4Wsim a paulownia wood Quad finned 5'8"

Here's the planshape for the 4Wsim which will be a pea in the same pod or quiver as the 'Original Sim' 5-6

The surfboard is a thin 3 layer parallel profile spoon construction, with 4 spitfire fins

Length is 5'8" width is 23.5" thickness is 1 and 5/8"



Here's the internal frame layer ready for glue up



The fin plan for the 'Original Sim' 5'6" is elliptically based. Complete plans for both boards will be published in hard copy soon, the boards are also available in kit form, with a pre rockered blank and fin panels. . . all that's needed is rail and bottom contour shaping, and an oil finish !

'Original Sim' 5'6" parallel profile Simmons inspired wooden surfboard . . . the finished board

Paulownia wood mini Simmons inspired 5'6" the 'Original Sim' finished with Fijiian coconut oil

'Original Sim' 5'6" parallel profile Simmons inspired wooden surfboard . . . Fin setting

The Original Sim fins are foiled 1/3 on the inside and 2/3 on the outside, and are set 1 inch into the board with epoxy resin.

The fins are a 3 layer paulownia lamination 9mm in total

The concave between the fins is subtle, and can be reshaped between sessions just like an alaia board

Surfing speed in big and small waves

I have often been asked how it is that we have recorded speeds of over 35 mph and up to 37mph on relativey small ( e.g.. head high) low period beachbreak , when tow in surfers on waves up to ten times bigger only achieve speeds in the mid 40's

It seems strange at first as a 60 foot wave has ( all else being equal ) about 100 times the power of a 6 foot wave. Surely a surfer on a 60 foot wave should be able to go 3700mph if a surfer on a 6 foot wave can do 37mph?

The answer of course is that they can't. A surfer on a 60 foot wave only travels about 1.5 times a s fast as a surferat peak speed on a 6 foot wave ( approximately that is ) .

Why is this ?



One reason is that drag increases by the square as speed increases ( approximately anyway ) so increses in power do not get a proportionally high increase in speed. This only partially explains the small increase in speed with large increases in power

A second reason is that waves of low power allow a more efficient energy transfer into horizontal motion than high powered waves. With high powered waves the glide path has to be more vertical in order to overcome the lifting power of the wave, thus a lot of the lifting power of the wave is wasted. The reason for this is that the rider only has a fixed amount of acceleration due to gravity available . . . the acceleration and force due to gravity do not increase proportionally as the power of the wave does. . . if it did the rider would go a lot faster on bigger waves than they do.

A pair of Paulownia Paipos

Two paulownia paipos finished today with coconut oil.

These two have copper tube leash attachment holes.

A tow board question

Hey Roy, how long is that stick?

Looks kinda long for a tow in?



Yes although we've cut the length down a bit on that one now to 5'8".

I saw Greg Long take a terrible wipeout at Jaws and it was obvious that his board was at fault. I won't go into details but I think I can make much better tow boards than what he's riding. . and his boards are typical of what's being ridden.




One of the big problems they have is insufficient tail behind the riding position. I'm in favour of longer pintails in the 7 foot range .

The pure tunnel board is more in line with the short wider tailed parallel railed boards which are common at present ( and which garrett rides ) except of course in the fin department.

I'm pleased to see that our parallel profile innovation is being adopted to a large extent in tow boards.

'Original Sim' 5'6" parallel profile Simmons inspired wooden surfboard . . . blank completed today

At 24" wide and with a fairly parallel tail planshape the 'Original Sim' has a lot of planing area for it's 5'6" length, as all Simmons type boards do.


At only an inch and a half thick the board will have the alaia-like sensitivity and low centre of gravity which all parallel profile boards are renowned for


Rocker wise the board has zero tail rocker and a subtle but pronounced nose lift.


The blank is hollow but has quite a lot of 'meat' in the rail blocking and deck planking to allow some freedom for the shaper.

The psychology of tyranny in the surf industry

After hearing Dr Bruce Levine's analysis of the pschology of tyranny and how it works in marketing, we found that the cap fits the surf industry exactly. . .. as it does in for all corporate led entities.

The industry constantly parades brain impaired and drugged out people as examples of how to be. . . . which is easy to do when over 10% of the USA is drugged out on psych medication, but it's a terrible state of affairs when everyone subconsciously follows suit, as they do.

Depression is being used as a marketing tool, the psychological method used is to make people feel inadequate ( mostly by being made to feel that they are not part of the group ) . . . . they attempt to cure this by buying the product, but the cure doesn't work properly so they keep buying.

Part of the 'cure' which they buy into is to never admit to others that they feel inadequate, or that the cure hasn't worked.

This analysis has been made by Dr Bruce Levine, who is an expert in the field of psychology in marketing, and it's obviously true. Where I parted company with the crowd was that I didn't accept the inadequacy assumption, I saw through it because I don't like clubs and cliques anyway. . .

I know that I am much happier than those who buy into the package deal corporate surfer identity ( neatly disguised as a 'local' shaper's product which is used by a 'local' crew ) because I see the lack of confidence and underlying depression which these brainwashed consumers have. They are very shrill in defence of their chosen labelled persona, but underneath they are empty and dissatisfied. They try to get over this and cement their identity by mocking and hating those outside the group, which doesn't work either as those outside the group don't care.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJEyyc25WtI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoteaL_BFWk&feature=related






http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vZmDZcrPOw&feature=related

Skip Frye interview with John Mollusk: single fins vs tri fins

Here's a transcript from Skip Frye's interview at Mollusk surf shop:


" I had a argument with ...... like a 9 inch single vs regular tri fins which was faster in a straight line, through the water and he was going " ah it's it's single fin is way faster " you know and to me I know it's not because you know I've played with it so much it was the tri fin was faster through the water, it was the depth of, the depth over rode . .. .. if you drag your hand in the water you know, it took it took ten years for the idea of a fin to be even accepted on a board, ten years, because that was the thing you know it was like dragging your, dragging your hand in the water, putting some drag on the bottom of your, you know that sucks ! "

Frye then goes on to imply that single fins are slower thantri fins because he heard that Richard Kenvin went 'faster than anyone can imagine' on a finless board .

.

'Original Sim' a 5'6" parallel profile Simmons inspired wooden surfboard

The 'Original Sim' internal frame panel takes shape. The parallel profile is a departure from the Simmons 'S' deck, and will give a lower centre of gravity and better flex. Other changes from the Simmons type are the constant rail section and hollow framed construction







Because it is a three panel board the frames need vent holes

Rusty Preisendorfer is in hydrodynamic pre school !

Here are links to a couple of Rusty articles on the subject of planing in surfboards in general and Simmons boards in particular:

http://www.surfline.com/blog/entry.cfm?id=41256

http://www.surfline.com/blog/entry.cfm?id=41287


The wide tailed pure planing concept has a lot going for it, but it's best to be clear minded about what's actually going on ( in my opinion ), and Rusty doesn't quite do that.

Instead he makes several seriously erroneous assumptions which will be listed below, but before doing so I have to object to the following statement of his :

"while some of you were snoozing in physics class, early board-builders were figuring things out so today's modern shapers didn't really have to"

You have to be joking Mr Preisendorfer ! Firstly figuring things out is beneficial to humans, where would we be if everything had been worked out and as a consequence no one had to think ? Admittedly the current trend towards global enslavement promotes the practice of not thinking so that the corporate and fascist agendas of the globalists can be more easily implanted in the minds of their victims, but we don't want that to happen in the surfing world, we want to move towards a time when everyone thinks for themselves !

We wouldn't want to be forced into concluding that you, as a corporate controller, are advocating that surfers just buy what you suggest on the basis that it's all been worked out by the people on the shaper's tree and force fed them via scientific marketing techniques. . . even though that's probably what's happening !

Furthermore some of us have been doing a lot of 'working out' in the field of surfboard hydrodynamics and have come up with valid solutions which do not belong to Simmons or any other designers.

Ok so here's one of the major fallacies:


1) Rusty assumes that wetted surface area is related to the overall area of the board and to the overall aspect ratio of the board. That is not the case and leads to such an oversimplified view of what's happening that the resulting conclusions are false, or to be more specific have a very low truth content. He assumes that a wide tailed board has a higher aspect ratio wetted surface area but this is not the case any time that the board is on the rail

• 

The picture above shows that Rusty and Simmons' theory regarding board width and aspect ratio is bunkum any time that the board is on a rail. . . if it applies it only does so when the board is riding flat on the bottom.

Look at the pattern of the wetted surface area, and see for yourselves !


One of the principles I use which has something in common with Simmons but which looks like it doesn't ( any craft which planes must have something in common with simmons boards) , is to use a very wide planing area forward which diminishes in width to a narrow low drag displacement tail for control and which has a high aspect ratio submerged foil of infinite effective span to replace the lift which the very low lift tail surface doesn't provide.

In other words there are different aproaches. The constant assumption that a wide tail always has less drag and that less fin area always means less drag is wrong, as there are lots of variables involved.

Also Rusty and the Simmons crew dismiss displacement hulls and displacement based lift out of hand, ignoring the fact that displacement hulls can have a lower lift/drag ratio than planing hulls !

The need to plane is more about control than it is about drag reduction.

.

The Baron in profile

The Baron 12 footer is deceptively basic looking in profile, yet moves with surprising speed. . . . . do not drop in do not get in the way !

The board is only 2.5 inches thick but has a volume of 150 litres, a free raspberry for anyone who has a 12 footer that thin with that much volume.

Tristan's 5-8 twin fin part 2

This little twin has been six months in the making



Zero toe in, but the wide angle makes it lok like there's toe in

Lightning bolt by Tristan and Theadora


Fins are paulownia with a resin tint, no glass cloth is used anywhere in the board

Tristan's 5'8" twinfin

Hollow paulownia twinfin.

5'8" by 24" wide, 2" thick

The Baron 12 footer complete and ready for finish sanding

Here's the Baron 12 footer board after emerging from the dusty workshop for the first time. The weight is a little lighter than we were aiming for at a modest 40 pounds ( we were aiming for 45 pounds ). Volume is 150 litres.