Hey crew. Been scribing and poring over numerous outline plan shapes for various shortboards. Would love a few ideas of how the widest point comes into play in a standard shortboard shape. What you are achieving by going back of center, centre, forward and how this correlates to standard short board shapes; groveler, all rounder, or your 6ft & hollow day keg board.
Cheers Crew
Mauri Ora
Nope??
I equate the location of the wide point with how the drawn out the board turns. You can have more of the rail in the water (full rail turns) with boards that have the wide point forward. With a centered wide point the board should make shorter radius turns or seem looser, and with the wide point back of center the board should be very manuverable.
But wide point is only one part of the equation. Overall width, thickness at the rail, tail curve, profile, rocker all affect how well a board rides. A fish has a wide point forward of center yet it is very loose and manuverable. If you stand back on the tail when you turn, you can make any board turn with a short radius. I’m not sure if standing up too far forward on boards with the wide point back works well, at least it doesn’t for me. You need to stay further back on those boards. I like the nugget shape for short boards, then move the wide point foward and pull the tail in as the waves get more powerful.
Someone else may have a better answer.
Shark has nailed it. Like he said wide point is only one aspect of over all performance. My opinion is that what produces more Performance in Shortboard or any board is bottom contours and plane shape. Pay close attention to rocker and how those curves relate to performance.