Archival pictures from Olosurfer campsites 2000 to 2004

The Blowhole Main Beach mount Maunganui on the hollow balsa Future Primitive12 footer ( a chip at only 2 inches thick ) Year 2000

James ( 8 yrs ) on the 10'4" Redwood 'Makaha' at the main Beach
Roy refinishing the original FP solid balsa 12 ( which had been run over by the Dodge ambulance ))at the Aerodrome rd 'Gorse Patch' squatter's camp in Omanu Mount Maunganui where we lived, surfed, and built boards for 4 years. Year 2003


The camp year 2003: The lexact location of the gorse patch camp changed from time to time, the gorse patch started out as a 40 acre block, 4 years later only a small area was left. This location overlooks a pond which we used for boating.. . . folding duckboat/pirate ship can be seen on the right.

Bell Road Papamoa Kaituna River camp, Bedford SB3, Dodge AT4, Coco, Penny and Patrick. Victor was born here in the bus. ( 2001)

Photo taken with Zenit 1200mm mirror lens on tripod, range about 70 metres




Roy with parallel profile balsa 7 footer, Childers road Gisborne workshop 1996

Emma 2 days before producing Kirsten ( who weighed 12 pound 9 ounces ) at the Gisborne backpackers in Harris st


A few old surfing pictures: The FP12 at the Main Beach 2001
. . . and the 70 pound redwood Dragon Board 2001

Tunnel fin and cutaway D fin continued. . .

Time to clean up the finished panel, make a tunnel finned sized slice and do some fin foiling for the tunnel plus one combination. . . .

Tunnel fin panels for surfboards continued

Here the first layer of 3mm edge glued paulownia has been sanded, and the cloth layer ( a wool/nylon blend ) is sewn on to hold it in place while the clear epoxy resin is applied with a brush



Now the second layer of 3mm paulwnia is added, edge glued with epoxy thickened with paulownia dust..

New tunnel fin panel for the Resolute Salmon 12 foot surfboard

A paulownia/epoxy panel being made for the 6 inch Resolute Salmon tunnel fin. This panel will make about 4 tunnel fins.

D fin templates

There are various historic D fin shapes, but a simple and good one is just a half of the letter 'D' with or without a cutaway. These can be drawn with a compass and a straight edge.

The advantage of this planform for a wing or fin is that: " Induced drag is minimized, since lift distribution is near optimum, and because the span efficiency of a planar wing is optimized when maximum span is at the trailing edge. " ( http://www.esotec.org/hbird/HTML/Aero_F.html )

Shaping a 12 foot wooden surfboard

Deck and bottom are sanded, now the second rail facet is created. The rail is a continuous 50/50 section, almost a circular section but very slightly 'pinched' or elliptical.

In theory making a rail like this is easy, and it is easy, however the multi directional grain in the perimeter rail stringers keeps the job interesting.












Believe it or not a hollow wooden board like this resonates so well that hand sanding noises are amplified to the point where they are a hearing hazard, hence the earmuffs !

A message from Tom Morey

" I love what you guys are doing. Keep it up!

Aloha,
Tom "boogie' Morey "


Thanks Tom, here's today's doing: The first rail facets completed on the 12 foot Resolute Salmon paulownia wave tool. . .

The displacement tail extreme pintail design part 2

The first thing which comes to mind is that because the extreme pintail with soft rails develops very little planing lift ( at least progressively less towards the tail ) it maintains the same handling characteristics at high and low speeds.

With displacement lift the amount of lift produced by a given displacement is constant, it doesn't increase as the board goes faster. With planing lift the amount of lift increases as the speed increases.

So, with a planing tail the handling characteristics change as the board speeds up.. . the tail gets harder to sink and the board gets harder to control. With a displacement tail that doesn't happen.

The displacement tail is all about ease of control and minimising the drag caused by turning and repositioning the board.

It's also worth mentioning that lift due to displacement can be gained with less drag than planing based lift, so there is a possible drag advantage with displacement hull features. .. . we hear a lot about how planing hulls require sharp edges for release to minimise drag but in fact displacement hulls are more effiicient.

The boards which we design with displacement tails are still primarily planing hulls of course.

Testing the bulb tipped flex fin tunnel fin combination

Testing the tunnel plus bulb tipped flex fin on the 11'8" Resolute Salmon hollow redwood surfboard, in 2005 at Mount Maunganui's Main Beach, in the Bay of Plenty New Zealand

The board was built under a canvas awning in Welcome Bay

flexibility in parallel profile perimeter stringered wooden surfboards

flexibility in parallel profile perimeter stringered wooden surfboards

More Paulownia alaia blanks. . .

Resawing some plantation grown Paulownia logs. These are from the Whakatane area in the Bay of Plenty, and were grown by Mr John Quayle.