Spitfire tubercule cutaway fin for the 10'6" Earl pintailed wooden surfboard

Baroque style, biomimetics, and golden paulownia wood converge in the 12 inch spitfire fin for the Earl 10'6".

Tubercule explanation:
http://olosurfer-woodensurfboardsatpipeline.blogspot.com/2010/05/new-zorb-fin-for-future-primitive-106.html

 Frank Fish, whale bump pioneer.
wind-turbines-inspired-by-whales

The Earl 10'6":
earl-106-hws-pintail-singlefin

Garret McNamara at pipeline with Roy Stuart's 13' Ghost

The mighty Ghost 13 at Pipeline with Garrett McNamara, showing the beautifully efficient lines characteristic of  the extreme pintailed 'Future Primitive' designs with their  spherical/elliptical rocker, continuous 50/50 rail section and thin parallel profile.

Photograph by  Ian & Erick Regnard  @ Tungsten: 

tungsten at photoshelter

Earl 10'6" HWS pintail singlefin, shaping continues...

Here's the 10'6" Earl elite singlefin pintail partly shaped. The board is based on the 'Future Primitive' rocker and planshape which is shared by the 'Ghost' 11 and 12 footers and the 'Future Primitive' 13 footer. 

With a central riding position and extreme circular arc pintail, a 10'6" board like this feels like a shortboard in the water

Spherical-elliptical rocker, parallel profile,  30/70 continuous downrail, single concave bottom, spooned deck, finished weight approximately 30 pounds.

Seeka's new 10' pintail

Here is Seeka's beautiful new ten foot pintail, built from Roy Stuart's kitset and plans, with some tweaks to personalise the ride. Actually the plans gave two options: one the 9'3' Duke and the other a 10'9" Makaha pintail. Seeka used the Makaha planshape and bottom curve, and by taking a 3" slice out of the middle of the planshape brought the width of the board down to 24" and the length to 10" in the process creating a subtle '#3' point on the nose.

Seeka's report:

" Yesterday was the day. Finally i got to test the board at oreti beach.. i turned up around 9 am and not a soul to be seen. Seeing as i only have a 8ft leash, the decision was made to not use a leggie, but i was a bit apprehensive seeing as i would be out there on my own (it's a long paddle out into the southern ocean) on an unfamiliar board.

Then surf school turned up. I know the head guy and he immediately spotted the stick in my car and wanted to check it out, so i hauled her out and gasps abound from the kook crew.  They were buzzing on the board and questions were being asked quicker than i could answer.

The boss guy was impressed. he's also a pu longboard shaper and a well respected artist. he asked if he could have a go and i said 'of course, once i've had a few..it's the maiden voyage and the captain gets first cruise'. 

It has exceeded my expectations and i am fully stoked.

I borrowed a 10 ft leash off the school(which turned out to be a blessing) and headed out. first thing i noticed was it's buoyancy. then i hopped on and started to paddle. it paddled so easy! i was skimming along with little effort and punching through the white water was a breeze.

First wave came along and i lined myself up for it...a few quick effortless paddles and she took off down the face. shortboard habits let me down, i leaned into the bottom turn and the board kept going straight ahead.
the next wave i nose dived. paddled back out and was met by two very inquisitive hector dolphins who spent the next hour hanging around me taking slow dives under the board and fully checking it out.

next wave, ..a really clean right hander(natural for me) at about shoulder height...i lined myself up and paddled up to speed, the wave picked me up and as smooth as silk the board took off,  i jumped to my feet, gently leaned into a bottom turn, easy as..and headed down the line. it was a fast and smooth exit from the bottom turn. i had found the sweet spot and was away roller coasting down the line, turning was effortless, bottom turns were effortless as was cut backs,  generally the whole ride was just magic...i threw everything i knew about surfing out the window and just glided the next half a dozen waves at speed...laughing the whole time.  

One wave, a left, sectioned out in front of me, i held my balance and aimed for the clean wall and before i knew it i was on the open face again. this has never happened before on my 7'2", once a section closes it's impossible to gain enough speed to catch up with the wave at oreti..but not on the hollow 10 footer!

I caught another 6 or so waves, cruising at speed and beating close out sections on the lefts, which on any other board i have ridden is near impossible at this place..actually, i have never beaten a section there and have never seen anyone else beat sections. i had one of the most fun filled surfs ever... fully stoked.

I headed in , it was time for the boss guy to have a go and i was keen to get some feed back from a very competent longboard rider. this guy had no problem finding the sweet spot. he was all over the waves, cutbacks, trimming in style, switchfoot and beating sections once thought impossible.

He caught about 6 waves and came in beaming and buzzing, "beautiful!.....this is a board that you don't need to ride..it takes you for a ride!
."throw all your ideas about surfing out the window...no need to walk this board...just stand in one spot and slightly lean toe to heal on the back foot and the board does the rest"
Later on he came around to my home for a couple of hrs and marveled at it's beauty. he shapes pu longboards, lives at riverton and is also a respected artist in southland...quite the character. We yarned , and being the open minded man he is, he understood and appreciated it's design.

In the last 30 yrs i have ridden all sorts of boards from 5'4" channeled 80's thrusters to the occasional mal ride....this board by far is the most fun so far and easy...a different way to surf and an absolute pleasure.

Roy, i can't express how happy i am with this board.

Thank you so much for your insight and inspiration.

Peace to you.

Seeka
"

Balsa 9'1" restored.

1999 Roy Stuart balsawood 'Thrusterbuster' pintail restored over the past year by Jared.

Some of you might remember surfco member 'expat UK' who bought my old favourite 9'1" 'Thrusterbuster' pintail with the intention of refinishing it.

Well he didn't do it but Jared did over the past year, and here's the result. The board is simple but goes like a bat out of hell and was the terror of the Mount for quite some time back in the banana republic days. In spite of the low rocker the board never pearled, thanks to the extreme pintail planshape.

Dimensions:

Length: 9'1"
Width 23"
Thickness 2.25"
Rocker 1" approximately
Construction: Ecuador balsa.

This was the first of two identical boards, the other was swapped for a 1971 Dodge AT4 Ambulance in mint condition, which was an epic surf vehicle.

Construction took place at the old Power surfboards camp at Aerodrome rd Omanu, where we shared 40 acres of gorse covered industrial land only half a mile from the beach( belonging to page and Macrae Engineering and the Bay of Plenty Times ) with the local hoons for about 5 years. Rather than do the job under canvas again I took delivery of an old weatherboard site shed which Acme Engineering were going to demolish, it arrived on a huge forklift and was the only building on the entire property, where it sat proudly for a few years. The site shed was only big enough to house the new 9'1" project if the board was placed diagonally across the room, and to get from one side of the board to the other I had to go underneath and up the other side... there being only a couple of inches spare at each end.

The board started life as a single and was epic, it was also the first board I ever rode a tunnel fin on when we added a 4 inch diameter tunnel behind the single.

The first surf on the tunnel finned version was at Shark Alley and I was rewarded with epic standup backdoor barrels (righthanders) in perfect sunny offshore conditions for about 25 minutes as the swell angle produced a big wedge. My wife just reminded me that I got out of the water and said " We've cracked it !"

Marty Matenga saw the session from the rocks only a few feet away from where I was getting spat out into the channel, he was babysitting at the time, beached as !

There were only three of us out, the other two ( Dusty Wadell and a mate ) caught nothing and grumbled about it hahahha.

Good memories. .

Thankyou to Jared for the pictures and for doing such a nice job !

Cutting edge surfboards of the future: Chieftain.

If you’ve spent much time riding ocean waves , you’ve seen one fateful failure: most surfing boards lack any semblance of uniqueness.  While the sea may be filled with countless cookie-cutter surfboards, there are some designs which stand out strongly.

The old woodies of yesteryear have given way to a fresh new design sensibility in the emerging world of luxury surfboards.  The Roy Stuart Chieftain is only typical in its size, its design and function are as organic and progressive as they come.  From nose to tail  the Chieftain surfboard carries its pilot in the ultimate sea-friendly style.

http://www.olosurfer.com

Juliana's paipo

Paulownia bodyboard 50" long, 21" wide and 1" thick with a hardwood leashplug.

Oiled with boiled linseed oil.

Earl 10'6" Roy Stuart surfboard will be worth its weight in gold bullion !

The Earl 10'6" elite is a shorter and wider version of the highly successful Ghost 12  and Future Primitive 13, both are what are called ( 'In house' ) as Diamond series extreme pintails. The addition of the Earl adds wealth to the range in the FP series, enabling a seamless transition from 13 feet down to 10'6" for the owner of this most expensive and  desirable surfboard collection.

With an identical rocker to the FP 13 and Ghost the wider shorter Earl will be even more agile and manoeuvrable, and will have greater acceleration on takeoff.

Specifications:
Length 10'6"
Width 27"
Thickness 2.5"
Volume 75 litres approx.
Weight 20 pounds approx.
Price: US$417k or 10kg of gold bullion


here's the first frame and rail panel, note the  'parabolic' or perimeter rail, which Roy Stuart surfboards invented in 1994. The  parallel profile perimeter rail is superior in flex and strength qualities to the common parabolic rail now used in the surfboard mass market. A crucial aspect of the parallel profile parabolic rail is the use of multi directional 4, 5, or 6 layer laminations in which the grain direction in each layer of the rail corresponds with and is tied in to the frames and/or deck and bottom planking . This means that there are no anomalies in the structure and consequently the surfboard flexes as a harmonious whole.

Frame spacing here is 6 inches, which is the widest spacing used in the parallel profile sysytem. All frame junctions will be tied together with vertical struts in order to resist internal pressure should it arise 

  The fin is an 11 inch spitfire cutaway built from a multi directional hand laid paulownia panel  and will have whale tubercules on the leading edge.

James' new 7'8" 'Jet' wooden surfboard.

Jet 7'8" by 19"  parallel profile paulownia Roy Stuart wooden surfboard with tunnel fin plus tuberculed in line single fin.