Standup Zone Forum

Stand Up Paddle => Gear Talk => Topic started by: blueplanetsurf on July 24, 2011, 05:02:04 PM

Title: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: blueplanetsurf on July 24, 2011, 05:02:04 PM
Last week Evan Leong and I had a chance to test Mark Raaphorst's S-16 Standamaran prototype that he was shipping to New York for a race with a stopover on Oahu.  I have been wanting to organize a speed test for SUP race boards for a while, so this was a good opportunity to comparison test unlimited boards in flatwater conditions.  Please check the spreadsheet for detailed results and watch the video for more information on the test.  Next up will be speed tests for 14' race boards and 12'6" race boards. 

http://zenwaterman.blogspot.com/2011/07/flatwater-speed-test-unlimited-sups.html (http://zenwaterman.blogspot.com/2011/07/flatwater-speed-test-unlimited-sups.html)
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: Takeo on July 25, 2011, 06:11:45 PM
Interesting results, I expected the Standamaran to be a lot quicker than the other boards.  The Bullet isn't really a flatwater board, but I must admit, for such a proven downwind board, it's pretty decent in flatwater speed too. 
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: SUP_Dawg on July 25, 2011, 07:30:05 PM
Great info. Thanks Robert.
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: Six Feet and Glassy on July 25, 2011, 11:07:49 PM
Once again,  MAHALOZ for such a great service and education for us!  So interesting the cat didn't smoke all others.  Also interesting rankings of the other boards.  

Looking forward to hearing possible reasons for these results.

One question:  Do you have the weights of the boards?

Thanks again!
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: Area 10 on July 26, 2011, 07:17:15 AM
Robert – I’m a scientist by trade, and find these types of comparisons fascinating. It’s absolutely marvellous that you have presented the actual numbers. I couldn’t help but have a quick run through the data you present on the spreadsheet. I haven’t had a chance to have a proper look yet, but I thought I’d let you know what a cursory glance shows.

This is a good set of data. Ignoring the issue of the standamaran, and considering only the single-hulled boards, you can explain over 90% of the times on each of the runs here by knowing the information given: who was paddling the board, the length and width of board, and which trial number the time came from.  That’s really excellent for data of this type – you must have conducted this evaluation pretty carefully. There’s a lot of care and work that has gone into this.

What’s particularly interesting in these data, beyond the simple issue of “which board is faster”, is to compare the relative importance of all these different factors like paddler, board width etc. upon speed.

In THIS data set, it breaks down roughly like this:

Run 1 or run 2: Over 85% of the time differences in these trials can be attributed to this factor alone (was one run upwind, and the other downwind, or were conditions changing, or were you just getting tired, or all three?).

Width of board: A further small percentage (between 1 and 5%) of the time differences could be explained by knowing the width of the board alone.

The other factors weren’t really particularly important determinants:

The three riders seem remarkably well matched in terms of ability, and there were no statistically significant differences between them. (This doesn’t mean there aren’t any differences at all, just that they are so slight that scientists wouldn’t generally count them as noteworthy.) A race between you three would be worth watching!

Board length also wasn’t important either. However, the boards are of roughly similar length, which might explain why this didn’t come through either as particularly important in determining speed. But it is nevertheless interesting to note that whilst there is a range of lengths between 17 and 18 feet, this factor seemed (at least in this dataset) to be only about as half as important in terms of determining speed as the relatively small width differences of up to 1.75”.

BUT before concluding that width is all-important, you need to note that width and length tend to be correlated – longer boards can be narrower because they afford greater stability. So it’s not always straightforward to decompose the different contributions. However, if going fast is your bag, it looks from this very limited set of data that you should be asking yourself “how narrow can I go?” rather than “how long can I go?”

There a just a couple of observations here I should check with you, though: Jared put in a time on the 18’ Bark in time 2 which was quite a bit slower than would be predicted. And your (Robert) time on the SIC Bullet on the second run was also a bit out of kilter with the rest of your times. Do you remember anything unusual happening on these two runs – stronger winds, wake, a paddle fumble or stumble?
It would be interesting to add information about price (i.e. to ask which board give the best value in terms of speed per $), and weight, to see how this compares with e.g. length and width as determinants of speed.

It would also be interesting to see how these influences, and the relative speeds of the board compare when you measure them over longer distances and different conditions. These are very different design boards (and price) so of course may be much better or worse in the conditions for which they were designed.

But thanks again for these data, I learned a lot.

(btw, I put a fixed fin in my Naish 17, and removed the rudder gear, and this has helped flat water speed considerably, largely because I can stand comfortably further forward, and use e.g. tracking fins. So if you are a Naish 17 owner who wants to use it for flat water, you might consider this simple mod – the performance might then be closer to the others on test here – and after all, according to Robert’s data, the (presumably standard) Naish 17 was only a fraction slower overall than a Bark 18”x26”, which seems to me remarkable for a good value production downwind-oriented model.)
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: PonoBill on July 26, 2011, 07:49:57 AM
Very interesting comment Area. I thought roughly the same thing looking at the data and I've noticed the problem before in doing my own comparisons. It doesn't take much to skew the results. It would be a real PITA but I think the only way to get a useful test (by useful I mean indicative of actual speed differences) is a lot more runs.

I've played around with some drag testing using the handy moving water of the Hood River and a fish scale but I came to the conclusion that it's a very limited test. These are dynamic vessels, and there's a lot going on.

In a set comparison like this some paddlers get tired, some get warmed up, some are slowed by instabilities, some aren't. The balancing capabilities of people change dramatically over a few seconds--it seems our brains and muscles start integrating very quickly. That little scam test that people do to sell potions and charms of giving a little shove to unbalance you, giving you the potion or charm and then showing that you resist being unbalanced much better is just a balance LEARNING test. People get used to a particular board very quickly, but then have less confidence on one that feels different.

Adding more runs and then analyzing the data to factor out the influence of when the boards were paddled might give a more reliable result.

The difficulty of getting reliable performance data is why we shifted the old Ke Nalu board comparisons into a "showcase". we decided it wasn't possible to get meaningful comparative performance data except at the extremes--it's easy to detect horrible.
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: Area 10 on July 26, 2011, 08:45:08 AM
 PonoBill, I agree 100% with your points.

But perhaps I wasn’t clear about the statistical methods I employed here – I thought my post was enough of a geek-fest as it was!

I used a method called multiple linear regression, which allows you to enter all the factors in together, and consider that various influences of each one, factoring out the influences of the others.

In the case of this comparison Robert was kind enough to provide enough data about the runs he did that I could “factor out”, albeit in a very crude way, things like changes in speed over runs due to tiredness and\or wind direction, and differences in performance between individual paddlers.

So the figures I quoted weren’t derived by e.g. adding up rows of columns in a Table and just dividing them to get a proportional difference. Instead I was building a statistical model to try to understand the interactions of the important factors and remove the influence of unimportant ones. So, as far as these data allow, I tried to do exactly what you recommend.

You are certainly right though - the data provided by Robert are absolutely minimal in terms of being able to use complex statistical procedures like these. Which is why I was being cautious in terms of the conclusions I was drawing.

There are many other caveats that I’d like to add – such as that the paddlers may have been more familiar with some boards than others, and we all know how that can affect performance. Ideally of course you’d be conducting a double-blind trial – that’s what most scientists would really like to see. But that isn’t actually physically possible for a SUP comparison without some huge ingenuity and investment.

But right at this moment, it looks to me that these data are saying that width is a more important determinant of theoretical speed than length in flat water. Hardly revolutionary, perhaps. But a natural question about this particular comparison is whether the board that seemed to be fastest was ONLY so because it was also the narrowest, or whether there really is something more subtle about the design that makes a difference. It does look like there might be (weight? Bow shape?) because it is a clear “winner”. But until someone can provide data from another board the same width, it will remain a possibility that actually, the things that contribute *most* to board speed are relatively simple – in flat water, perfect conditions anyway. Maybe even some design aspects currently being considered are red herrings, or just marketing flim-flam, or only help in very specific and rare situations. I doubt in many cases if the designers are entirely sure themselves at this early stage of the sport.

Robert’s data might be the beginning of the kind of thoughtful trials one would need to establish such things.

In entire agreement, I think, with you, I am in fact a firm believer that performance in perfect conditions doesn’t mean much very often. I paddle in typically choppy cross- and onshore coastal conditions, and often my fastest board in those conditions is my 12-6, not my 14 or 17, both of which are narrower as well as longer.

You are certainly going to get no argument at all out of me in saying (a) it is a deceptively hard thing to determine which is the “fastest board”, and (b) that to be certain of anything much you’d need a much more extensive dataset.

But, actually, I just hoped my coffee-break meander through the data might provoke a more thoughtful consideration of Robert’s data than just “the Ohana is the fastest board” – perhaps that was true on this day, and with these paddlers, but the more interesting things for me was to try to understand WHY that might be.

It’s certainly a damned nuisance for me if width is the most important factor in speed, because my balance is not that good!
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: PonoBill on July 26, 2011, 09:24:37 AM
I assumed since you said first that you were a scientist that you were doing a multiple linear regression.  I would have assumed the same thing if you said you were a sleazy direct marketer like me. We use the same toys, but I used them to bullshit (did I say bullshit? I meant inform) clients.

I might have some data of another kind soon. I'm going to be using my Naish Glide as a test bed for various bow shapes. The Glide has extreme rocker and a flat, planing nose built for swell riding. I'm going to attach what I'm calling a Schnozz--a detachable bow. I plan to make a variety of bow shapes and test them. One width, one length, one paddler, multiple bows. Might get some useful information. I'm building the first "schnozz" today, though it's going to be for my Bullet. I want to see if I can improve the flatwater speed. Though it has less rocker than the glide it has a similarly planing bow, and pushes a lot of water in the flats.

I'm adapting my "paddle pod" data recorder to get lots of data--perhaps too much. It has a GPS and a two-axis accelerometer, I'm also making a water speed sensor with a small free-wheeling drag propeller on a shaft with magnets attached to trigger a hall effect sensor. The data recorder is really amazing, it includes two pressure ports that can be connected to pitot tubes. I have a pitot tube designed for water speed measurement, but I think it will not be sufficiently sensitive to serve as a water speed detector for this slow speed.

I think acceleration might be as interesting as speed.
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: Area 10 on July 26, 2011, 09:49:22 AM
Wow - inside that "sleazy direct marketer" is a scientist trying to get out.

I'm interested that on the one hand you emphasise the difficulty of getting precise measurements (which is true), and yet still feel it worth going to such lengths to glean such fined-grained data. Is it possible that the error variance contributed by all the factors you can't measure precisely might overwhelm those that you can?

What are the questions you are trying to answer, or are you just enjoying the process?

It's certainly about time someone found a way to measure a board's stability...personally I'm more important in finding out what makes a board stable than what makes it fast, because I'm not fast if I'm in the water. I fell in four times during a race at the weekend...

Good luck to you, great to see someone attempting the appliance of science rather than relying on heresay.
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: refthimos on July 26, 2011, 10:09:54 AM
(btw, I put a fixed fin in my Naish 17, and removed the rudder gear, and this has helped flat water speed considerably, largely because I can stand comfortably further forward, and use e.g. tracking fins. So if you are a Naish 17 owner who wants to use it for flat water, you might consider this simple mod – the performance might then be closer to the others on test here – and after all, according to Robert’s data, the (presumably standard) Naish 17 was only a fraction slower overall than a Bark 18”x26”, which seems to me remarkable for a good value production downwind-oriented model.)

Not to be a thread hijacker, but thanks for this little snippet of info.  I went from a 14' x 27" Rogue (square tail) to an 18.5' x 27.5" Bark (pin tail) and just have never felt like the Bark is as fast as I think it "should" be in flatwater.  I've suspected that one reason may be that I am developing bad habits by "riding the rudder" rather than controlling direction with paddle strokes, introducing unneccesary drag.  Just curious - on your Naish, did you find the rudder slowed you down even when you laid off it and let it run straight, or was it the trimming of the board with the rudder that was slowing you down?

I suppose this really isn't a complete thread hijack, because it sounds like the one variable that may not have been accounted for in the test was the effect of different fin/rudder combos.
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: PonoBill on July 26, 2011, 11:10:52 AM
Wow - inside that "sleazy direct marketer" is a scientist trying to get out.

I'm interested that on the one hand you emphasise the difficulty of getting precise measurements (which is true), and yet still feel it worth going to such lengths to glean such fined-grained data. Is it possible that the error variance contributed by all the factors you can't measure precisely might overwhelm those that you can?

What are the questions you are trying to answer, or are you just enjoying the process?

It's certainly about time someone found a way to measure a board's stability...personally I'm more important in finding out what makes a board stable than what makes it fast, because I'm not fast if I'm in the water. I fell in four times during a race at the weekend...

Good luck to you, great to see someone attempting the appliance of science rather than relying on heresay.

I have no idea. I started out trying to build a data recording system to see what is going on with paddles. So I've got this here hammer and I'm wandering around looking for nails. You're absolutely correct, I get a big wad of data that is hard to interpret but easy to see. Here's what I mean by that:

(http://www.kenalu.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/06/graph.jpg)

The picture says "crappy paddle" the data...no idea.

I'm going to stick all this stuff on the board because I've got it. Of course in the software I can look at each track in isolation. I don't think there's any analysis that will make quantifiable sense out of it. If I came up with one I'd stop screwing around and just go straight after the stock market.

When I was a kid I wanted to be a physicist. From about age four. But no one knew about ADD back then, so I was a "bad student" who barely got out of high school, but scored 792 SATs and won a National Merit Scholarship. Flunked physics in my senior year. Same year I won the National Science Fair...   ... in Physics.
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: Tom on July 26, 2011, 11:48:19 AM
Back in the 80's I was working with a windsurf designer trying to make a faster & quicker to plain boards. We'd shape a block of foam and not glass it. We'd then tow it behind a boat at specific speeds with an 180 lb sand bag sitting on it, and measure its drag with a fishing scale. We'd then change its rocker, rails, concave, etc, and repeat the tests.
We learned a lot, but mostly just had the 'basics' re-enforced. By basics I mean, flat and straight is faster than curvy; boxey rails are fastest; floaty boards are faster at lower speeds.
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: Area 10 on July 26, 2011, 11:52:20 AM
refthimos - I think with my Naish 17 there were a couple of issues. I am not an expert of DW boards, so others may wish to contribute.

But clearly the steering arm on many DW-oriented boards is located in such a position that you can get to it whilst in the position for planing. For me, on the Naish, even with the mechanism in the “fully forward” position, this meant that I had to stand well behind the handle, which is located obviously at the balance point, which is in turn quite a way back from the actual centre of the board length-wise. Otherwise, unless you have miniscule feet, you are kind of half-standing on the steering arm, which is no good at all for any distance.

So in flat water I was forced to stand further back from centre compared with, say, a flat water 14 ft race board.  At my weight (172 lbs) I found that the tail dragged less, and the bow seemed to pierce at little better in flat water, if I stood further forward than this “downwind” position. In addition, I found I could steer by paddling better if I was standing more around the centre of the board than behind it.

So I ditched the rudder mechanism entirely, got a standard FU 10.25” box fitted just in front of the rudder and just have the board set up as a fixed fin board. As a bonus, I’ve found that it is actually better downwind now than it was with the rudder: round where I live, we don’t get the kinds of open ocean swells here that you find in Hawaii, it’s short period, and often created by water running over a tidal current going in the opposite direction. In these circumstances I’ve found that you have to get extremely far forward and really shove the nose into the trough, and then get back really quickly. With the steering mechanism gone I can move more around the deck and make the most of weight position changes. I also think that in the extremely rippy, messy DW conditions we have, the relatively small standard Naish rudder just couldn’t cope, and used to “steer itself” sometimes.

Certainly there are still occasions when it would be nice to have the rudder, when e.g. paddling extreme cross-wind. But this is compensated quite a bit by being able to paddle standing further forward, and keeping the nose down a bit. So I miss it much less than I thought I would, and am mostly very glad it’s gone. In further incarnations, it would be nice to see Naish offer a fixed fin box option as standard, alongside a rudder.

And you are right, I found that with the rudder in place I tended to use it for steering, creating drag, rather than getting forward and just paddling.

Plus, now I can adapt my fin to the circumstances, which helps a lot, especially with e.g. reducing weed-catching, and tracking.

So, in short, I think my Naish is now faster in flat water, and decent conditons, because (a) I can stand at the balance point of the board, or slightly ahead if necessary, which improves the trim -at least at my weight and height; (b) because it is slightly lighter without the rudder gear; (c) it tracks better with a proper flat water race tracking fin; (d) I can use the paddle to change direction more effectively, rather than riding the rudder.

In this configuration particularly, the Naish 17 is an incredibly good all-rounder board, IMO.

Hope this helps.

Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: JonathanC on July 26, 2011, 05:52:25 PM
Hey Area 10, interested to hear that you installed the fin box in front of the existing fin - I would have just automatically put it behind!

I'm sure you thought it through, could you please jot down your thinking here? Obviously forward will make the board looser but I guess as you say you can compensate with a larger fin.

The SIC boards with the fixed fin box position the fixed fin behind the rudder, I had that on an F14 I owned but didn't ever get around to trying the fixed fin....

Thanks
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: finsider on July 26, 2011, 06:12:32 PM
Back in the 80's I was working with a windsurf designer trying to make a faster & quicker to plain boards. We'd shape a block of foam and not glass it. We'd then tow it behind a boat at specific speeds with an 180 lb sand bag sitting on it, and measure its drag with a fishing scale. We'd then change its rocker, rails, concave, etc, and repeat the tests.
We learned a lot, but mostly just had the 'basics' re-enforced. By basics I mean, flat and straight is faster than curvy; boxey rails are fastest; floaty boards are faster at lower speeds.

That sounds a lot like what Lindsay Lord did, except that book "Naval Architecture of Planing Hulls" came out in 1946. I need to find a new copy of that book, I had a pdf version on an old computer but lost it. Anyone have one? http://hydrodynamica.com/totem/lord-board (http://hydrodynamica.com/totem/lord-board)

PonoBill and others. Awesome information. The engineer in me loves all the data, I like to know exactly why things are the way they are. Lately fins have been my scientific obsession. Anyway thanks to all of you for putting the time and effort into all of this, we know it isn't easy!
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: PT Woody on July 26, 2011, 07:25:21 PM
Interesting that in Time 1 times, the Standamaran is just about quickest in the field but in Time 2 times, it is slowest. Surely an upwind/downwind thing?
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: PonoBill on July 26, 2011, 08:20:29 PM
I'm going to put a fin box in my Bullet, but I'll put it behind the rudder, because then when the rudder gets hit the trailing edge drops into the fin box instead of punching through the skin.
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: maui_husky on July 26, 2011, 10:29:23 PM
I noticed the same thing (slower times on the 2nd run).  I wonder if it has something to do with it's extra weight.  Maybe more strength required to get it going?
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: blueplanetsurf on July 27, 2011, 12:48:43 AM
Wow, thanks for all the great feedback, I'm taking notes for the next test.  I agree that more runs are needed to get meaningful data and will try to include more data, like board weight, price (I like the idea of speed per $) etc.  We originally planned to do two rounds of testing but ran out of steam after doing 12 sprints.

Yes, Run 1 times were with the wind and Run 2 times are going back upwind, so that's why Run 2 times are slower.

Regarding which boards we are used to, these boards are usually used/ owned by:
Jared: Ohana
Anders: Bark
Robert: Pang

Here are some of my thoughts:
I expected the standamaran to do well upwind with the smooth entry but in the test it did not compare well in the upwind legs.  Why?  I'm not sure but my theory is that the wakes coming from both tips and intersecting at the center of the board create a wave that adds drag at higher speeds and limits the top speed.  Going into the wind the small chops might exaggerate  this effect.  I'm not sure though, just a theory.
At normal speeds (not sprinting)  the standamaran seems to have very low friction and it takes very little to maintain a speed of around 5 mph.

All the boards have pros and cons and which board will be fastest depends on the paddler and the conditions.   So why were some boards faster than others?  There are so many variables and to try narrow it down to just the width is just not realistic even if the numbers seem to indicate that.  I have tested two 12'6 prototypes with identical length and width with the main difference being the rocker and entry and the board with more rocker was actually faster and had a cleaner entry.   Regarding length, I know that most 14' boards are significantly faster than most 12'6 boards and that most unlimited boards are faster than 14' boards but at some point (over 16' it seems to me) adding more length does not always translate into more speed.
Shaping a fast race board is more art than science, I think.  
Paddler weight is important too, as the same board will have a different entry and exit depending on the weight of the rider, so the rocker line and volume have to match the rider weight.
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: PonoBill on July 27, 2011, 08:08:45 AM
All catamarans suffer from hull-to-hull wave interference, the closer the hulls are spaced, the worse the interference is. I talked to Mark about this when he was building the Standamarans. He said he hoped the low friction from the very narrow hulls would overcome the effect. I don't think it can. In racing catamarans the hull to hull interference represents 20-30 percent of the total resistance to forward movement. The main reason racing cats have such wide platforms is not hiking moment, it's hull to hull interference. Interference is exacerbated by shallow water. The standamaran needs the hull spaced closely so it can be paddled.

It's a lot faster than I thought it would be.
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: blueplanetsurf on October 27, 2011, 01:03:35 AM
Ok, we just finished another speed test and was hoping to get some help with analyzing the data- Area 10 can you do the multiple linear regression analysis thing again and give some feedback?

John Amundson asked me to help him test two new 14' prototypes (called V1 and V2 in the spreadsheet) for next year's Aquaglide lineup.  My friend, Scott Dodds came with his  new 14'x 26" Starboard ACE, a proven race shape, which we used as a comparison board.
Without analyzing the numbers, we all felt that the speeds of the three boards were very close.  The V1 and V2 are significantly more stable than the 14' ACE and the V2 is the more stable of the two prototypes.  John is really getting the race board shapes dialed in and Scott and I were impressed by how well they worked.  He is planning to make a couple more prototypes to test and whichever one he chooses to go into production is going to be a great allround race/ touring board- stable, user friendly, and fast.
We did three runs each, one on each board, one upwind and one downwind leg per run.  The wind was gusty, which is why run#2 was slower for all of us than run#1, so that should be taken into consideration as well.

I know it would be better to have more numbers but it was getting dark and we were beat after the 3 rounds of sprints.

Here is the spreadsheet, click on the second tab on the bottom (14' test) for the results of todays test.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Au9qxAnW7ZMddE8ycGlSNWxraDZBM0FBRlZZYmRtMGc

sorry, no pics or video this time, just numbers.
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: Area 10 on October 27, 2011, 02:15:59 PM
Hello Robert. Thanks for giving me a reason to have a tea break (hey, I'm English, we don't drink coffee....much).

Again, I am very impressed with the time and effort you have gone to here, and that you are sharing the data like this. It is remarkable to see someone trying to go beyond the usual speculation and hearsay and actually try to put numbers to what is going on.

You will no doubt have already just looked at the average times across all paddlers for each board. The times for the ACE were about 3% faster than for the V1 and 2% faster than the V2. BUT it would be quite wrong to conclude from these data that the ACE is fastest. In fact the boards were so close in performance on this course and with these paddlers that these differences could just be a chance finding.

If you rank order the effects that the various factors of paddler, board etc had on the times of the runs, you get this (most important factor first):

1. Upwind or downwind - a huge effect dwarfing all others, about 10x as important an effect as any other.
2. Which run someone was on, first, second or third (influence of about 5% or so on the times), presumably fatigue.
3. Which board you were on (in the region of 3-4% difference).
4. Who the paddler was (about 1%, you are all remarkably similar in your abilities, eerily so in fact).

BUT, with so little data, the only effects that would even begin to be accepted as noteworthy by a scientist were the first two. I'm especially suprrised that the effect of who was paddling the boards was least significant of all. I have paddling buddies who are very close in their abilities, and there, on any given day someone usually has a small but clear advantage over another - even if the next day it is another person.

(As an aside, I should point out that something of course is a bit odd with your (Robert) timings, which seems to be in multiples of 5 rather than on a continuous scale like for the other two paddlers.)

I would suggest that, if you really felt there was a difference between the boards in e.g. stability etc, you could improve these test results in terms of deciding relative performances by doing the following:

1. Include heart rate data for each run. for each person. This would allow me to determine how hard each person was working. Over longer runs this would become important.

2. Test in different conditions - do both flatwater and choppy water tests.

3. Use a much longer course.

4. Paddle to exhaustion (yeah, I know - but when you are really so tired your legs are like noodles, you'll probably be a lot faster on the more stable board, and this will also show in heart rates. Might be the best test of all for how well the designer has understood a paddlers' needs)

5. I am bothered, as I say, by how similar you are all in terms of your performances. This makes me wonder if there is what psychologists would call a "group effect" going on. For instance, do you all paddle at the same time, side-by-side (or leaving at set intervals in a line)? There is nothing more motivating than seeing your buddy inch ahead of you, and equally, it is hard to lead. So sprinting side-by-side might have the effect of reducing the differences between paddlers. Again, HR data might help. But better would be to do each run only one paddler at a time, and with the person doing the timing standing on ground (out of line of sight), and not the paddler timing himself.

As I say, I do admire the amount of work and dedication you have put into this, which everyone on the Zone will I am sure appreciate. It is a hugely complex thing to test which board is "fastest". In fact, I think to do it to the full satisfaction of a scientist would require many weeks of work, many people, and therefore many thousands of dollars.

And at the end of that time I suspect we already know what the outcome would be. At a given length, the board that looks most like a surf ski/olympic kayak/{insert example of narrow tippy but fast paddle craft here}, would be the fastest.

But only for the most elite paddlers who could balance on it.

For the rest of us, in real world conditions, stability will always be an important determining factor: if the difference in theoretical speed between the fastest 14 race board and the slowest is of the order of 5% (which seems likely), then all that needs to happen is that in chop the person on the fastest board has to make 1 in 20 of every stroke a correction stroke, and that advantage is pretty much all gone.

So, maybe a fairer test if a board has been specifically designed to add a bit of stability, is to test it in conditions where stability will affect performance postively. So whilst these data might seem to show a very slight advantage for the ACE, if it is indeed the case that the V1 and V2 are considerably more stable, at only a marginal cost to pure flatwater speed, personally, I think I'd go for that since I'm not likely to be paddling in any dead-flat lakes or rowing courses, and I'll always be paddling a lot further than 0.21 miles.

Incidentally, I think that once the younger paddlers start coming through in numbers, us older geezers will be dead in the water. Perhaps literally. This is because balance ability declines very sharply after the age of 40, and at some point this is going to limit our performance relative to a younger paddler, especially as relates to the equipment we can use. So we are just able to fool ourselves at the moment that we are doing OK because there are so few youngsters at a typical race, and they don't have to opportunity to train like we do...and can't afford the best equipment...etc.

Anyway, thanks very much for these data. And do please share SOME details of the boards with us. At least you could tell us the dimensions and weights of each. Is the ACE narrower?

Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: Argosi on October 27, 2011, 06:01:01 PM
Robert and Area10, thanks very much for your efforts. Not many others doing this kind of stuff.

I did a speed test last weekend with 2 of my boards: a Starboard NEW 12'6"x 23.5" and a custom Joe Bark 14'x25.5".

I had a third board but wanted to focus on 2 at a time to reduce the complicating effect of fatigue.

Here's my 1 man test protocol for 2 boards:
- Wait for a calm, no/low wind day.
- Use GPS mounted on the deck of the board
- Wear a heart rate monitor.

- Paddle Board 1 500m upwind. Exertion level such that I hit about 90%+ of max heart rate by about 2/3 of the way to the end of the upwind leg.
- Turn off GPS between each 500m leg.
- Rest briefly while turning board around and start 500m downwind leg when HR reaches 80%. Paddled so that my HR reached 90%+ about 2/3 of the way to end of downwind leg.
- Switch to Board 2 and repeat.
- That completes 1 round of testing of Board 1 and Board 2.

- Repeat 4 rounds of testing. That results in a total of 8km of paddling: 1km round trip x 2 boards x 4 rounds.


Results: While the differences where not huge, I could see a consistent speed advantage for the Bark. Before the test, I suspected that my Bark would be faster so I started the test paddling my Starboard. If my Bark was still faster, it would mean that it was faster despite having a slight disadvantage of more fatigue, making the conclusion more certain.

If you deviate from the protocol, it makes it harder to isolate the actual board speed versus other factors.

For example, if you rest longer before a particular run, that run should have a slight advantage due to less fatigue at the start. If there is a change in wind speed for a given run, that run will not be directly comparable to the others. If you work extra hard or relax too much on a run, the results will be affected (that's why a HR monitor is helpful in keeping you honest).

It was an interesting way to make my morning paddle different from my usual route.

In windy or downwind conditions, it would be much harder to get meaningful data on board speeds since there are so many more variables that enter the equation, such as varying wind and water conditions. In downwind conditions, all I know is that my Starboard is more fun to paddle than my Bark even though I'm not sure which one is actually faster downwind.
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: 1paddle2paddle on October 27, 2011, 11:20:37 PM
Area 10, since you inquired about heart rate during the runs Robert posted about, and since I happened to have my trusty Garmin 305 on me for the event, I can provide the data I downloaded.  I can also state that it felt that my heart was working much harder on the upwind runs than the downwind ones, but the data doesn't exactly confirm that.  Also, I have times for 9 runs, and Robert only has 6 runs on his spreadsheet, so you have to match up the heart rates with the runs on the spreadsheet by the times given.

1(up):     avg = 161, max = 173     time = 2:13
2(down): avg = 164, max = 177     time = 2:05
3(up):     avg = 171, max = 176     time = 2:43 (not on spreadsheet)
4(down): avg = 162, max = 174     time = 2:14
5(up):     avg = 171, max = 178     time = 2:30
6(down): avg = 159, max = 173     time = 2:09
7(up):     avg = 163, max = 173    time = 2:27
8(down): avg = 152, max = 169    time = 2:09 (can't tell if this or the other 2:09 time is the one on the spreadsheet)
9(up):     avg = 163, max = 174    time = 2:32 (not on spreadsheet)

After that 5th run of 2:30 it felt as if my heart almost came out of my chest after finishing, and I needed to rest for thirteen minutes before resuming the trials (my HR spiked at 213 during that particular rest period).  But Robert appears to have been nice enough to throw out my two slowest times.

Also, your comment about group effect was interesting.  From a boots on the ground perspective I can say that the runs are short enough that I can almost go full out chasing Robert, and I think having him just out in front really pushed John and I harder to try to keep up.  I can tell you that on longer downwind runs after about 15 minutes Robert is so far out ahead that the motivation to try to catch him is fading.

And the ACE is 14' x 25", and I believe the protos were 28" and maybe a little wider on the other one?  So yes, the ACE was significantly narrower.  But I was truly surprised at how fast the prototype boards were; they did not feel slow at all compared to the ACE, even though the ACE "won" the test if you could call getting the best overall time winning.  So I agree with your assessment that for more all around fun, the protos would be great choices and would be stable enough to take on some some fairly windy conditions.  I got the ACE specifically for flatter-water training, so I'm happy it wasn't SLOWER than the other boards...!
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: PonoBill on October 27, 2011, 11:58:07 PM
I've been playing around with my dragged speedometer. the idea is to have something kind of like a pacing attachment to a bicycle. A GPS does a good average speed measurement but a pacing recorder gives more instantaneous numbers. My dragged speedo is a 1/4" carbon fiber shaft with a bearing block on one end, small prop on the other, and a couple of magnets on the shaft that trigger a hall effect sensor that the data recorder counts. I've been dragging it around behind my glide trying to calibrate it.

The challenging part is that because it samples 15 times per second it gives a whacky result. sometimes in a time slice it could no magnets, sometimes one and sometimes two. I want to be able to get fairly instant values for speed because I want to measure paddle impulse, work and force applied, and how much the board slows between strokes. I should be able to derive all these from speed, acceleration, and mass of the rig. But since the speed isn't very high the RPM of the shaft isn't enough to give me enough pulses for a smooth speed measurement. I tried a lower pitch prop, but I think it slipped too much. I'm going to try using a disk to put the magnets on so I can get a dozen or so going by the detector each revelution instead of the just four I'm using now.

There has to be a rational way to do this. Maybe I could count for longer periods and overlap the start for the counts. For example, suppose I started a count with each magnet going by, with ten magnets on the shaft, and counted ten pulses and measured the interval, but then started a second ten count when the second magnet came by, and so on. So for every two revolutions I'd have ten intervals completed and ten more started.

Or am I just over-complicating this and missing something simpler?
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: ObviousSup on October 28, 2011, 01:02:42 AM

Or am I just over-complicating this and missing something simpler?

I don't know if one of these would connect with a data recorder but it sounds close to something that might record the speeds you need.
http://tinyurl.com/speedwatch (http://tinyurl.com/speedwatch)

Some of these options look more interesting.
http://www.nkhome.com/rowing-paddling/ (http://www.nkhome.com/rowing-paddling/)
The speedcoach seems to be well regarded in the rowing community from what I have read.

Maybe checking with Ron and see what he used since he talks quite a bit about paddle Efficiency?
http://www.frontrower.com/efficiency.htm (http://www.frontrower.com/efficiency.htm)

Or is this all old news? I've tried reading all the back posts trying to avoid the "Teaching grandmother to suck eggs" problem.
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: blueplanetsurf on October 28, 2011, 01:48:38 AM
Thank  you all very much for the feedback and suggestions.  Scott's GPS readout indicates another variable- human error.  I did not mean to drop your slowest times although I did not count the first upwind run, I considered it a warmup.  Anyway, we had to memorize the first time and I recorded the up and down times at the end of each run as they were called out to me (or as I heard them, in dimming light, then entered them on the spreadsheet after a few beers, so some errors may have snuck in)
I agree that the group effect can be a big factor.  I'm always faster when I test with others than solo, especially if someone is a little faster than me.  Doing a staggered start is a good idea and independent timing, more rounds and GPS with heart rate monitor for each tester.

I'll send this to John and let him decide how much he wants to share about his new boards.
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: Area 10 on October 28, 2011, 11:00:06 AM
Argosi:
Bravo. Very interesting, and it takes perseverance and an enquiring mind to actually do these things rather than just think about doing them…

But I hope you don’t mind if I make a suggestion about your experimental design. You explained your rationale for always running the Bark in the second leg of a round. I can understand your logic entirely. But if I were analysing the data I would have a real problem, because the way you have done it you have two perfectly correlated but potentially separate factors (board, and position of run in the sequence). If you want to be able to analyse these kinds of data properly, you need these factors to be what statisticians call “orthogonal”, i.e. completely unrelated. In practice, the best way for you to have done what you did would have been to use, for instance, an “ABBA design”. This is nothing to do with ‘70s Swedish pop music, but instead means that you would run board A first, then board B second, then board B third, then board A last.

If you are doing lots of runs, I’d suggest that you try to ensure that the average position of each of the boards in the overall run sequence is roughly equivalent. So if you do several (let’s say 2 for example) ABBA quadruplets of runs, for instance, it would look like this:

Run 1 = Board A
Run 2 = Board B
Run 3 = Board B
Run 4 = Board A
Run 5 = Board A
Run 6 = Board B
Run 7 = Board B
Run 8 = Board A

Now, if you add up the serial positions for each board and each run, for Board A you get 1+4+5+8= 18 (mean position 18/4 = 4.5). For Board B you get 2+3+6+7=18 (mean position 4.5). This means that if you find a difference in performance between the boards when you look at the data overall, you can be pretty sure that it is NOT going to be because of fatigue effects. And if you use fancy statistics (or someone does it for you) they would be able to “factor out” the effect of fatigue when looking at your data. I can see from what you have said that you foresaw this issue, so I’m just suggesting an easy way to deal with it.

Of course, the other point to make is that you went into the test expecting the Bark to be faster. That expectation can make enough difference for it to become so. But that’s a story for another day: I don’t want to put you off from doing this because I find it fascinating, and the Zoners who read this are lucky that there are people like you who will go to this trouble rather than just believe what someone tells them.  So whatever the shortcomings of any one test (and there will always be something...), they are a hell of a lot better than mere speculation.

1paddle2paddle:
HR spiked at 213 during rest - Wow – you must be a lot younger than me. If my HR went that high I’d be in the ER! Thanks for the HR data, I’ll have a look at it shortly.

Of course, HR can be deceptive, since it speaks more to the aerobic than the anaerobic component of the effort – I am not an exercise physiologist, but I think that this is why paddling upwind can be very tough, but your HR can still be fairly low whilst doing it. It is why pro trainers often use “perceived effort” scales in training – the HR only tells one story. But it is a lot better to have it than not.

And thanks also for raising the issue of “data laundering” by Robert – very kind of him, but perhaps not ideal from the point of view of the stats…especially since the boards were so close in performance. It does go part of the way to explaining why you all (according to these data) are apparently of such similar ability though. The rest is presumably the group effect, since both you and Robert are acknowledging that there is something going on to that effect in the format you have used so far.

And your comments seem to bear out my speculative suggestion to use longer runs (sorry!) I know it is cruel to see your buddy leave you behind, but from the point of view of testing the boards we need to be able to separate out the “variance” (as the statisticians would call it) attributable to the paddler from that attributable to the board, and this generally works best if one can detect consistent differences.

And if a 28” board is within 2- 3% in performance to a 25” board, and is much more stable because of that extra width, then that sounds like a pretty good compromise to me. My balance isn’t anything special, and I paddle all sorts of conditions, so I’ll take the more stable board please, and run the person on the 25” down in the final sections of the race when their legs are getting tired, or when we hit chop!

PonoBill – I am not a marine engineer, but I think your problems may just stem from a sampling rate of 15/sec. I would have thought that you might get closer to what you want with a rate of about 100/sec or more (and/or more magnets – dunno your rpm), and then use some data smoothing to reduce to say 1/10th sec resolution. But I’m sure you have thought about this.

Robert – thanks for being so honest. That explains a lot. It’s VERY hard to do these things perfectly, and heaven only knows I’ve spent whole days doing comparisons myself…paddles too…so I do know what you face. But if you REALLY want to know what makes you fastest, it is, as you clearly appreciate by your actions, the only way to know for sure. So stick with it. It’s so kind of you to share these data with all of us, so that we can learn too.
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: LaPerouseBay on October 28, 2011, 11:25:39 AM

After that 5th run of 2:30 it felt as if my heart almost came out of my chest after finishing, and I needed to rest for thirteen minutes before resuming the trials (my HR spiked at 213 during that particular rest period). /

Not aimed at you specifically 1P2P, but good reading for us older folks.  Too many stories of MI's on the water.

http://www.surfski.info/getting-started/tips-training/item/1025-atrial-fibrillation-and-the-athlete.html (http://www.surfski.info/getting-started/tips-training/item/1025-atrial-fibrillation-and-the-athlete.html)
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: PonoBill on October 28, 2011, 11:32:52 AM
Been there, done that. About ten years ago, on rollerblades, refusing to back off when racing my 6'6" son-in-law. Kicked myself right into atrial fib. Boyum too. Getting old sucks, and sometimes it tries to kill you.
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: 1paddle2paddle on October 28, 2011, 11:55:23 AM
Thanks guys.  At 44 y.o. the article by Owen Phillips rang true.  These time trials Robert organizes are all out blitz paddles, as close to 100% as I am able to give, something I could never push myself to do if I were by myself, and I simply would not do if I were out on the ocean (and especially if by myself on the ocean).  I will continue to monitor this situation and see if/how much it occurs in the future.  Another episode its probably time to see the doc for that checkup.
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: Area 10 on October 28, 2011, 12:18:48 PM
It sounds like you guys might need to put a limit on your efforts, admirable though they are. If you all set your HR monitors to, say, 90% of max and stay under that, the board test will still work (as long as you give me that data, ideally expressed as a percentage of your own max), you will enjoy it more, and there is less likely to be a regrettable incident...

I've got a Garmin 310XT (probably so have you), where I can set an audible warning if I am going over a pre-set HR.
Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: Area 10 on October 28, 2011, 12:31:00 PM
...Or, sit on your board. A deck chair or even a recliner would be a nice touch. Fix a towbar from you to Robert's leash plug, and let him tow you over 1 mile on a straight course. Time each run, and use a HR monitor to keep him working at a steady 95% of max. Then get him to do that for each of the other boards in turn, and then repeat in the opposite order. That should give some indication of the relative drag of the boards.

Step off your board and retire to the bar while Robert retires to the ER.

Job done.



Title: Re: Unlimited board speed test and SIC Standamaran review
Post by: 1paddle2paddle on October 28, 2011, 12:54:56 PM
Truthfully, after the crazy heart rate stuff, after the rest I was able to resume the trials and put in some decent runs without killing myself to do so, and the times of the later runs were in the ballpark.  I kind of just settled down into the job and remembered to breathe.

But the tow from Robert doesn't sound half bad...
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