Author Topic: Ooooops I hit the button on a unlimited.  (Read 70550 times)

supuk

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Ooooops I hit the button on a unlimited.
« on: May 23, 2016, 07:37:34 AM »
My finger slipped  honest  :P

stoneaxe

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Re: Ooooops I hit the button on a unlimited.
« Reply #1 on: May 23, 2016, 07:44:45 AM »
I like how you roll Charlie. How wide?
Bob

8-4 Vec, 9-0 SouthCounty, 9-8 Starboard, 10-4 Foote Triton, 10-6 C4, 12-6 Starboard, 14-0 Vec (babysitting the 18-0 Speedboard) Ke Nalu Molokai, Ke Nalu Maliko, Ke Nalu Wiki Ke Nalu Konihi

TallDude

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Re: Ooooops I hit the button on a unlimited.
« Reply #2 on: May 23, 2016, 08:16:26 AM »
Careful Charlie. That's how it starts. First it's a 16, then it's a 17'6. Before you know you're hooked on speed.....
It's not overhead to me!
8'8" L-41 ST and a whole pile of boards I rarely use.

supuk

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Re: Ooooops I hit the button on a unlimited.
« Reply #3 on: May 23, 2016, 08:18:58 AM »
I like how you roll Charlie. How wide?

24.5" I had a blank with it written all over it, exactly the right thickness and crying out to be shaped. Plus I needed to make space in the foam shed for a new block
« Last Edit: May 23, 2016, 08:21:23 AM by supuk »

pdxmike

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Re: Ooooops I hit the button on a unlimited.
« Reply #4 on: May 23, 2016, 09:16:48 AM »
Wow, that really does have unlimited written all over it.


Looking forward to seeing the progress.

808sup

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Re: Ooooops I hit the button on a unlimited.
« Reply #5 on: May 23, 2016, 09:27:22 AM »
Damn you and your freedom to shape boards whenever you want!  ;D
Looking forward to how she looks when you're finished. Pics. Please

supuk

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Re: Ooooops I hit the button on a unlimited.
« Reply #6 on: May 23, 2016, 10:01:14 AM »
Will do will be a few weeks before I get to glass it as I'm off on a trip this week. The plan is half carbon like normal but vac baged and then a fixed fin and a rc rudder as I have found a perfect little unit that should work a treat.

supuk

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Re: Ooooops I hit the button on a unlimited.
« Reply #7 on: May 23, 2016, 12:32:43 PM »
Damn you and your freedom to shape boards whenever you want!  ;D
Looking forward to how she looks when you're finished. Pics. Please

its so dangerous its like having a unlimited catalog to chose from and with the blank not costing a huge amount its so easy to just push the go button, but then once its cut i may as well glass it .......

im so glad i gave up the hole sponsorship thing 4 years ago and started shaping my own, i only have to look at there catalogs to see how bored i would still be riding there boards

i would say this would almost complete my quiver of boards for the year but who am i kidding i have built myself 3 or 4 boards for myself in the last few weeks.
« Last Edit: May 23, 2016, 12:34:45 PM by supuk »

UKRiverSurfers

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Re: Ooooops I hit the button on a unlimited.
« Reply #8 on: May 23, 2016, 12:53:01 PM »
RC rudder... Sounds good, tranny fixed to paddle shaft somehow I'd imagine..?

I envisage a solar charging system for extended wilderness trips? :)
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Area 10

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Re: Ooooops I hit the button on a unlimited.
« Reply #9 on: May 23, 2016, 01:08:33 PM »
When you get bored of it in 6 months' time, it's MINE, OK? :)

SUPflorida

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Re: Ooooops I hit the button on a unlimited.
« Reply #10 on: May 23, 2016, 05:44:52 PM »
Curious....Any particular reason you decided on 16' and not push it a little longer?

supuk

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Re: Ooooops I hit the button on a unlimited.
« Reply #11 on: May 23, 2016, 10:55:17 PM »
A few reasons first one is space, 16' only just fits into we're I do my glassing. Then there is the fact I want it still to work well as a fixed fin and I still want it to feel nice and surfey and fun like my 14'. We allso paddle a lot of choppy and confused stuf with wind quite often less than a perfect direction so didn't want too much to deal with and I'm prity sure in the stuff we paddle there is going to be a point were more length will not help so just taking one step at a time. We don't have many unlimited boards around here and what there is are all quite big and clunky so it will be interesting to see if I can get the small board handeling of my 14 from a bigger board

UKRiverSurfers

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Re: Ooooops I hit the button on a unlimited.
« Reply #12 on: May 24, 2016, 12:07:54 AM »
It's funny you know - I'm certain that only a couple of years ago, anything that big would never work in 'our' conditions?  ;D
SIC Bullet 17v2 Custom
Richmond Custom Carbon 16'
Starboard Point 14'8
Starboard K15
Starboard Astro Touring 14
Starboad Big Easy
Redpaddle Ride 10'6
Badfish Rivershred
Jackson SUPercharger
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Pack OC1 12'

supuk

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Re: Ooooops I hit the button on a unlimited.
« Reply #13 on: May 24, 2016, 02:15:51 AM »
Up till now I havnt found a unlimited that would work well in our conditions for myself and what I look for, but that's not surprising as they are all designed for 100kg blokes ridding monster swells in Hawaii and there is no point geting a shaper to build a custom shape when they don't know how or were you paddle. which is why by shaping my own I'm hoping to find a unlimited board that does work for me and were I paddle most of the time. If it isn't as good as the 14 I will quite happily go back to it as I wouldn't change anything about that now after 3 years of developing it and the best board I have paddled for here.
« Last Edit: May 24, 2016, 02:23:48 AM by supuk »

Area 10

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Re: Ooooops I hit the button on a unlimited.
« Reply #14 on: May 24, 2016, 02:52:24 AM »
It's funny you know - I'm certain that only a couple of years ago, anything that big would never work in 'our' conditions?  ;D
Well, actually, the previous owner of your Richmond 16.5ft DW board sold that board to you because having tried it back to back extensively with 14fters in our local conditions he decided that 14ft was best. It was a moment I remember well. We were both coming in from a long and big downwinder, and I was on my 17 and he was on that Richmond UL. I had just had the worst downwind experience of my life bar none. It was 30 knots and head-high bumps and very messy indeed, with strong tidal currents and three different swell directions, not going in the same way as the tidal current, and the wind was about 15 degrees off where we needed to go. My ruddered 17 was completely uncontrollable in those conditions - the currents would just tug at the fin and make it flap around. The forces acting on it were just too strong. My paddle buddy had fared much better because he had wisely got Crsig Richmond to put a fixed fin facility in his board. But still, it had been tough for him too. I was commenting that I thought that I should fit a finbox like he had, and he said "will help a lot, but 14ft for round here".

I didn't believe him - after all not only had I just spent a small fortune on a UL board (and him even more), but all the pictures and stories I saw on the interweb were of guys at Maliko etc on UL boards. So they have got to be the best, right?

Well, a few days later my paddle buddy took me out to the same place to prive the point. Same conditions. This time he put me on a 12-6. I had an absolute blast, and fell only once, whereas on my 17 I had fallen 20 times before I stopped counting. I was WAY faster on the 12-6, and whereas the previous time on my UL I was waaay slower than my mate on his UL, this time I was keeping with him, and in fact at times was going faster.

I was dumbfounded. How could a small board be faster than one apparently built for big open ocean conditions? Well, some of it might be my inexperience at thst time with UL boards. But some of it was the rudder (replacing it with a fixed fin completely transformed the experience for using it in our conditions), but some of it is about controlling the forces acting on a long vs. a shorter vessel. It's the same reason why boards made for white water aren't 17ft long. And our DW conditions, at times, look more like whitewater SUP than the videos I see of Hawaii.

Anyway, the Richmond owner of course sold that board to you, and got a 14ft instead. I have kept my 17, and still use it sometimes, but now I have 5 14ft downwind boards as well. I could have had another three UL boards instead. But I bought 14s.

SUPUK is making his 16fter as an experiment. He knows the local conditions here and is a talented shaper, so if anyone can make an UL that works for our conditions, he can. I think he's right about the length/feel/surfablility/handling/control trade-off
that happens as you add length. Plus, the more wetted area you have, the more frictional resistance you have to overcome to get it moving: UL boards are fast but hard work for light paddlers in downbreezing conditions. As DJ put it in regard to his 17 once, it takes some push from the wind to get these big ladies really firing.

There's one particular section of my favourite DW run near me. You are just near to a buoy that marks 2 miles from shore. The water depth at that point can however be just in the 6-12ft range. Crazy shallow for that far offshore. In a big swell and high winds you can find some pretty big drops there. On a small fixed fin board it is easily the best part of the run, and the speeds and lengths of ride you get can be unbelievable. But if you are on a ruddered 17ft board, you really need some skills and luck to make it. You could easily fold your board in half two miles out to sea.

There is a wonderful video of Connor and crew from a few years back coming towards the end of their run at - I think - Maliko. I don't know that area but I presume that they reach a shallower reef area and the bumps turn more into waves, that actually look a lot like the crumbling rollers that we get way out to see sometimes on our DW runs. These waves should have presented no problem at all for CB and his mates if there were on fixed fin 14s. But in fact it turns into a yard sale, and they all go down, swimming for their boards.

Now, try to imagine a whole 10 mile downwind run that has large sections of it that look pretty much exactly like the section that caught Connor and friends out. Which board would you prefer to be on, Connor's UL ruddered SIc or a very surfable fixed fin 14?

The depth of the water round here is a HUGE factor. You can't compare downwind runs where you have 35 knots acting over strongly tidal water that is less than 20ft deep and the fetch might be almost zero, to water that is 100ft deep, virtually no tidal current, and has a fetch of hundreds of miles.

But some lessons just have to be learnt for oneself I think. And like me, you bought a UL board and so are emotionally invested in believing that they are the best in all conditions. So come within on a big day on our big run and find out for yourself. There will be times when you'll wish you'd brought your whitewater board.

But having said that, I have had some superb runs on my UL. Really amazing top end speeds. Nothing like it. But I've learnt to pick my conditions and my course very carefully.

 


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