Very short downwind board

[JonathanC]

Just after some advice on an idea before I rip into the foam.

Airline cargo restrictions being what they are mean that 9' is no problem, so heading to a windy but pretty much flat water with a chance of small swell got me thinking.

How would a 9' x 29" board with classic downwind/race board rocker go? I'm thinking quite a boxy rail shape, maybe single to double concave, square tail, pretty flat throughout but some nose kick to try to avoid perling. Don't think there is the length to do anything too fancy with the nose, just try to keep it as gunny as possible. I'm only 148lb so that helps. I know a 2 piece board would be a solution, just seems too hard from scratch - might end up with a Destruct rather than a Bisect!

Any thoughts or experience would be very welcome.

Thanks,
             Jonathan

[Lobes]

A 9' downwinder?    I'd think this topic was a joke if I hadnt dealt with the damn airlines myself.

Still think you're pushing it. I'd try and go as narrow as you can but at 9' you need that width for buoyancy. I guess you could make an experimental 9' displacement board? That'd be out there.

To be honest I've played around with this idea in my head and the best I could think of was a 9' board with an inflatable tail section that attaches 'somehow' (havnt worked that bit out yet) and gives you a twofer.

[JonathanC]

OK I'm ready to order the foam! A cheap way for us to do this in Australia is to have a EPS blank CNC wire cut in two dimensions only - that means that they cut the outline and the rocker, ready for rail/bottom shaping. I e-mail them a dxf computer file for the two shapes and out she comes, they can even cut it in half if you want to put a stringer in.  Any of the large commercial foam cutters for the building industry can do this - I'll go for the medium grade commercial foam.
 
Much easier than shaping your own rocker for a one-off and really cheap, about $120 including the foam. Anyone is welcome to the two files if this appeals, just PM me and I'll e-mail them to you

Decided that the best thing would be a training flat water board, I'll round all the rails and keep the bottom flat or maybe slight double concave at the tail. Inspiration was the Tomahawk training board - hope you don't mind Evan! Then I found a small 9 footish board outline - actually the 9'3 Naish - hope you don't mind Robby! and widened out the tail and smoothed out the shape. So the thing in the pictures is a Tomanaish Stubby. The little TS ended up being 9' x 29", 5" thick and before rail shaping 182 litres, probably end up around 170 litres when I'm finished, expect to have about 25" of flat after rail shaping - should be plenty stable for me at 145 lbs and also fine for beginner friends.

It does have a little nose and tail rocker and hopefully the bow will pierce wind chop nicely, won't set any speed records but I'm sure it will be more fun to paddle than a 9' wave board on flat water and will be very cheap to make.

I'll post photos as it progresses.

JC

[DavidJohn]

Being only 9' long and 29" wide there is a lot of curve in the outline.. even with the big square tail.. So.. How are you going to stop it yawing with each paddle stroke?

It might be worth checking out the short/wide formula windsurf boards and see what they do with bottom shape and rails.. plus they use a huge fin.

DJ

[JonathanC]

All I can really do is keep the rails sharpish in the tail and go for a big fin - and swap paddle sides a lot!

[PonoBill]

You could make the tail wider. I would be kind of interesting to see what happens if you took out some of that curve forward and made the tail wide. I doubt it would be ideal, but it might be a little bit faster.

[DavidJohn]

You could make the tail wider. I would be kind of interesting to see what happens if you took out some of that curve forward and made the tail wide. I doubt it would be ideal, but it might be a little bit faster.

I agree.. a wider tail and I'd go with a big wide nose (like the Formula boards) and this will give more parallel lines in the rails.

DJ

[JonathanC]

I did wonder about going wider in the tail, keeping the rails more parallel for longer would help tracking for sure, could probably go down to 28" or even 27" if the tail was really wide.

Thanks for the input guys!

[JonathanC]

Decided to keep the width the same, might as well keep it friendly after all it's not going to win any races!

Widened the tail from 300mm to 400mm and it does look much better, the volume came up to 190l, thanks for your help Bill and David.

[PonoBill]

You might consider a clipped nose like the Ku Nalu. It will add some volume forward and straighten the rails even more. If you punch that pointy nose into the back of a swell it will be a long time coming back up. As compromised as a 9' board will be I wouldn't be tossing away volume in the front for a slick looking nose. I wouldn't go round though--they kind of wobble like a Rapalla when you stuff them. The squashed diamond shaped nose that Mark used on the Ku Nalu seems to be a fine compromise. They look like hell, but they go very fast for their size.

[Jethrow]

Hi all

Back when I was teaching my wife to windsurf I used to SUP my Formula board. It is 225ccm by 100cm and I was surprised by how well it actually paddled. I used the 40cm fin to give it some directional stability. I don't think it would work on the ocean as the nose was usually near the waterline but on flat water it was fine. The biggest problem was that with a width of one meter, I was constantly scraping the rails with the paddle until I changed my style.

Jethrow

[JonathanC]

Well, to finish off the topic here are some photos of the board - I'd like to say finished board but of course I didn't leave myself enough time before the holiday I planned to take it on! So the board is only very roughly sanded (sanded some of the big drips off the flow coat 11pm the night before we left - it's probably still curing!) and not painted, no deck grip and to top it all off I ran out of pigment so only about half the glassing was done with pigment in the resin, kinda camo look but not really that pretty.

But it works! Made it onto the plane so the 9' thing was good and packed it well to try to avoid any dings from the handlers. It's pretty tippy with the rounded displacement type hull for 2/3 of the length but quite OK once you get used to it. I went for big almost full radius rails until the last third where I made them pretty sharp to try to get some tracking going. Because it's only 9' all the transitions happen pretty fast but I tried to keep it as flowing as possible. The flat runs right through until I formed a slight V and double concave running back past the fin. Went for a huge 11' fin to try to keep the yawing under control.

It actually seems to have some glide because of the relatively flat rocker and the little pointed nose works well in the very small chop I've been paddling in, it even catches the tiny swells quite well, just have to get back to keep the nose out. In these still waters (they are still because the Great Barrier Reef much further out stops the ocean swells) it is a pleasure to paddle and just tippy enough to keep you on your toes. I'm so glad I went to the trouble of making it, much more fun for this sort of paddling than a rockered wave board would have been. It's the first board I've made and I find I'm geting a real buzz paddling my own handy work - certainly won't be the last, my mind is already ticking over with the perfect 12'6 down-wind board for home....

Did an 8 mile paddle early this morning in a beautiful cove called four mile beach at Port Douglas in Far North Queensland, warm warm water and beautiful small rays with orange and bright blue markings. Didn't see any crocodiles! They sometimes come out of the river because of territory fights with other crocs, they can actually travel 200 miles off shore, a friend told me that he was bumped from underneath by a big croc when he was in a touring kayak - they mistake the shape of the 16' kayak for a croc and the initial warning is to come up underneath and give a good scrape with the spines on their back against the soft belly of the "intruder". He said it was about the scariest thing that has ever happened to him!   

You can see some little green ants on the board, the aborigines eat these, you just scoop up a pile of them and roll them together in your hands, they have a lemony sharp not unpleasant taste and were used as a headache and fever remedy!

[cammar]

Johnatan, that is a beauty!

Congratulations and big respect.

And thanks for sharing the ants tip. I was just looking for a remedy against all those ants in my studio...

[Dasurfclub]

That is a beautiful board. You did a good shop shaping it.

I would wonder how it would glide into swells since it is so short...maybe there will be a new division for SUP'ers under 10'.

Keep us informed how it performs on future paddles.