Outer Banks, NC
Custom Epoxy Surfboards and Glassing
Performance Characteristics
-Lift and planning
The ability the board has to get on plane and maintain it through turns and less critical spots on the wave created by rocker, rail contour, bottom contours, and outline. Lift, Drive, and Release work hand in hand to create what we consider a “fast” board.
-Drive
Drive is described as a smooth, continuous, positive acceleration during surfing. How drive is achieved will vary with respect to design. Most importantly rocker, fins and bottom contours, but affected by many other aspects of design as well. The ultimate goal is to maintain drive through turns.
-Release
Release is often thought of as the ability to release the fins hold. In this context Release is the ability to reestablish optimal planning conditions. An example would be performing a maneuver that completely stalls the board and the board’s ability to regain speed with minimal effort. Variables that affect drive also affect release.
-Turning Radius
Turning Radius is the distance it takes to make a smooth fluid turn on any given board. Outline and Rocker play a big part in determining the turning radius of a board. Some Boards are better at long stable drawn out turns other quick snappy turns, there are no wrong answers; each individual surfer has his own preference as to how his board should lay on a rail or snap.
-Hold
Hold refers to the ability of the board to stabilize in the face of a steep wave or in a full rail turn. As with the rest of the performance characteristics all variables in design affect hold in some way But outline, rocker, and fin configuration affect hold the most.
-Paddling
We all spend hours paddling for a few moments of actually riding a wave. Foil and where the majority of foam is contained in the length of the board determine paddle power. We all know the importance of being able to easily paddle for long periods of time, but the most important factor in paddling may be getting into that wave a second earlier because of that extra foam in the right place
There are many more characteristics that determine the desired performance of a surfboard and each individual surfer has different characteristics they require from there board. The perfect board would have the max of all of these attributes, but we don’t live in a perfect world. Shaping surfboards is a game of give and take until you find that magic equation. Every surfer’s equation is different and this is why custom shapers will always have a place. The answer; stop buying pro models and the next best thing in surfboard design and work with your local shaper to dial in a magic quiver. Whoever your local shaper is support them and take advantage of the ability to talk one on one with him about what you need. I guarantee it will make you a better surfer.
Outline or template refers to the series of curves that determine the width at different intervals along the length of the surfboard. These features are usually obvious and easily recognized wide nose, wide board narrow board, and so forth. What people often misinterpret are the lines themselves and how the series of curves from nose to tail and many other variables interact with one another. Round, straight, wide, narrow, etc. describe the planning surface and how water will move into, under, and away from the board while surfing. Parallel lines Parallel lines describe the shape of the rails and are normally found on all surfboards but they are exaggerated in longboards, stingers, and fish as well as some other boards. In the pics below you can see the boards have less curve in the center and at the nose and tail begin to increase. The lengths of these parallel lines extend the planning surface of the board and thus create speed at the cost of a tight turning radius and the ability to stick the board in steep sections of a wave. This is why modern high performance shortboards tend to have very curvy outlines. Continuous Curves All surfboards use curves in the outline to dial in the perfect amount of speed and drive vs. turning ability. Modern high performance surfboards use continuous curves to allow boards to fit in critical portions of a wave and allow for extremely tight radius turns. It is also used when a flatter rocker profile is essential to the design goals of the surfboard or the preference of the surfer. The curved outline matched with flatter rocker yields a surfboard that maintains acceleration and drive out of the turns and can still carve a very tight radius turn. Wings, Bumps, and Hips These features are found on many boards and there explanation is simple in relation to the outline of the board as a whole. We know parallel lines are advantageous to speed and drive but hurt our ability to turn on a dime. Wings, bumps, and hips allow the shaper to utilize straight parallel lines for drive and reduce the width of the tail in a short distance to help the board turn better and fit better in the wave. It gets way more complicated when considering how the water flows and releases from the tail differently, but we will leave it at that for now
The Variables
Outline
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