Rusty

Last blog, John Elwell, a friend of Bob Simmons during the last five or six years of his life, shared stories from this great innovator. Here is Elwell's discussion on the planing hull:

Aspect ratio is a proper width and length ratio. Naval architect Lindsay Lord said the most common factor in a good planing hull was the width in the stern. If you divide the width into the length you'll get the Aspect Ratio. It will be a decimal number. Good numbers are .3 to .5. Wing design uses this depending on how much it is designed to lift with a power plant. With extraordinary amounts of power, a lower aspect number will work. (At Windansea, Simmons went to the shortboard because of the more powerful wave. He already did this in powerful shorebreak at Hermosa.)

In summary, there is a good ratio between length and width. Things too narrow don't plane well and shapes that are too wide are handicapped also. Examples are the U2 spy planes that are like gliders and can fly high and sustain themselves, as well as longboards that will pick up on big, fat waves and have increased resurgence at low speeds. These features also work against these shapes at high speeds. The tow-in boards are adapted because they can get a low aspect ratio up to planing speed where a paddler can't.

Archimedes displacement steps in for hydrostatics for the "plate" as it is called to support the load it is to carry. In other words, the optimum plate must float enough to not hinder lift...or too much, like paddleboards. Simmons was able to reduce a lot of extra weight by reducing flotation to a minimum. The boards in static position just barely floated with the tails squatting in the water, which is the attack angle. Moving a planing hull slowly, such as with a surfboard gets the kinetic energy (water flowing) to get initial lift to get it over the "hump" to plane while paddling in.

Tow-ins break the rules by having a power plant take you up to planing speeds to stay in the wave. Then as Lord says, "Everything changes." Pointed sterns start to drag. On surfboards when the pressure is on the inside rail to the wave the dynamic trans-pan flow comes across the bottom of the lower part of the hull. It is directed there by the monohydrean shape we call the "rounded rail" that is making the top of the rail low pressure and the bottom dynamic high pressure. The result is lift by the kinetic energy (moving water) that is being deflected. The surfer is controlling the pressure by the amount of weight he exerts on the rail from his feet in the right position. Planing is described as skimming on water. Lord says planing hulls adjust themselves with speed, so much that they can fly dangerously out of control at higher speeds in conditions that can be too rough causing cross waves and chop. The camber nose or turn up really helped surfboards from pearling -- an early problem with the old boards that no longer was a problem after Simmons.

Aspect ratio, put into use. Photo: Slavin

The old planks did not plane or turn well because of too much flotation, too much weight, and the wrong shape of rails. People were told to drag a foot to turn to angle the board. That ended with the Simmons' boards. All boards thereafter copied the foiled rounded rail, but changed nose and tail shapes to their own liking. No one knew what they were copying or doing. Simmons did not talk to very many surfers, nor did some of those surfers listen to him.

The modern board has some type of rounded foiled rails. There is still a lot of confusion of what the outline should be. But there shouldn't be if the surfboard makers knew how the electric strain gage works to identify shapes that have resistance. But aesthetics still win out in marketing. Today, so many people copy what works in surfing but are not quite sure how it works because there are a number of complex things working. One of the most important things that Simmons said and simply observed was that a surfboard really is going almost as fast sideways to the beach as it is going forward. He identified a surfboard's trajectory and designed a board to do that. What he did was not the last word in planing hulls as he was constantly changing and improving on what he did. What he did was on solid ground. As Curren once told me, "It was too bad he died, he may have come up with something better."

The summation of Lindsey Lord -- the MIT naval architect who wrote the book on the Naval Architecture of Planing Hulls, who used the Bernoulli equation, and tested his study with the Simmons strain gage for exact data -- said, " There is nothing revolutionary in this because one thing leads back to another. In other words, there are links after links to other known principles." And further more, "These things we did are from solid information and only the beginning."

I must smile on the definition of "flex". It is wide-open to some degree but there is a solid base and flex would fit into refining and improving the basic findings. There are restrictions but keep in mind that, "The sea is a hostile and ever-changing environment."

The parameters as Simmons saw it as a scientist was, "We are really not going that fast; you just think your are." He was right because waves only go so fast. He worked on reducing drag, with suitable size and flotation for the load of each rider, then attacked the enemy of planing hulls -- resistance, mainly eddy flow drag, and excessive fin(s) -- through Lord, hydrodynamic understanding, and his own observations and data with strain gages.

What he had and did for his time was remarkable. Proper aspect ratio was of course a key factor. To make it simple, there are important parts to the whole. Although as Lord said, "You change around a little but everything else is a compromise." Which was apparent for better planing because it keeps the water under pressure and directing by the monohydrean rail for sudden and dynamic release, for lift making the hull lighter. Changing your weight deflects the board for turns and trim. The rail reduces pressure on top and increases pressure from the bottom, and it also tracks and holds the board in the wave unless it gets too steep. This application is unique to waves from standard planing.

We can follow the history of surfing. We look back and see small Hawaiian or Oceanic types of plates. They were used for different types of surfing. All these designs were done by "rule of thumb" -- simply, what works is copied. They had no mathematics or language, and only the materials available. The variable is, of course, the rider's skill. Some rider's can ride anything. Dempsey Holder use to say, "A good surfboard rider can ride a door." That is what it has been. Surfboards got screwed up from old Hawaiian shapes with "planks" and "paddle boards". Flat decks and U-rails have too much weight. Paddleboards are surface shapes and have serious drag problems planing. This all had to be sorted out.

We started out in '47 riding borrowed paddleboards and planks. They were dangerous and impossible to ride well except for the gifted few. We asked our mentors and every one advised, "Get a board that floats." Usually surfers picked a board with nice grains and a shiny finish. No one knew how a surfboard worked...until Simmons came along. Bob defined surfing as planing and surfboards were supposed to be planing hulls. Simmons snarled and gnashed his teeth, "Paddleboards are not." He was more specific and despised pointed tails and tails under 10 inches, but favored wider tails for quicker lift. Soon, his adversaries, which were a few of the ignorant and jealous, started to generate vicious hearsay about wide tails, spin out, nose pushing and so forth.

Simmons would snarl, "Go someplace with better waves! We are really surfing on our rails." He was right and it was too difficult to explain to the general population found at the beach. He was referring of course to Bernoulli and Lord's research and basic hard knowledge of aero and hydrodynamics.

Others over the years without really understanding all that he did and meant have said, "Simmons was way ahead of the pack by light years."

Stan Pleskunas is one of those quiet understated, highly-achieving, mad scientist surf dudes. His shaping machines were state of the art in the late '80s -- Channel Islands, Linden, Nectar, and Rusty all used them. He designed a line of shaping hand tools, which are still used by many shapers today. Stan also worked with Lis, Greenough, and countless other visionaries on boards, sailboards, machines, and fins. His Fumunda Marine Products are globally distributed.

He goes further into Aspect Ratio for us:

The "whole" surfboard plan form is distinct from "wetted area" plan form. That said, it stands to reason that overall plan form relates in a general sense, to wetted plan form if the shapes considered are more or less conventional surfboard shapes. Another thing that seems to be overlooked is the rule (which is set in stone) that it takes a given amount of area to plane, a given weight at a given speed. Gravity and weight are the constants where speed and area are the variables in this rule. This is sort of the bedrock or foundation that all other factors are based on. To be more concise, the slower you go the more area you need to plane a given weight.

The next thing to consider is the power available. If you look at a modern jet, the wing plan form is decidedly inefficient or low aspect ratio. This is because of the fact that there is essentially unlimited power to push the jet forward.

Digging deep with a Simmons-inspired hull design. Photo: Slavin

On the other hand if you look at a sailplane the wings are long and narrow which have extremely high aspect ratios. The reason for this is there is nothing but gravity powering a sailplane so it has to be very efficient. To recap: low aspect ratios are less efficient. Higher aspect ratios are more efficient. In aeronautics, efficiency is measured in the ratio of lift to drag.

Throughout this rant we are assuming that the areas for both high and low aspect bodies are the same and the weight is the same. So low aspect ratio wings will have a much steeper natural glide path than a high aspect wing. A jet might have an unpowered glide path described as 2-to-1. That is, it goes forward two-feet for every foot it falls. A sailplane might have a glide path of 20-to-1 or it goes forward 20-feet for every foot it drops. The reason is the differences between the drag that low aspect and high aspect wings have. Remember, in this case gravity force/weight and area is the same for both bodies.

This might seem a bit complicated but it is not. Lower aspect ratio wings are more swept back. Higher aspect ratio wings are more perpendicular to the flow. What that means is at any point along a low aspect ratio wing, the flow is in contact with the wing for a longer distance than on a high aspect ratio body. This offers more opportunity for the flow to develop turbulence and increase drag, so it has more drag for the lift it generates. On a high aspect body the flow is in contact with the surface for a shorter distance so it has less opportunity to develop turbulence hence less drag for the lift it generates.

So if we have two wings of exactly the same area carrying exactly the same weight, the low aspect ratio body will require more power to go exactly the same speed as the higher aspect body. And if we try to relate all this to surfboards, let's start with the assumption that the wetted area will more or less reflect what the overall plan form aspect ratio is. Keep in mind that the rule of speed, weight and wetted area still applies.

Let's take a 6'2" x 19" board. Steve Coletta's outline (which is what I have to work with) has 1060 square inches. The span is measured as the width of the shape or perpendicular to the flow, parallel to the stringer. In this case the span is 19", the square of 19" is 361. The span squared 361, divided by the area of 1060 is .3405. .3405 is the aspect ratio of the outline shape.

That same board scaled to be 9'8" X 20.5" has an aspect ratio of .2349. This is a substantially lower aspect ratio than the 6'2". The gun has an aspect ratio, which is only 69% of the 6'2" board.

So the question begs to be asked: why does a gun go so much faster than a shortboard if higher aspect ratios are more efficient? First, it has to do with amount of power available to push the board forward. Just like the jet that might fly at mach 2 the gun has a heap more power available. The gun on a big wave has more power to tap than a shortboard on a small wave. It is certainly arguable that a shortboard will go faster than a gun on a smaller wave more suited to the shortboard. All things equal, especially the available power, efficiency wins over all. Otherwise, we would all be riding 10-foot guns on three-foot waves. A 9'6" longboard designed for smaller waves will be much wider which will push the aspect ratio up considerably perhaps even equal to the shortboard's aspect ratio. Or put it this way, the 9'6" board would have to be much wider and have much more area to have the same aspect ratio as the 6'2", which would end up looking like a longboard not a gun.

The next obvious question is why not ride a shorter, higher aspect ratio board in big waves where we have all that power available to go that much faster? Again, for the same reason a jet has low aspect wings -- it is all about control. The flow laying on the wing for a longer distance makes the jet more pitch stable than the sailplane. It has more drag but the advantage of lower aspect ratios is it does not pitch up and down or pearl and stall as easily as the high aspect wings of a sailplane. With all that power, the jet, just as the gun, must be controllable especially in the "pitch" plane. So you are dropping into 15-foot Sunset with three-foot bumps coming up the face, the lack of relative efficiency of the gun to the shortboard is of minor concern compared to plowing into bumps or getting launched off one. Besides there is so much power to tap who cares if the shortboard is a touch more efficient? Control is the key to riding bigger, bumpier waves.

This is really simplified but the basic premise of this argument is correct, in my opinion. This is more or less proven by the fact that smaller waves require more efficiency and they are generally ridden on higher aspect ratio boards. The same is true for big waves where longer lower aspect ratio boards are ridden in big waves. Today's shapers have it sorted out -- just look at what they prescribe for different wave conditions, it all pans out. One thing that is very hard to get a handle on is the power that a competent surfer can add to the equation. When a guy starts pumping and the board begins to flex a bit and he un-weights, the energy he is imparting is substantial. This profoundly affects the efficiency and ultimate speed of the board. This is where today's shapers have made most of the improvements in design. This is especially true for specific riders who can accurately communicate their feeling/desires in a design to the shaper.

This treatment does not take into account rocker, thickness, rail shape and a myriad of other design features that make a complete board. However, using aspect ratio as a common denominator for board measurement/design might be a very useful (if overlooked) tool to tune surfboard shapes with. Using aspect ratio as a measurement will be an empirical process but may really help those who have had a family of boards designed with CAD software. Area measurements, which are critical to calculating aspect ratio, are easily known from CAD drawings.

Where is the next frontier in board design? I think it will be in the quantification and control of flex. This has not been done and cannot now be easily designed for. Given the variability in shapes, materials and construction techniques it will be a long row to hoe to get flex sorted out. When a guy gets that "magic" board, that "magic" is flex, in my opinion. I could go on and on about flex but that is entirely another chapter.

It's no secret that surfboard design requires a certain bit of hydrodynamics. And while some of you were snoozing in physics class, early board-builders were figuring things out so today's modern shapers didn't really have to. Leading that early charge was Bob Simmons -- an eccentric dude, who didn't care much what people thought of his off-the-wall concepts. However, Simmons single-handedly looked at the board's planing surface and made it the forefront of shaping.

Richard Kenvin on a Simmons-inspired model. Photo: Scott Sullivan

San Diego surfer Richard Kenvin is making a film about Simmons called 'Hydrodynamica' and offers the following:

After the longboard era ended in the late sixties, surfers pursued a performance ideal focused on deep tuberiding, tight-radius carves, controlled slides, and finally, vertical turns in and above the lip. This performance criterion has dictated the evolution of the shortboard over the past 40 years. The desire to perform precise vertical turns and make controlled micro-adjustments on the face and in the barrel brought about a narrow, stiletto-like board with continuous outline curve, lots of rocker, and a canted fin cluster designed for holding power and instant release up the face. All of these design innovations make today's incredible shortboard performance surfing possible. The dreams of the late sixties have come true, and there is no argument that the modern shortboard is a functional waveriding machine that allows for spectacular surfing.

That being said, this shortboard performance ideal comes with a price, and the currency that pays that price is drag. Quick lift, paddling power, glide, planing speed, and trim have all been sacrificed on the altar of maneuverability. For the strong and agile or for those lucky enough to ride clean, powerful surf on a regular basis such drag-inducing design elements as ample rocker and narrow curvy outlines have more benefits than drawbacks. Even so, surfers are always looking for new sensations, and in recent years many of us have been exploring designs from the past that originated long before the contemporary shortboard. Wide, low rocker, high aspect-ratio designs like the fish don't allow quite the same performance levels as shortboards, but they do set us free, more or less, from paying the debt of drag associated with ultra-rockered, narrow designs.

This growing movement towards experiencing "alternative" boards like the fish is evidence of a widespread desire to be freed, at least occasionally, from the shackles of over-specialized contemporary design. In fact, these "retro" boards are now influencing shortboard design as rockers mellow, outlines get straighter, and boards get wider and shorter. As the design pendulum swings back in favor of wider and flatter, it seems we are in for interesting times. With minds opening along these lines, shortboard performance is about to take a leap forward in a new direction. Relaxed trim and planing speed will be possible on very short and maneuverable boards, and the dreaded "Huntington Hop" will be eliminated from our repertoires. All along the surf history timeline the prophets of width and planing speed have appeared and blown our minds: the Paipo riders of Hawaii, Bob Simmons, George Greenough, Steve Lis, and though we try to deny it, bodyboarders like Mike Stewart and Danny Kim have all brought us a message we too often fail to heed. With evidence of the virtues of flat and wide (and finless flex!) displayed right before our eyes our tendency to stubbornly deny those virtues in favor of convention is quite remarkable.

When considering wider, high aspect ratio board design it becomes impossible to ignore the work of Bob Simmons in the late 1940s and early '50s. By the time of his death in 1954, Simmons had brought his dual-finned hydrodynamic planing hull design to a state of fulfilled refinement. But planing hull surfboard history really begins with the traditional finless boards of pre-contact Hawaii, particularly the short, wide Paipo board and the longer and slightly narrower Alaia. These ancient surfboards are extremely fast due to a hydrodynamic design that allows for subtle flex, very efficient trim and planing and hardly any drag.

In the mid 1940s, scale models resembling Paipo and Alaia type planing craft were tested in Hawaii as part of an effort to improve military powerboat performance. And in 1946, naval architect Lindsay Lord published the results of these tests in a study titled The Naval Architecture of Planing Hulls. Lord proclaimed the performance benefits of wide hull designs and also acknowledged the challenge of incorporating them into a seaworthy vessel. Modifications and compromises were necessary to achieve this, and the same holds true for surfboard design. Before long, Simmons obtained a copy of Lord's report and referred to it when designing his first planing hull surfboard in 1948. He also studied the work of the Daniel Bernoulli, a mathematician from the 18th century who had articulated the basic principles of hydrodynamic lift in a study published in 1738 under the title Hydrodynamica. Simmons then began effectively combining ancient planing principles with modern hydrodynamic theory to arrive at an entirely new type of surfboard.

Simmons was able to harness the planing powers of the traditional finless boards by designing a Bernoulli-inspired elliptical rail that, when guided by a shallow keel fin, allowed his boards to accelerate out of turns and carve on a rail with unprecedented control. The Simmons rail generated dynamic lift and required a fin to function properly. He kept his tails very wide for planing speed, and he placed a keel on each outboard rail near the tail. He used minimal rocker to reduce drag, and minimal curve in his outlines to maximize trim speed. He broke the outline slightly in the back third with a "bump" for release, and he rounded the noses of his boards and tilted them upwards in order to create lift through displacement when paddling into waves and negotiating steep drops and chop. This innovation became known as a "spoon". The lifted angle of the spoon is sometimes mistaken for rocker, but the actual riding surface of the board is quite flat.

Simmons' boards are perhaps more relevant today than at any other time in surfing history. With the advanced CAD design programs now available it is possible to reference the original planing hull concept and blend it with contemporary designs to make better boards. Fin placement and bottom curve can be tweaked and adjusted until a happy medium is achieved, with the goal being a very short board that paddles well, skates, glides, and trims, all without sacrificing maneuverability or control in the tube. Riding a Simmons-inspired planing hull and discovering its place in surfing's past and its relevance in the present is a rewarding experience for surfers of all ability levels.

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John Elwell was friends with Bob Simmons the last five or six years of his life. He was in the water with him at Windansea the day he died. Elwell has a book called "Surfing in San Diego," which is a great historical overview. Elwell elaborates on 'The Coming of Simmons':

First, we heard rumors of new boards that were the rage of Malibu in 1948 and early '49 and of Simmons. He showed up here at IB in '49 when I met him. This guy had power of "presence". You could feel it when he walked in the lifeguard station. I once felt like a wind passing and he went behind me unseen. The guy wore a glitter of fiberglass dust and clothes of resin. His plaid wool shirts were faded and well worn, and he wore deck shoes -- never any socks or underwear. He was poorly groomed and shaved and spoke in short, hard one-liners, snarling or cackling laughs. He was no nonsense, almost unfriendly at first. He was all business and a busy person about to die young. When something was bad...it was a disaster!

Chris DelMoro, using his hull. Photo: Peterson

We wanted some of his boards but he was not ready to make boards for everyone. We had to get the wood and he would shape for $15 and we would sand to his directions and supervision in glassing. It would take a while -- like almost a year. The good times were watching him shape and carefully asking him questions. He would like to tell special stories of surf experiences. He would blurt out stuff that we would have to think about.

After his death, Morgan and I would talk about this. He said we wouldn't ever know what he was talking about and what all those calculations were on his hydrographic charts. He talked about a sea break off SF called the Great Break. Then, at times, talked about 100-foot waves off Chile that he would need special rubber suits that were not yet developed and small bail out bottles of oxygen.

At 16, it was like talking to someone like Buck Rogers. 'Is this guy for real?' Then there were boomerangs -- that he called deadly weapons -- and ping-pong championships. All connected again, we would find out later through Bernoulli. My relation to Simmons is that we became good friends surfing together and watching and listening to him shape in the station. I admired him, not knowing he was a brilliant math student, engineer at Douglas, a machinist, master boomerang-maker and thrower, ping-pong champion, and power bicyclist. He was an accomplished athlete of special skills and endurance sports. He had a badly injured arm from a bicycle accident that almost killed him. He almost went down at Hermosa from a blow from his board. But he was not a cripple, or a "surfer who could hardly swim," as Quig described him. His arm was wired together without being able to rotate it and it slashed the water. He made mile swims off the Sloughs and no one worried about him.

I was surfing with Simmons the day he was killed and was the only one with him when he took off late on a big wave and slipped on a new, poorly-waxed board. He was surfing brilliantly that day after returning from the North Shore in the winter of '53. He made a new board in '54, the same configuration but improved the attack angle so he could take one-stroke and no-stroke take-offs. His boards were just about perfectly balanced and he would check them on a sawhorse and note the center of gravity. I think this is very important! When Morgan told me that we might never know what he meant, I started to turn over stones with his family and friends to put the puzzle together. Simmons was indeed way out there. Even back then, he talked about predicting surf from sun spot storms that heat the equator which causes the El Nino.

Check back next week for part two of this subject -- Aspect Ratio.

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."]

+++

*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

Check out this Surfline interview - a round table discussion featuring 2010 WCT Rookies the Guduaskas Brothers, Brett Simpson, and Rusty's Nate Yeomans!

Check out this awesome Surfline feature that dissects Jamie's quiver of Rusty shred sticks!

When I'm designing a board I always contemplate the fins -- the number of fins, the shape of the fins, the size of the fins, the relationship of the fins, where they are positioned with respect to each other, the rail, the nose vector. They are not always the same size or template. In fact, I've always been a firm believer in mixing sizes, foils and flex to get a desired effect.

World Champ Mick Fanning, tuning up with his trusty thruster.
Photo: Jeremiah Klein

FLEX

Flex is so crucial. Not just the amount of flex, but the quality of the flex. Where is the fin bending? Base-to-tip flex? Torsional flex? How quick does it rebound?

Small mushy day: Try fins with softer flex. Try front fins with some base and extra area. A more pivoty, triangular outline, a heavily cambered foil, and a back fin with a little less area and depth, and move it up if your system allows.

The surf is cranking: Run smaller fins up front, preferably with a little more rake, and stiffer flex. It would be good if they had a slight radius to the leading edge. Place a larger, more dominant fin farther back on the tail for control and holding power.

Lighter surfers in smaller weaker surf will usually benefit from a fin with softer flex. Softer fins will help the board feel looser. It will help to initiate turns but isn't necessarily a dynamic solution. Soft, as in "bendy" plastic, helps start a turn but there isn't a lot of return. You may find yourself double-pumping to try and keep your rail set or struggling to project where you want to go.

Another symptom of a fin that is too soft is that it will wash out on turns, especially on a cutback or coming off the top. Coming off the top you should be able to accelerate. A soft fin will slip a little and throw your timing off. A quality glass or composite fin may have a firm base but a "softer tip" and what you should be looking for is a crisp rebound on that flex. A fin that is soft, generally speaking, spills a lot of the power you put into a turn and slows reaction time out of the turn.

Dave Wassel is no small dude. Bigger guys tend to favor a more rigid fin.
Photo: Jeremiah Klein.

Conversely, larger surfers in more powerful surf will be happier with a more rigid fin. Too rigid is no good. A turn is a complex thing that takes everything working in harmony to maximize the return on effort. A good hull will have certain flex attributes and it should be married to a fin with complementary qualities. As you load the board in a turn, so too should the fins be storing energy. As you follow through on your arc and start to unweight, the power of the wave and your energy being returned should flow together. You should feel a launch out of the board and the fins should contribute to that launch.

A lot of companies offered up carbon fins over the last few years. In some cases this was primarily to overcome the shortcomings of the method of attachment or inadequate plastic. There are some composite fins that combine a lightweight, cor-mat filler, fiberglass cloth and carbon to create a light, strong fin, with a variety of flex patterns.
Carbon has "Tech Appeal" but needs to be used carefully and sparingly so as not to overcorrect the flex shortcomings of other materials involved in the construction.

Fins in the past were cut out of panels of fiberglass laid up in many layers. A finished fin is in the range of .22 to .35 of an inch thick. Personally, I lean towards a thinner fin, as I believe they go through the water faster. As long as flex and foil are not compromised by going thinner, it is usually a good thing.

Panels are laid up usually with six-to eight-ounce cloth, and possibly some glass mat as filler. Think of the finished panel as something similar to plywood. The more layers, the finer the cloth, the more control you have over foiling detail, less resin (resin is rigid), more strength, and more control over the flex, and to a certain extent, a lighter fin. This is why in most cases I like four-ounce panels.

GLASS-ONS VS FIN SYSTEMS

How a glass-on fin is attached can have a lot of bearing on its performance. The amount of cloth used and where it is applied has an impact on the final product along with how the sander finishes it off. The sander as well as the overall foil and taper of the fin impact the leading and trailing edges.

Standard glass-on fins. Photo: Jeremiah Klein

I think when a fin is glassed on it creates a very subtle "vector" contour on the inside of the fin. Technique varies from glass shop to glass shop but usually a few cloth ovals are run up both sides of the fins when they are glassed on. If you were to run a straight edge across the inside of the finished fins, you would probably see a slight convex to concave change on the inner part of the fin.

Fin system box failure can be devastating and difficult to repair, especially on the road. Glass-ons, on the other hand, are usually not that difficult to reinforce or re-attach. A lot of pros simply feel that glass-ons add something, however difficult to articulate, to the board's performance.

There is an on-going dialogue about the effect of having rovings or a filet at the base of the fins. Many competitive surfers feel that the radius at the base of a glass on fin adds some intangible element of flow, or that the fins being glassed on creates a "oneness" in terms of how the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.

Personally, I think a lot is lost in the inability to fine-tune performance by changing out fins. Years ago, a visiting pro who was in town for a major tour event got a new board and could tell he really liked the hull but the fins weren't quite right. We cut those fins off and glassed them back on four different times in four days before he finally declared they were right...he did end up getting a good result in the contest.

If you really think the transition at the base makes a difference, run a bit of silicone or something similar along the base of the fin if you are worried about the feel of a transition curve. But the ability to change out fins based on conditions is invaluable.

WHAT WORKS FOR YOU

Fins for most people have always been an afterthought. Even a lot of experienced surfers trust their shapers to guide them. There are a lot of shapers that simply don't have the experience to give their customers a good overview. We do demo days from time-to-time and some of the fin companies will participate. These events are real eye openers for most of the people who show up but it's very difficult to reach many surfers this way.

Freddy P, putting his fins to the ultimate test. Photo: Jeremiah Klein

A surfboard may cost you $500 to $700. You may get fins included with the board. In most cases these will be molded plastic fins. They may be OK but chances are you can do better. A good set of glass or composite fins will be an extra $70 to $100 more.

Don't be afraid to try something new. Take a few sets of fins to the beach and switch out during a session. You can get many different feels running different fins on one hull. There is no better basis than actual experience.

Parts of the above blog are excepted from the Surfer's Journal vol. 15#6

Thanks to our friends at Surfline.com!

Boardworks announces a new Paddle Sport Division. "Stand Up Paddling has been among the bright spots at retail in a very tough market," said Boardworks' Bob Rief. Boardworks has "been there" since the beginning of the category with C4 Waterman, the "original SUP company" well known for its great products, world class watermen, website marketing and category leadership. We have watched SUP grow from a small "surf only" sport to one that encompasses the full spectrum of waterways around the world; surf to fitness, touring, rivers and lakes.

With C4 Waterman as the cornerstone, Boardworks has been dedicated to bringing the best and most innovative SUP products to market and providing retailers and consumers with the tools for success both on the retail floor and in the water.

With the newly created SUP Division, Boardworks continues its commitment to excellent products, outstanding service, support and is expanding its product line to include a collection of the best work from shapers and brands that are leaders in their categories. With that said, Boardworks is very proud to announce that Rusty has joined its family of shapers.

Rusty Preisendorfer and Boardworks' Mike Fox announce an agreement to manufacture and sell Rusty's SUP collection of boards. According to Fox, "This is a great day for us. We are flattered that Rusty has chosen us to introduce his collection of Stand Up Boards in our Thermal Epoxy Compression TEC construction. Our concept is to bring leading shapers and their brands into our Paddle Division, and I cannot think of a more notable or authentic brand than Rusty. We will have his SUP collection available at the January tradeshows and will be shipping to retail in early spring."

Rusty commented, "With 40 years of surfboard building and designing experience, the transition into building SUPs has been relatively easy and natural for me. I am an avid paddler and have been riding, designing, and building custom SUPs for several years, which has led to what I feel are some very user friendly and performance-oriented designs. I look forward to working with Boardworks...it will free me up to spend more time designing and testing while someone with a solid track record can help with manufacturing and distribution."

Boardworks Surf manufactures and distributes over 100 models of surfboards, SUPs, and paddle boards designed by some of the world's best shapers and brands including C4 Waterman, Rusty, Bill Stewart, Mike Hynson, Ben Aipa, Dewey Weber, Kane Garden and many others. Using our proprietary TEC (Thermal Epoxy Compression) construction Boardworks produces light and durable surfboards and SUPs with excellent flex and rebound characteristics for enhanced performance. Go to www.boardworkssurf.com to learn more.

Watch Taj Burrow pull off an inverted alley-oop in Indonesia and don't forget to enter Rusty's Punt of the Month...see below for details!

Enter Rusty's Punt of the Month Contest! We're giving away a pack of clothes that includes a Conquer tee, Wail jacket, King flannel, and a pair of Vocals denim!

Here's How to Enter:

-Check out Surfline's Punt of the Month to get some inspiration of what a true punt looks like.

-Go out and photograph your sickest punt or choose one you already have on your camera.

-Upload the photo to our site by clicking the "PUNT" link at the top of the homepage or by clicking here

At the end of September, our panel of aerial acrobatic experts will judge the entries, select the best photo, and determine the winner of the gear package. We will also display the winning punt for months to come on our site so the winner can bask in the glow of victory!

The prize pack will be given to the person who submits the photo.

If you upload a picture or pictures and thereby enter the contest you must grant a perpetual, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free right to duplicate, distribute and republish the submitted photo(s) to Rusty North America or else we will not consider your entry for the prize.

From Surfline.com

After last month's blog entry on tails sparked a lively debate and discussion in the comments area, we decided to pull a couple of the better ones out and have Rusty respond.

Here's one:
What? No Greenough? Kneeriders are responsible for the Shortboard Revolution. Cool article though.
--halfman

And based on the number of Campbell Brothers' fans commenting on Taylor Knox's blog, we knew this was coming:

Very nice history lesson. I know some things have to be left out -- can we say the word 'Bonzer'? Overall, a very nice treatment of the backend of our toys.
--Chuck Allison

Finally:

How come no mention of Simon Anderson? He was the pioneer of how a thruster could be the biggest revelation of all surfing.
--Kenny B

Turns out, the answers to these questions/comments become a little history lesson of their own. Read on....

More History:

In 1965, George Greenough builds a short, stubby kneeboard called the 'Velo.' He explains: "My first flexible spoon kneeboard started taking shape in 1965. I'd ridden the solid balsa spoon for three years, and I'd been using flexible fins for longer than that so I decided to make an entire board that flexed like my fin. Fish moved when they swam so why not make a whole board that moved when it rode waves?"

Kneeboarder/visionary George Greenough was one of the catalysts of the Shortboard Revolution. Photo: John Witzig

Greenough uses his Balsa Spoon as a mold to lay a fiberglass shell over it. Then he laminates some leftover foam cutoffs onto that shell and shapes a "spoon"-shaped nose. This was the first of his fiberglass Spoons.

Later, Greenough, Nat Young, and Bob McTavish collaborate in Australia to make 'Magic Sam'. Nat Young takes the board and wins the World Championship in 1966 in San Diego. So Greenough's kneeboards do actually spark the Shortboard Revolution -- but it takes several years for the impact to fully set in. (More info on this crazy time here.)

Nat Young winning the '66 World Champs on so-called "Magic Sam." Photo: Tom Keck

The next world contest in 1968 in Puerto Rico sees probably the most eclectic mix of design ever seen in a major comp: it's a wide and varied mix of longboards (getting shorter), mini-guns, and sub-9-foot wide-tail vee bottoms.

The next World Contest is in Johanna, Australia, 1970. Aussies are full on into sub-six-foot stubbies that closely resemble Greenough's wide, arc-tail, spoons in outline, length, and fin-shape. The boards worked fine in the clean groomed pointbreaks of Northern NSW and Queensland. But then again, just about anything does.

In the fairly sizeable, powerful beach/reef surf of Johanna, they struggle to keep their short, wide slabs in the water. Thing is, wider tails require deeper fins. The deeper the fin, the more frontal drag is incurred. Greenough's kneeboards are thin, penetrate the water easily, and everything loads and flexes as a unit -- he literally springs out of each turn, and he obviously has a leverage advantage being on his knees. A standup board requires more volume. Being thicker, they're harder to keep in the water. Also, flex is inversely proportional to thickness: energy and drive is compromised.

American Rolf Aurness wins convincingly on a more conventional 6'10".

What does all this have to do with tail shapes?

Fins, mainly. With the Shortboard Revolution, singlefins (and straighter tail rockers) arguably impacted tail widths and shapes. With shorter rail-lines, designers were searching for ways to build speed and drive back into the boards and still keep them from spinning out. Tail widths and shapes in the late '60s and up until the inception of the modern 3-fin were somewhat constrained by the limitations of a single fin.

With the Mirandons and Lis resurrecting interest in twin-fin boards, tail widths expanded. Also, in 1970 Hobie and Bing both marketed wide squaretail twin fins. These incorporated totally different approach with fins.

In 1970, the Campbell Bros build their first Bonzers. Their outlines and tails closely resemble the Australian stubbies. And they also were similar to the wide, squaretail, twins that Hobie and Bing were marketing at the time. Their unique, 3-fin setup keeps the board in the water and helps generate speed. This design more closely resembles Simon's modern tri-fin than the two-plus-one version that saw a brief window of popularity the following year, 1971.

In 1974, Australian Jim Pollard is credited with shaping the first deep-channel boards. Col Smith, Allan Byrne, Bill Caster, and many others embrace the design. The design evolves over the next few years. Popular for Indo-type guns, hollow, lined-up waves with clean faces, they also gained traction (no pun intended) in the shortboard venue. The extra hold and drive from the channels enables designers to pull out tail widths. Double wings provide natural exits for the channels as well as stepping down width. My favorite single-fins in the late '70s were all double-wing, deep channel bottoms. The bottom design segued into the 3-fin era with surfers like Tom Carroll and Gary Elkerton, and continues today in a small-but-passionate subset of surfers, mainly for powerful waves.

In 1981, the modern 3-fin changes everything. For hot-dog boards, wide squashtails take over. Simon's guns are swallowtails. He wins the '81 Pipe Masters on a 7'6" swallowtail. But squashtails maintain dominance for most small/med wave designs.

A lot of the early '80s guns were swallowtail 3-fins. By the mid-'80s, more roundtail 3-fin boards work their way into the mix, which offer an intoxicating blend of smoothness and drive. Elliptical or thumbtails maintain some volume in the last few inches (as opposed to a rounded pin) without creating excess curve (lack of drive) through the front-fin zone: a very smooth feeling tail shape with almost seamless continuity on rail transitions.

Big Simon Anderson is more than just the inventor of the thruster; he surfed damn well at Sunset, too. Photo: Dan Merkel

Side Story/Digression:

A little story about twins, tri fins and tails;

January 1981, I had just finished an epic mid day session at Blacks.

Low tide, hollow, 6- to 8-foot, lined-up but almost every wave makeable. Conditions were A+: high pressure, hot, no wind, textbook winter perfection. I'm starting the walk back to the road from North Peak, and I see Greg Mungall walking up the beach with Simon Anderson. I knew Greg. He was one of top competitive surfers of the day and was sponsored by Gary McNabb and Nectar Surfboards. Greg introduced me to Simon. Greg was on the twin-fin bus and usually rode a double wing roundpin on his twinnies. Most of the surfing world at this time -- including me -- rode what MR rode, a swallow-wing twin.

I knew Simon was a good surfer and was aware of some of his earlier tour victories ('77 Bells and Coke). He had the weirdest looking board I'd ever seen under his arm. Super-short for how big he was, probably an inch or two shorter than he was tall. Very narrow nose and a very wide squash tail. And three fins. I was tripping. We exchanged pleasantries and they both paddled out.

I took a seat in the sand. Greg got a wave first, dropped in, laid into what looked like a solid bottom turn and proceeded to spin out. Greg was a great surfer but his board was not the right tool for big Blacks. Simon dropped in on his first wave. It was a solid one. Depending on the swell angle and tide, rideable Blacks has many moods and ranges from peaky at times to a wave that is so fast, if you don't set your line as early as possible you get left behind in a heartbeat. This day is fairly lined-up and very hollow.

Simon dropped straight down the face and squared off, came straight back up the face of this hollow beast, almost past vertical and threw a mind bending gaff, drove down the face, squared off again, pulled in, came out and threw a few more big hooks to finish off. My jaw hit the sand. I sat there for two hours and watched some of the best surfing I'd ever seen. I'd been judging pro contests for a few years, including several Pipe Masters. I had seen good single-fin surfing. And I had seen good surfing on twin-fins. But this was something on an entirely different level. And it of course went on to change everything.

The Dwart was created to be the board for 90% of the waves you surf. Surf The Dwart in waves anywhere from 1 - 10 feet. Rusty and Surfline want to give you the chance to win one of the most progressive surfboards ever made!

How to Enter
-Simply go to the Rusty Surfline Dwart Giveaway landing page here
-Enter some contact info and you're good to go!

THE CONTEST IS NOW OVER WE WILL ANNOUNCE THE WINNER SHORTLY

Also, check out the video below of Nate Yeomans test driving The Dwart!