to a vert rail, but rounded in front of WidePoint.....
Thanks for all the replies…interesting…
A friend has suggested that minimal tuck feels good but is bad for your surfing… what do you think?
When I think back, some of the better boards I have had rather hard edges, compared to the softer mid rails seen on a lot of shortboards lately. The two that come to mind are a 7’0" hybrid bonzer shape (thruster fin set up) and the 6’0" twin keel fish I’m presently riding. When I was shaping them, the rails looked just how I wanted them, a little on the soft side, but when they came back from the glasser, the edges seemed a bit harder than I expected. They just have what I look for in a board, speed, looseness and drive. I remember the first down railed board I rode back in the early 70’s, it had the same hard edge from nose to tail. The beak nose looked like it would suck the nose into a pearl dive, but no, that board was so fast and still manuverable. We were into rolled noses, s decks, v in the tail backyard specials, but after riding that board, I knew from then on, the future would be flat bottoms with down rails.
You know, I think Lee is right! Rolf still shapes and he made sketches of boards during that period, and I also seem to remember most all of the boards to be pretty edgey all the way through. He won a world title on one, pretty much blowing out all the competitors.
I also remember looking at the hard edges thinking “I’m gonna dig rail sooo hard with this…” then surfing the board and having it work so well without any sign of digging. Rail-to-rail seemed to take more effort but now that I think of it, the width of the board (flat-bottom width) is wider than an identical board but with tucked rails. Does that make sense?
So, conventional boards have TWO templates… …Edge-boards have one.
Hey Plus one — jus checked out your website…some excellent interesting shapes…enjoyed it!
The double wing super thin swallow tail has rails that look similar to the ones I’ve just put on my latest (as yet unsurfed) board…what’s the tuck you used here?..how did it ride?
The tuck was pretty much like a normal board. The pinch in the rail was to give the board more “bite”
while still having exaggerated volume for good float. The board was extremely fast and carried its speed
through soft sections.
Initially, the downside was the pinch up in the nose. The board had a tendency to shovel into the water
when paddling. After filling in the ridge from the wide point forward, to the nose, the board performed
very well overall. Concerns over production quality kept this a “one-off” design…