Board Design

With all the new boards expected in shop the next few weeks,  your xmass board now needing a replacement OR you want to add something different to  a quiver, we thought we’d give you a rundown of how the shape of a board determines how it will feel in the water. This is a pretty general rundown and we will try to expand on how changing WIDE POINT / NOSE TO WIDEPOINT / TAIL WIDTH / STYLE OF TAIL / OVERALL WIDTH / THICKNESS can change your riding style and performance as the article develops.

BASIC ANATOMY OF THE CARVING / MANOUVERABLE BOARD

Boards that are good in the pocket, go to the lip quickly and carve well will look like this….

Laying a board on it’s side will give you a good indication of it’s handling characteristics. If it pulls into the nose and tail from the point the rail contacts the ground, it’s a manouverable board as it will release easier due to less rail being in the water… also these boards will have low wide points behind the elbow @ 17 1/2 inches – 19 inches down from nose.

The Science 1 Ltd I have been riding has a wide point about 19 inches down, thats the first contact point when u lay it on it’s side. It has a a width of 21 (pretty narrow really) and tail of about 17.5 so the rail sits on the ground for only  a few inches before tapering towards the tail – it has note only about 5 inches of rail touching when I do this = a manouverable board. The template carves really well, that is when you go for an arcing carve it’ll carry speed all the way through and not bog. This type of board is good for getting to the lip and sits in the pocket well. It will lack in spin ability though as the majority of the boards width is behind the wide point and further down the board and a small nose width at 11 1/4 doesn’t allow for weight to be distributed well onto the nose. Also, this board won’t have plaining speed due to less surface area under your upper body = harder to kick into waves than a board with wide nose. These boards are good for sucky waves that you don’t have to paddle hard for and thus allow you to scoop in and under on late drops. Down side is you won’t get good down the line drive speed to out run sections etc or a board that’ll let you kick onto a ripple easily.

2 good examples as well, the TURBO Kingy & V board.  Kingy spends a lot of time in the pocket like to go to the lip quick and his board reflects that need. This V is an awesome shape, you wouldn’t want this wide point to go as far down or the tail to be any narrower, only about 5 inches on this rail will rest on the ground… the Kingy is much like the science ltd template but slightly wider nose so moving into the “ALL ROUND” template area.

BOARDS WITH GREATER SPEED / SPIN CAPABILITY

On the other end of the scale is this TURBOxCUSTOMS XLR8 (white with the original board next to it) – no curves here boy! This is a fast board for down the line speed and is a traditional prone template, you can see by looking at the board that the Wide Point is about 16 1/2 inches from the nose, 13 ish nose, 18 rear. This board will spin well off sections and will be good for barrel riding. It will allow you more plaining speed and thus allow you to get into waves easier.  The down side is that you won’t be able to carve this board and making sharp turns to the lip will be a bit wobbly and jolted, they won’t feel as “loose” either.

Same with his Cartel Toby Player, Nomad and Turbo 4 – full prone down the line boards, this is a big wave, big barrel board for sure, look at how much rail is on the ground, about 8/9 inches. The blue Turbo 4 is a speed machine, real high wide point – wide nose at 13 inches-  great for spinning, sharp fast cutties. The other 2 boards are a nomad and 4play, again look at the amount of rail that sits on the ground, fast boards with the above mentioned characteristics.

IN BETWEEN BOARDS – HAVE BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

These templates are the most popular by far, all the new rides you’ll see kinda sit in this category. Many of the seasoned pro’s are saying they are keep their lines a little more straight – so NMD BP’s, Science RIGS and most of VS signature boards go along these lines.

Garths custom TURBO model shown above was a great example of a balance; wide point towards the 17 1/2 inches from nose , 21 1/4 ish width, tail into the 17.75 area and nose around 11 3/4 nose. This board is a board you can ride in anything, from Nobbys bank to Pipeline. This board’s shape allows Garth enough down the line speed to ride big tubes, do carve’s in the pit and get lines to the lip that produce amazing inverts.

Three boards with great all round shape here in the second shot, again this template is the most versatile and offers good speed, good carving ability.

GETTING INTO CUSTOM BOARDS

Below is a photo of the the above Science 1 ltd board traced and measured. I’ve done this for a number of reasons; 1. This board has been a favourate of mine for many reasons and I really want to understand why. 2. My current Science customs board has been riding awesome but felt a little strange, it was originally meant to be based on this design. When I got some shots back from a few sessions I could see what was feeling weird – bit of bus driving going on (when a board is wide at the wrong place it can push your elbow wide, this combined with the elbow holding the rail looks like you are driving a bus – elbows out!). So reason 3; I traced both boards and found the wide point on the science customs to be 16 1/2 and the LTD to be 19, huge difference. Thus reason 4; For future reference, these days board companies don’t really put out specs with their boards and this sucks cause it makes you reliant on certain shapes/template, a conspiracy of sorts.

Nose: LTD 11 1/4 ; SC 11 1/4

Length: LTD 42 ; SC 11.75

Wide point: LTD 21 ; SC 20.5

Nose to Wide Point: LTD 19 ; SC 16.5

Tail: LTD 18 ; SC 17 3/4

Now, with the wide point way back behind at 19, it allows my wrist and elbow to do their job and line up a lot more…. less bus driving goin on for me with this set up. So when dialling in my next  custom ride I just have to alter a few minor things. Lets see how this pans out and why

So with the new board I want it to handle exactly like the white science 1 LTD but have a little more drive for the tubes round Newy. So I can go about this 2 ways to get more drive but the main one is make the overall shape slightly less “rounded”, only just slightly though. Here is how I will change up my measurements to get just a little more drive for surfing tubes.

Nose: same @ 11 1/4

Width: same @ 21 or move it into 20 7/8ths for more drive when leaving tail at 17.75 (makes a slightly straighter template)

Nose to wide point: same at around 18 3/4 – 19 inches (I don’t want to bus drive again so I am leaving the front pretty much the same)

Tail width: 17.75 or 18 if width stays at 21inches

By changing the overall width and/or tail width I can make the outline of the template a little straighter from the WIDE POINT which will give me more drive. I don’t want to change this much though as the current template has served me well in all kind of surf.

So, it’s a matter of riding a lot of boards, trying to get some footage and shots to see how you are looking and remember what STEWART said: “FORM FOLLOWS FUNCTION”. If it looks good and feels good – it goes good. When you come to fit your board to your riding style you’ll narrow down a template, then it’s a matter of dialling in the dimensions to your height and weight. One thing to consider is limb length, I am 5ft 9′ but have pretty short arms for someone this height, so I kinda got to have a longish board but it keep it’s width relatively narrow. Some people have long torso and short limbs, or long limbs and short torso’s…. again its about dialling those measurements in to something thats comfortable for you.

Rider weight; Stock boards are made from mass produced cores that come in 1 thickness. This is fine if you weigh in from anywhere between 45 and 75 kg’s. Any heavier and you need to think about slightly thicker cores. I am 100kg’s and the current Science customs has been a revelation after getting a 56mm core (sizes are 51/53/56/59). I find it way more stable, I can actually paddle the board now and kicking into waves is like never before. Think GMC might be going narrow/smaller but thicker this winter too, so if ya a big guy take the step up.

Rocker: I don’t believe in flat boards, they are dogs. I like a kick in the nose and slight kick in the tail, so when you look down the board there is a slight curve or rocker. For me it makes sense, if you ride tubes and sucky waves a slight curve flows with the wave face, flat boards are an industry pump up we haven’t grown out of – the whole “more speed” thing came out of board companies pushing competition boards, flat boards are good in flat waves, easy to kick onto waves as you can get some push down on the nose. A slight rocker lets your hand sit into the nose well and your hips into the tail, it also allows for a real nice scoop, again personal preference and wave conditions determine this, but don’t put a board back on the shelf cause it’s not perfectly flat.

UPDATE: THE NEW CUSTOMS!


This has come out amazing well and I have been riding it in a variety of waves, the lines and seams are amazingly formed and the board has great acceleration. It is a different board, hard to get used to but certainly exhibits some progressive handling qualities. Can’t wait to ride it in big perfect waves….

Custom boards aren’t the be all and end all though, they are for that one wave you surf religously or a trip you do every year to a wave that requires some tweaked dimensions. Sometimes you may want 2 or 3 boards, all different. Quivers are important to develop – changing up can keep your surfing fresh. Last summer I rode my Science LTD (rounded template with bat tail) and Turbo CUSTOMS (straight speed template with clipped tail) boards, each session changed em up and I really enjoyed how each board felt.

LASTLY TAILS:Clipped crescents are great in general, can’t go wrong with em really! Bat tails are all different but the basic idea is they give more volume in the board allowing for easier take off and acceleration. This is indeed true, boards also feel “looser”, so you feel you can move and point the board where you want = more manouverable. The downside is in some situations and waves, you want complete control so the crescent tail is the way to go if you. Mike has been riding crescents recently at pipe after spending many years on bats and delta’s, he is also doing a lot of work on flat tails crossed with bat tails. DK guys sometimes like full crescent tails as this offers super grip in the wave face, trade off is manouverability.

Lastly;
BTW Don’t feel like a dick taking a tape measure into a shop, or even butchers paper to trace a few templates to take home and look at before purchasing. I have always done this and I know old Newy charger Paul Bayliss does this as well, cause sometimes a 42″ ain’t really a 42″, more loke 41 3/4!!

Hope this helps, go get a new board from the shop and rip it up… or start some emails to the below sites and see what people can come up with for you. I have found Alistair @ Science and Glenn/Matt at Turbo really awesome to talk with, Tully at Funkshen also got my idea’s down and got something back to me that was spot on.

http://www.turbosurfdesigns.com.au/turbo_customs.php

http://sciencecustoms.com

http://www.funkshenbodyboards.com