What about guns? They're narrow. They go fast.
A gun, doing its job at Waimea Bay. Photo: Jeremiah Klein
They are narrow on the ends but in the middle they are wider. In building quivers for riders and customers, usually the "performance shortboard" is the narrowest one in the bunch. Sometimes I'll make the next one or two up a little narrower but not by much. Maybe an 1/8" or so.
As I work my way up from 6'2", for example, center widths will hold for a couple of steps up the ladder and the ends will pull in. But at some point, the center width, or widest part of the board needs to start increasing.
So for a 175 lb rider his quiver might look something like:
6'2" = 18.55"
6'4" = 18.45"
6'6" = 18.45"
6'8" = 18.55"
6'10" = 18.6"
7'2" = 18.65"
7'6" = 18.8"
8'0" = 19"
8'6" = 19.5"
9'0" = 20"
9'8" = 20.5"
The longer boards need to be wider to maintain adequate outline curve. The ends are reduced in area for control in larger, more powerful surf.
It's a common misconception that wide boards are slow. In most cases, inch for inch, they are actually faster. Shorter, wider boards, once planning, are far more efficient and ultimately capable of achieving higher speeds than longer, sleeker looking foils.
Short, wide, low rocker, thin, and finless is probably the fastest ride in terms of inherent speed -- Paipo, Alaia, and bodyboards. Control is another issue, especially if you are going to stand up on the craft.
Derek Hynd spinning out, just for fun. Photo: Sean Rowland
Narrow boards are quick. Reaction time from rail-to-rail is directly related to width. Light, quick surfers are capable of generating a tremendous amount of speed by loading one rail, flexing the board, which tightens the arc, unweighting, the rebound or return from the flex launches the rider out of the turn, setting the rider up for the next turn. Narrowness reduces transition time from one rail to the other. By linking a series of tight arcs at a higher frequency, a more advanced rider is going faster by generating speed.
There are many different lines to be drawn on a given wave. One craft will find its way on a pure speed line, another, given the ability level of the rider, will cover more distance between the same two points in the same amount of time.
There is a lot of research about how things go through water and air, either self-propelled or by some external power like wind or engines. With surfboards, however, we are looking at planing hulls. We're looking at ways to maximize performance of something planing on top of the water propelled by the waves energy and how the rider utilizes it.
Once up and planing, wetted surface becomes a big variable influencing the speed of a board. The more board that is in contact with the water, proportionately more drag is incurred. The entire surface area of a board isn't so much an issue as the rail length and tail width. Narrow shapes, especially with narrow ends, cause drag and suction, and are inherently unstable and interfere with complete planing process. So a wider board, even though it may have relatively more area, allows the rider to go shorter. Usually one rail is committed at a time. A shorter rail line will have less drag, less wetted area, and accelerate more quickly.
Tow boards are short, narrow in the middle, and thin. Stating the obvious, lack of planing area and volume isn't an issue because the craft is artificially brought up to planing speed. The primary reason tow boards are so fast is that they have such short rail lines and low exit rocker. They have low overall area but they have proportionately wide tails. The overall narrowness helps facilitate control. Narrowness also allows for shorter, lower area (lower drag) fins, which work more efficiently at higher speeds.
Raimana, hoping his tow board goes as fast as this Teahupoo mutant.
Photo: Sean Collins
Experimentation with extremely narrow boards in the late '60s and early '70s produced some memorable surfing. Reno Abellira was the quickest surfer in the World Championships in Puerto Rico in 1968. (*See footnote at bottom of page.) His sub-seven-foot, very narrow, Brewer mini-gun was the most advanced surfboard in the comp. Reno's board was 6' 7" x 18.75" x 2 5/8" single glassed round-pin, weighing 8 lbs (inc. fin) -- a real mini-gun. He also had with him (but did not ride) a 5' 4" x 17" x 2" (!!!!!!). Keep in mind, most of the other competitors were riding boards in the eight- to nine-foot range, 21 inches wide, give or take.
The winner, albeit controversial, Fred Hemmings, was on a short (8'6") longboard and satisfied the judges 'biggest wave, longest ride, most critical part of the wave' criteria. His large planing hull had its advantages. Reno was lightning-quick, not just down the line but also from rail-to-rail. While his rides may not have been as long, the actual amount of distance he covered per wave was far greater than the other competitors. A comparison could be made to Kelly Slater early in his professional career, competing on boards around 17 5/8" wide. A few short years later, in the mid-'70s, Reno and Brewer were instrumental in transitioning the fish into the MR twin-fin.
In the early 70's, Barry Kanaiaupuni rode boards that even Kelly Slater would call ridiculously narrow. He's remembered for late drops at big Sunset, his trademark rocking from rail-to-rail, and setting up for his definitive single-fin bottom turn. The narrowness translated into control and quickness while the majority of the surfers out at Sunset on any given day were struggling to control their speed because their boards had too much overall area. Paddle power was critical to get in, but what to do with all the excess planing area and resultant speed after the wave is caught?
BK laying into one of his trademark bottom turns. Photo: Leroy Grannis
So, depending on conditions, appropriate width comes down to a balancing act of catching and control.
Some of the early '70s surf movies took a generation of surfers on a fantasy ride that may as well been called "Romancing the Rock" (Hawaii). The surfing on early modern guns (post-longboard) on the North Shore was nothing short of amazing. The imagery in the magazines and movies was so powerful; it seduced a large percentage of the general surfing population into trying to ride completely impractical equipment. But the boards sure looked cool.
As they always do, corrections happen. In the mid and late '70s, MR helped popularize twin-fins, which were a much more practical ride for the majority of surfers and their hometown conditions.
Tom Curren, coming off a competitive hiatus in the early '90s, turned heads by competing on a vintage early '70s twin-fin and having good success in small gutless surf. Everyday surf. I don't mean to dwell on the twin-fin thing, but it's the width, length, thickness, and relaxed rocker of the 5'5" Rick Twin-fin retro board that gave him the planing speed to liven up his surfing in the mediocre waves for that particular contest.
A little Internet searching plays out a pretty consistent timeline on the Fish fascination and reintroduction into mainstream consciousness. On the topic of Searching, Curren riding the short, wide, Fireball Fish at huge Bawa is seared into the memories of anyone who watched the video in 1996.
Throughout the early 90's Kelly Slater was redefining performance surfing on ultra narrow, heavily rockered 6'1"s. While about 1% of the general surfing population could actually ride these types of boards, the other 99% struggled. ...Lost's video, 5'5" x 19 1/4" (1997) helped to shift the momentum the other way.
Ironically, in the last year or so, Kelly is helping to spearhead another correction.
Left: Kelly on his Glass Slipper in the '90s; and Right: at the 2009 Snapper Rocks event on a wider, fatter board. Photos: Divine, Rowland
On the Base Surfboards website, Darren Handley discusses what's different about Mick Fanning's 2009 title board. He calls it "The Cut Down" -- a 6'1" cut down on the ends. A little wider. A little thicker. Fascinating.
So what's up with the retro thing? Simple: shorter, wider, thicker, flatter. More efficient planing hulls.
In the last few years it seems, more and more so, the general surfing population is on to the shorter, wider direction. Most shapers with a little experience have a decent 6'2" x 18 ½ x 2 ¼ in their bag. In a machine age, little is left to the imagination on this type of board. It's sort of senseless for surf shops to go deep into this type of inventory because it's such a commodity item. What's fun is exploring all the different ways to go shorter and wider. It doesn't get judged or need to be validated with a rating or ranking.
In earlier blogs I have touched on fins and how multiple fins have enabled designers to go shorter and wider.
To my knowledge, Bob Simmons was the seminal influence on modern surfboard design. His scientific approach to building surfboards was groundbreaking and a lot of the principles he applied still have strong merit 60-plus years later.
In the next blog I'll explore some of his theories and have a look at how his incredible influence is manifested in some new-old designs...hydrodynamic planing hulls.
It's all about putting the glide back in the ride. Less work, more fun.
Happy Surfing.
[Special thanks to: Dick Brewer, John Elwell, Richard Kenvin, Stan Pleskunas. And: George Orbelian and Paul Holmes for research details on the Reno Abellira and Mark Richards boards from their upcoming book "Shaper of Surfing: Dick Brewer."]
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*Competitors and media alike went to Puerto Rico expecting it to be a showcase for the new, progressive shortboard style. Vee bottoms, mini-guns and still-experimental surf craft were the order of the day. Fueled in part by psychoactively-induced imagination, there was a collective desire for something radical to take place. It did, but not in the way that was generally expected. Hemmings read the rules, studied the conditions, figured out his game plan, rode a board he describes as "a short longboard" -- an 8'6" wide-back, thick, heavy squaretail shaped by Ben Aipa -- and surfed to victory in the finals by riding the five biggest waves the longest possible distance. To many of those who considered themselves on the cutting edge at the time, it was a downright travesty of justice.
Just after Hemmings and Margo won men's and women's divisions in the '68 World Champs. Photo: Leroy Grannis
"They were looking for rock 'n' roll and I was a waltzer, and I think what a lot of the other competitors missed was that the judges were all from the waltzing school of surfing, too," says Hemmings. But he also adds, citing his already considerable contest record, "Winning the World Contest was not a fluke. I went there to win. I trained hard. I didn't smoke or drink. I went out with a strategy and I beat those guys fair and square. So it hurt when some pundits in the surf media denied me the recognition that was my due."
--Paul Holmes/Fred Hemmings, interview from Longboard magazine
