The most expensive surfboards in the world and the man who shapes them

http://www.swellnet.com.au/news/733-the-most-expensive-surfboards-in-the-world-and-the-man-who-shapes-them  


 At last glance Gucci was hocking an Asian produced popout for US $2200, pretentious NY fashion label Proenza Schouler $2995, and Chanel a similarly made shiny shooter for $3900. Yet Roy tops all of these folk with his 'Baron' model retailing for $528 000. Yep, over half a million dollars - the most expensive surfboard in the world! And unlike those boards listed above, his are the functional result of a love affair with surfing and surfboard design.
I dialled his workshop in Putaruru to have a chat...

By Stu Nettle

Wind turbines inspired by Whales: interview with Frank Fish at nakedscientist.com

http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/content/interviews/interview/1282/

Professor Frank Fish, West Chester University

Well again, it’s sort of counterintuitive.  I mean, whenever you see wing-like structures, we always think that they need a nice sharp, clean leading edge, so aeroplanes or car spoilers or windmills, or fans, anything like that.  So this is a bit counterintuitive that you wouldn’t think of putting these bumps along the leading edge.  Part of the argument has been that, if you do that, you're going to disrupt the flow in another way and that is, you're going to increase the amount of resistance that wing will go through the air or through the water with.  What we have found with the bumps is actually – there is no penalty for having these bumps along the leading edge.  They don't increase the resistance.  And additionally, as you go up to higher and higher angles, there’s actually a reduction in the amount of resistance compared to a wing that doesn’t have the bumps, simply because the wing isn’t stalling.  When it stalls, the amount of resistance goes up quite a bit.  So we can operate at higher angles with less resistance than if we didn’t have the bumps.. . . .

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Riding olo boards with displacement tails: a Tom Blake replica

 Here's Brad Tucker's first ride report from the recently built displacement tailed Tom Blake design shown below:

"Ride report: My son and I actually rode it a few weeks ago. I haven't posted the ride report because I wanted to include some good video with it. Turns out getting good video is really hard to get on this board. It needs a fin badly. We had an absolute blast riding it but it was very hard to ride. It paddles in a straight line better than any surfboard I've paddled. It's no wonder Tom won races on this thing. Turning is another story. Tilt your feet right and it goes left! The hard rails up front must be catching and pulling the nose. We figured out the only way to turn it is to use your hand of foot in the water as a turning brake. It was overhead surf at San O the day we took it out. I chickened out and didn't take any of the big ones but Cache took off on a couple. Video coming soon. I stuck to the inside. It was a lot of fun. We took it out 2 days in a row. Lots of excitement from the others at the beach. I saw some original pictures of Tom's early fins on these boards so I'm going to put replica redwood fin on it. Surprisingly it didn't leak at all."

Brad Tucker
Wood Surfboard Supply

http://www.grainsurf.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3206&p=23002#p23002

Hi Brad,

That shouldn't happen unless you were standing too far forward.

It will be interesting to see the footage, my bet is that you are used to standing with a certain amount of nose in front of you so ended up too far forward on the longer board.

Tom's boards use displacement tails otherwise known as 'sinker tails' these tails are sunk during rail turns, thus lifting the nose. The nose rail shouldn't be engaged much at all.

It's best to use a narrow forward facing stance in the middle of the board, and a sensitive touch, the board is not a mal and needs a different riding style .

If you feel that you needed a fin then the tail must have been sliding out, this also indicates that you were trimming too far forward. If the weight was aft the tail would sink slightly and hold in.

Another way to cure the problem is to build a similar board with the wide point forward. this enables the rider to move forward as well.

The photo below shows what I'm talking about. It might not seem obvious to those not used to this kind of board but Tom is weighting the board aft to raise the nose and sink the tail. He's also using a narrow forward stance. Wider sideways stances don't work with these boards in most situations.

Blake boards and other displacement tailed longboards including many of my own designs are based on a different design philosophy from the typical noseriding malibu design which has infested the planet over the past half a century. Most longboarders assume that they know how to ride a longboard so they simply apply their usual technique, only to discover that it doesn't work. The tendency is to blame the board particularly in the case of professional surfers who think that they know it all,  but in reality it's better to adopt the necessary riding style. All is well once this is understood.  In my opinion the olo riding style is a much more pleasurable and in many ways more functional way to surf.

Million dollar quiver: World's most expensive surfboards.

At  $US 1,584,000  the Roy Stewart 2010 Empress wood best 12 foot Olo collection is undoubtedly the most expensive and exclusive quiver of  luxury surfboards in the world, and it is certainly the most beautiful.

From top to bottom:
 Baron,  Makaha and Ghost

Malibu longboards and their inefficiency: four reasons why

Four  points  with regard to the inefficiency of the 'malibu' noseriding longboard type ( in its various forms) are as follows:

1) The separation of the turning and trimming areas. This is inefficient because it requires walking up and down the board in order to turn and trim. It also prevents carving turns at speed and forces the rider into an ungainly flapping surfing style which is detrimental to optimum positioning and to speed and conrol

2)Having the trimming position near the nose increases wetted surface area precisely when it should be reduced. Planing hulls do not work well that way.

3) The reverse rocker profile. efficient planing hulls should reduce rocker aft and increase it forward. Due to the artificial nose riding, tail rotation, and walking requirement the noseriding type usually has the opposite. . . more rocker aft than forward.

4) Balance. For good balance a surfboard should have a sweet spot in the middle of the board. This simultaneously reduces swing weight and nose leverage during turns, and allows finer control when trimming. Malibu longboards don't have this. . . the middle of the board is only used when passing through from one end to the other. It's like having a car with the accelerator on the bonnet and the steering wheel in the boot. 

For efficiency a rider should ideally be able to turn and trim simultaneously, this requires a sweet spot whereby both can be done from the same position.

Any board which has separate turning and trimming areas does not have a sweet spot as the rider is only able to do one thing from each position.

Efficient surfing requires the ability to turn for positioning while at maximum trim speed. . . rather than the jerky flapping stop/go approach dictated by the malibu surfboard

The Ten foot four surfboard below is able to turn and trim at speed from one position.

These two boards are able to turn and trim from one position, unlike the malibu board.

That feature gives them a huge advantage

The 70 pound 13'9" Dragonboard trimming from a central position, with turning available  via subtle  'fingertip' control or larger muscular exertion, as required.

The 12 foot Future Primitive, carving a turn while in trim. This board is almost never in static trim, it can snake through turns while trimming almost as soon as the rider thinks of turning, which as stated gives a huge advantage.

The reason why the vast majority of longboarders don't realise that they are riding inefficient, ungainly, ugly, ill conceived and badly designed boards is mainly because they never confront a well designed longboard in the water. They generally huddle together with those on similar boards, not doing well but secure in their poor performance because they are insulated from reality by scientific marketing and safety in numbers. When they confront a pure surfing  longboard like the ones above the difference in performance is often so vast that their happy deluded bubble is burst. . . with a variety of emotional reactions best left to the imagination !

A recently published description of malibu surfing as jerky flapping is a sober judgement of the type of actions required to ride the boards and it is coming from an intelligent adult. I stand by it.

  A reference to longboard riding 'style' made by a malibu apologist today in response to this article is a key to the discussion. Nearly half a century of marketing has dictated what looks 'cool' and what doesn't, but it has little to do with efficiency in spite of the entrenched attitudes it has created.

Furthermore if one ever builds and rides surfboards of over twelve feet in length one will discover that the supposed 'longboard' attributes of the noserider don't work in real longboard lengths . . . as they rely on light weight and shorter lengths to overcome their design deficiencies. They are not really classicly functional longboard shapes at all. That distinction goes to the curvaceous teardrop shapes of the pure surfing longboard

Eventually the truth will get through and longboard design will catch up with what we are doing, this will create a lot more joy in longboard surfing than the endless repetition of essentially awkward surfing and tired mantras which most people are forced to subscribe to at present.

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Tuberculed cutaway spitfire fin, simplicity vs complexity and the myth of Occam's razor.

Here's the tuberculed cutaway spitfire fin resin coat with the second resin coat.

Recently a critic of the tuberculed fin ( Our friend Mr Black from the 'Surf a Pig blog http://surfapig.blogspot.com/2010/07/tubercules-and-other-gimmicks.html  ) complained that it is overly complex and that simpler solutions are better, in an attempt to apply Occam's razor to fin design.

It was suggested that this ( very nice ) fin is simpler:

The concept of simplicity is however problematic as it's impossible to determine what is simplest. Such judgements are arbitrary. There's no evidence to support the idea that simplicity is more efficient, and in fact simplicity is a very complex and problematic concept to use as it is impossible to know what it means in practice.

From Wikipedia:

"  When scientists use the idea of parsimony, it only has meaning in a very specific context of inquiry. A number of background assumptions are required for parsimony to connect with plausibility in a particular research problem. The reasonableness of parsimony in one research context may have nothing to do with its reasonableness in another. It is a mistake to think that there is a single global principle that spans diverse subject matter.[10]

 As a methodological principle, the demand for simplicity suggested by Occam’s razor cannot be generally sustained. Occam’s razor cannot help toward a rational decision between competing explanations of the same empirical facts. One problem in formulating an explicit general principle is that complexity and simplicity are perspective notions whose meaning depends on the context of application and the user’s prior understanding. In the absence of an objective criterion for simplicity and complexity, Occam’s razor itself does not support an objective epistemology.[9]

The problem of deciding between competing explanations for empirical facts cannot be solved by formal tools. Simplicity principles can be useful heuristics in formulating hypotheses, but they do not make a contribution to the selection of theories. A theory that is compatible with one person’s world view will be considered simple, clear, logical, and evident, whereas what is contrary to that world view will quickly be rejected as an overly complex explanation with senseless additional hypotheses. Occam’s razor, in this way, becomes a “mirror of prejudice.”[9]
 

It has been suggested that Occam’s razor is a widely accepted example of extraevidential consideration, even though it is entirely a metaphysical assumption. There is little empirical evidence that the world is actually simple or that simple accounts are more likely than complex ones to be true.[21]"


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occam%27s_razor

Resin coating the tuberculed cutaway spitfire fin for the 7'8" Jet

Resin coating  the tuberculed cutaway spitfire fin for the 7'8" Jet today.

Tributes to celebrated north Devon surfboard maker

By Jemima Laing
BBC Devon 

Tributes have been paid to a Devon surfboard maker described as an unsung hero of the surfing world.

Thousands of British surfers got their first start on one of Dick Pearce's famous surf riders, plywood boards which were first used on British beaches in the 1920s.
Dick, from South Molton, made the boards - commonly known as belly boards - for more than 50 years.. . .


http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/devon/hi/people_and_places/history/newsid_8826000/8826114.stm

Surfboard weight: the eternal question, and Beware the Force of Gravity !

There's a time worn process taking place on Swaylocks regarding the question of weight  

 http://www.grainsurf.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=3170&p=22420#p22420

http://www2.swaylocks.com/forums/hws-deck-bracing-question-and-compsand-update?page=1

So, what's the truth of the matter ?

The truth is that surfboards have a lot in common with BOMBS.. . . the kind which fall from on high.

Lightweight bombs just don't do the job as well as heavy ones !

Ultralight is better for the extreme trick surfing which is the flagship for the entire mainstream surfing industry so there's a lot invested in the idea that lighter is always better. This investment has been made over a period of half a century so the attitudes are ingrained. 

 Materials cost money so ultimately the industry has little to gain by promoting heavier boards. The official line is that lighter boards are better except for big wave guns, but the truth of the matter is that greater weight used sensibly  has many advantages which apply to waves of all sizes.

 I regularly roast the tail feathers of  legions of shortboard and malibu heroes on boards  two to ten times the weight which they use, and the added mass is definitely a factor in that success. . .  of course I don't do scoreable moves and prefer to make my turns as smooth and invisible as possible for hydrodynamic efficiency and the flow of both the surfboard and the rider's concentration, but at the end of the day that's what usually wins in the real world.

 Beware of the Swaylocks BS, it's roughly equivalent to the propaganda put out by our governments, and has about the same truth content  !

 Rip tear and lacerate or slide dream and meditate ?  The former likes lightweight, the latter heavyweight, the heavy weight  is often underestimated .


 By the way beware also of the  line that weight is a handicap but heavier boards are ok for less skilled surfers in slow waves. Nothing could be further from the truth, heavier boards are faster or at least as fast down the line as light boards in both theory  and practice, and require as much skill to handle correctly as do light boards.

To really wind 'them' up, take the word 'GRAVITY' light the fuse, and toss it into the pit at swayp*x . . . they'll froth at the mouth and you'll hear more BS in one week than one usually hears in a year. . . it's great fun !

Tuberculed cutaway spitfire fin for the 'Jet' 7'8"

Another 6 hours of shaping on the tuberculed fin for the 7'8" Jet:

The 'Duke' 9'3" and the 'Chieftain' 9'7" wooden surfboards

The 'Duke' 9'3" and the 'Chieftain' 9'7" wooden surfboards, a square tail and a crescent tail.

Imagination collaborates with memory in order to distill essentials

The Chieftain expresses victory of the spirit and imagination over the mundane and reasonable, and as such is eminently representative of Roy Stewart's idiosyncratic success.

Sun board 19 foot Olo

After the success of the 17 foot Star board we were inspired to design a couple of longer boards, the 19 foot Sun board being the first and smallest of the two.
The 17 foot Star board has the wide point at 50% aft and a circular arc rocker of 9 inches. This works very well and gives the board the ability to ride inquite a wide range of conditions. For the Sun board we have moved the wide point up to the 40% aft or 'Heart series' position,  flattened the tail rocker  and given the nose rocker an elliptical section. Rocker overall remains at 9 inches. The effect of these changes is a much longer rail line ( 12 feet of tail instead of the 8'6" of the Star board)   The Sun board will be even better than the Star board at catching and riding unbroken swells. The challenge will be to handle the greater length and flatter tail rocker through shorebreaks and other tight situations. Experience has shown us that with the 'Eagle eye' of the rider scanning further into  the future of the surfboard/wave interaction, navigating Olo boards of sensible design through such sections is practical.
The rocker jig side pieces are built, the laying up bench is ready and the planshape has been drawn out and cut ready for final fairing. Making the tail section in planshape required a wire compass of about 25 metres in radius.

Here's the planshape: