Hi guys,
So the secret Shroom model uhh! hahah. Just to fix a few points above from the story.
1) the name is from mush and we have to stay true to our naming conventions and thus there was no other real option here than shroom.
2) Wetstuff asked for a board that coincidentally was in the works over here. Bert was working on it for a while. He did get a deal to NOT have to pay it custom because he was easy on taking was bert wanted to make ;-)
3) the shroom is an official model thats coming out later during the year. this the first version of it which we allow ourselves to be still tweaked a bit.
4) I will bring another one @ 8'3 over during my next demo trip beginning of June so you guys can get your hands on it. It does look cool.
5) there will be a range of them in Bert's normal scaling way to be able to experience the same board no matter if you are 80 or 280 pounds.
6) the pad is in fact not properly glued and we saw it too late. We cut all our pads from larger sizes (thus the waste for the flip-flops!), but for the first boards it sometimes needs to be re-calculated. Especially Bert was a bit off from his normal calculating which is a standard factor off from rail. It actually felt really good paddling it that way as you could almost wrap the foot over the edge.
7) Bert is in fact hand shaping the first set of fins, which is unfortunately still a bit in limbo. Apart from many things one thing can be said about Bert about anything that looks definitely like work, or in other words does not look like surfing... He HATES it!!
the extended version of the crazy ideas of all the shroom features here in Bert's voice:
i have designed something along the same lines ..
those designs in general all have the same types of issues ..
hard to drive them through a turn , a bit flicky ,, go really slippery if there over powered.. hard to do anything in the pocket.. slow rail to rail transition.. can slide into a drift easily during a rail to rail transition...
so ive come up with a design that addresses most of those issues in a small board ..
but its crazy.. and i really dont know how people would respond if we made it a model ..
when you first look at it , you wouldnt get it ,, until after you rode it ..
anyway ,, were gonna need a guinea pig for this one and maybe a different strategy and some hype if we release it..
im convinced its a winner coz i have a surfboard very similar and it works really well..
at this point i have 3 versions of this board ..
all the same rocker, bottom contour , outline and width .. but 3 different thicknesses..
8-3 x 32 x 108 liters,, 118 liters and 126 liters .. i would prefer the thinnest version , but based on competitors volumes and sizes , i realized i had to squeeze more volume in if it was gonna fly..
all the pics are the thickest version..
ok heres the run down ..
Outline .. obviously trying to squeeze in as much area as possible so it goes in mush, so it has area to plane early, also generous tail area for cutting back and floating over really soft sections ,, if you go too straight in the outline like a door , it gets sticky and loses flow , like trying to fit a square into a round hole , its a difficult fit, so the outline is the same as a magic surfboard we did with this same outline..
Rocker.. is quite flat , more so in the nose in comparison to other boards.. this gives the board really good carry and allows you to have your weight more distributed and the board will still go.. if you have too much rocker in a tiny board , then your weight must be placed in the exact location to make it go, if not it comes to a stop..
Crazy Concave bottom.. one problem with really wide tails and boards , its really hard to get them on the rail , with this one the concave is so deep you virtually have your rail engaged before you even start , next issue with a wide tail is the slippery feeling on the rail to rail transition , this is where you can go into an uncontrollable drift when turning under the lip at speed , one rail is engaged , then there is a brief moment where the board is flat before you can get the other rail in..
but with this concave style, almost inverted V , you have one rail engaged , then as you transition onto the other rail it bights and grabs instantly, because it cant drift while on the flat...
Crazy Concave deck .. this gives you loads of leverage into a turn , combined with the deep bottom concave , the board responds like you are surfing really aggressively and hard ..imagine a rolled deck , when you lean into a turn and say your body is on a 45 degree angle.. the board ( bottom) will also be on a 45 degree angle relative to the water surface.. maybe a little less with more roll in the deck.. but with the combined bottom and deck concave , your body will be on a 45 , but the bottom of the board and rail is engaged way deeper , like 52 or 53 degrees, so with the same effort you get a radical and instant response , like your surfing way more aggressively than you actually are, and the board will go vert and virtually launch out of the water before you even realize whats happening, if you respond in time , it will hook back down with hold and bite..
Step Rail.. this gives the board auto pilot and training wheels combined ..
its really common , that if your rails are too thin , you can bury them if you go too hard , its almost like you have to have a very acute sense to know when to hold back.. but if your rails are too thick , your fighting a chunky rail into the water , that gets harder and harder the faster you go.. this rail is thin so it drops in instantly , but then it only goes as far in until it hits the thick part , so you get enough penetration in an instant to give you hold but it wont bury.. its like you just cant make a mistake..
Fin Set up .. i dont have a name for this set up yet ,, weve done it in some wide tailed short surfboards and it offers way more direction and drive.. really common on wide tails , they get squirrely and slippery , spin out , once the tail fin lets go , its hard to recover.. its because the board sits flat on the water , so you are more reliant on the fins to keep hold..
having the the 2 tail fins really close together acts the same as a Bi Plane .. they can handle massive angles of attack before the wings fail to function,, when the angle of attack is so high with a single wing , the air/water can no longer stay attached to both sides and it stalls or lets go ,, but with 2 wings , one of them will always have water attached on both sides , due the water being forced between them...
Fin Design.. with really short boards , its hard to get a feeling of a carve and drawn out power turn, when you go to turn you get these short , tight, flicky powerless arcs its like you turn off the power and the board stops as well ..
so the raked fin keeps more power through the turn , especially when you want to do a roundhouse cutback.. vertical fins , have an instant response , but also a turn and stop feel , the raked fin resists the turn and converts it to drive, hence the name of the fins ( drivers) you can stay powered up with drive all the way through the entire turn..
The overall package is designed to work together..
if you take all the other boards like this on the market , they have there good points and there bad points..
i hate bad points... if i cant design a really good board , then i just wont make one .. so its taken me a while to settle all the issues with the current offerings and come up with something that will do it, or at least do it better..
plus the other boards have been around long enough for people to be familiar with there short comings and potentially recognize this one will do it....
regards
BERT
