Attaching a fibreglass tab for a fin box on to a paulownia spitfire fin.

5 mm Brass rods are inserted through the tab into the wooden fin

The finished 10inch spitfire cutaway fin

Baron 12 foot surfboard, featured in Surfer magazine

A preview from a recent photo session featuring the Baron 12 footer  for an upcoming Surfer magazine article.

Noseriding

The noseriding goal ensures that the design is a dog from the start, using noseriding as a goal is a bankrupt idea from a functional point of view.

In terms of waveriding function,  even in shorter lengths ( 9 foot range ) the anomalies of the noseriding shape are plain to see, it has no sweet spot and an unbalanced turning position which relies on slow tail pivoting.

This makes it unwieldy and highly inefficient. What is now being called the 'art' of noseriding is merely the celebration of the awkward antics required to make the hoplessly incoherent design work at a very low level of efficiency.

It's a celebration of failure, an 'emperor's new clothes' syndrome kept alive by advertising.

From this position the rider can neither accelerate when required, nor control the board properly.

A dysfunctional pose, the theory is that it is supposed to look relaxed and nonchalant but it never does because the rider is always feeling uncomfortable due to the awkard position . Relaxation comes from perfect control and balance. Noseriding is always unbalanced.

The ' Easy school' of surfing returns

My inspiration for surfing has always been to harmonise with the forces of nature, rather than to impose myself and my personality on them. It is what we call 'Pure Surfing'

. It is   also known in Hawaii as the 'make it easy' school. Pure surfing is not the aim of the mass market surf industry, which prefers at all times to make surfing difficult and to attack waves rather than flowing with them.

Pure surfing consists of removing that which is not needed in order to achieve efficiency and economy of motion, so that the experience becomes as easy as breathing.

  Nothing must come between you and the experience. This requires a fresh design philosophy, whereby art consists of perfect function.

Shaper of the year 2011 Roy Stuart with the Chieftain hydrofoil longboard

" Pictured with the  Chieftain hydrofoil longboard is surfboard shaper of the year 2011 Roy Stuart from New Zealand."

A surfboard quiver of eight

A surfboard quiver of eight, at Mount Maunganui's Shark Alley yesterday

Myths in big wave surfboard design

Surfboards don't react to wave size, they react to the speed of the water flow.

To the average surfer, when waves reach a life threatening size this affects them emotionally so much that they put it in a different realm. In reality that's just another example of spurious information, of 'clutter' which has no design use whatsoever.

To most surfers the design factors which determine whether or not a surfboard is good for big waves are social and or emotional... in other words almost completely irrelevant in design terms.

Surfboards  react according to the laws of physics... how the board came into being has no bearing on how it works, it works entirely as determined by physics.

Waves don't care about the social standing or reputation  of the person who built the surfboard, nor does the surfboard. The rider sometimes does, and that can be the proverbial spanner in the works. . . the operator error. 

The bottom line is, boards react to water flow, not the ladies gossip circle.

There are one or two other differences on bigger waves, mainly the need to move faster to get into the faster moving swell, but that's about it, and the awe and mystery surrounding big wave boards in the minds of Joe average is based only on fear. Fear isn't a hydrodynamic factor.

Olo of the sun unveiled

Because Roy Stuart surfboards are sculpted mathematically, they attain a pinnacle of visual and tactile art, just as mathematical precision in Renaissance and Neo Classical music did in the realm of sound.

I believe that ( at least in the context of surfboards) art IS function, and that art consists of making mathematically perfect functional objects which harmonise with the laws of physics and the forces of nature, rather than as some arbitrary expression of personal feeling.

From a visual point of view it is artistically most pleasing ( in my opinion ) to look at objects which are geometrically and mathematically coherent due to their uncompromising practicality.

All this was clear to me subconsciously when I was a teenager. I would buy new surfboards and keep them in my study when not in use, with the intention of admiring their beautiful lines. I found however, that instead of enjoying them I would mentally correct them.

Roy Stuart surfboards need no such correction, so they are more pleasing to the eye as well as being more efficient on the waves. The human psyche admires their perfection instinctively and intuitively, because it has an affinity for order and perfection.

Geometrically pefect curves coherently related in order harmonise with the laws of physics  ( as opposed to man made curves aimed at man made goals ) appeals to the human psyche on an instinctive level rather than a learned or social level

The curves I use are not mine, they were invented by the Great Architect.
Some discussion of the leading edge tubercules seen on the fin:


http://olosurfer-woodensurfboardsatpipeline.blogspot.com/2011/02/spitfire-tubercule-cutaway-fin-for-106.html

http://olosurfer-woodensurfboardsatpipeline.blogspot.com/2010/05/more-biomimetics-and-fin-tubercule.html


http://olosurfer-woodensurfboardsatpipeline.blogspot.com/2010/07/wind-turbines-inspired-by-whales.html