Soul of a Long Board

So I’m starting to think about the design for a long board. John brought a 9’6” Stewart long board on board the Mighty Centurion a couple of times this year. He also brought it out to Nationals for the first ever Nationally sanctioned longboard wakesurf event. The Stewart was so different from anything else I rode, well, I had to have a long board too. I also wanted to jump deeper in to the surfing culture. I wanted to build a traditional surf board from scratch. So, as noted in my Christmas came early post I bought a 9’2” and a 7’3” blank.

I’m still a relative surfing newb. I’d like to poll for some ideas for the long board design. I’d first like to have a long board, one that surfs reasonably well. I’d like to include nose riding features into the board. I didn’t research the blank to identify one with the most nose riding potential, I just bought a blank. Now I want to tune that blank as much as reasonably so the resulting board has the potential to nose ride.

I looked for nose rider information at Swaylocks and surfed the net. Here’s a short summary of what found:
1) Board length is generally 9 to 10 feet
2) Board width is anywhere from 18 to 22 inches
3) Rails might be 50/50 moving toward 60/40 at the rear – I don’t know what that means
4) The nose is generally blunt
5) There is some difference on nose design
..5a) Belly is loose but sets a good line and rides deep and holds a position in the wave
..5b) Concave might increase suction
..5c) A channel concave improves controllability
..5d) Thin is good and allows water to flow over top
..5e) These are mutually exclusive features
6) More nose rocker is needed for bigger waves
7) The mid-section of the board is generally straight
8) Tail kick helps develop counter balancing suction
9) A wide tail buries the nose a narrow tail lifts the nose
10) In the old days surfers put bricks on the tail to compensate for lack of suction
11) A concave channel or a complex concave might be found in high performance nose riders.
12) The competition nose riding record is about 25 seconds.

I measured the outside dimensions of the blank and still need to some how measure the dimensions of the rocker. It’s not clear what blank Fiberglass supply sent to me. The one I ordered was out of stock. I assume this is a US Blanks 9’3”Y. http://www.fiberglasssupply.com/pdf/US%20Blanks%20Catalog%20Pages/28-93Y.pdf

Here’s my sketch of the outline of the blank.


So here's the question, "what make a good nose rider and how would a wakesurfing nose rider differ from an ocean going nose rider."

Ed - I'm no noseriding pro by any means, but in most cases noserider-ish blanks typically have less rocker nose and tail.

What is usually referred to as a "performance" oriented longboard usually has more nose and tail rocker than a noserider.

In reference to your rail question (3) 60/40 rails means that about 60% of the rail is on the deck and 40% is on the bottom whereas 50/50 is half and half. I'm inserting a really bad drawing (in MS paint) to hopefully illustrate.



As for the aspects that make a good noserider differ from wakesurfing to ocean... can it fit in your board racks? haha! j/k.

i'm still trying to figure it out myself... as you mentioned there are a lot of differing opinions/designs out there on what works best.
for some inspiration make sure you look at the following:
cooperfish
infinity
con ugly
bing
walden

in general, i think you want a decent concave channel from the nose towards the middle, but opinions differ on how far back, how deep is the concave, abrupt or smooth transition (check out Jeff's thread on Jerry's noserider), etc. i also think a little tail kick would be good... i guess it is up to us to experiment and find out... i'll be working on mine soon - i'm actually going to go for a shorter length to see how it works (cause i don't want a 10ft board on my boat...)

I am NOT a longboard/noserider design expert. We really need to get Dennis involved in this discussion. Again, I'd encourage you to send Dennis a PM and I'll try to point him to this thread.

One thing that I have learned is that design features that work in the ocean, don't by and of themselves transfer well to behind the boat.

I commissed Jerry Price to develop a noserider for us for behind the boat. I think that you can use any longboard behind the boat, it's not all that thrilling, but it will work. Noseriding is a different animal and I think the design needs to be different.

There is a transition point when you are noseriding. The process, in brief, is:

1) you ride
2) stall
3) run to the nose
4) noseride
5) run back

Between steps 2 and 3 you have to commit. The tendency is to hesitate - sort of do a speed check. If you do, your noseride is over. As you move forward on the board it speeds up and you're in the back of the boat.

IMO, build for that transition. So...whatever you build in to slow the speed down up in the nose, you want it to start kicking in at this transition. You also, IMO, don't need a 9-10 foot board. The noserider we had was 8'6" and it was long. Again, as you hit that transition, you are covering WATER FAST! If you also have to cover a ton of mileage on the board to get to the nose and take advantage of control features, it won't be a useable design. I think that a sub 7 ft design is doable and probably optimum...however, that is a significant departure from traditional noserider design.

Lastly, once on the nose, you need some features on the rails that aide in "steering". There are some interesting rail designs that will allow you to steer the board from the nose. You need some way to keep the board trimmed into the wake. Our wakes curve OUTWARD, unlike in the ocean where the wave is typically running pretty straight - at least for the length of the board. There are some forces that are fighting you on those long'ish boards and you'll want a way to "turn" basically.

My 2 cents based upon our experience with a noserider and also Dennis' 10'2" infinity. I do hope that we can get some input from noseriding folks.

Dennis?

I've been looking at the Walden Compact Disc.



This looks like a super fun board. Maybe something like this around 7 feet with a teardrop concave in the nose and a standard fin box with side bites. We use the turbo tunnel fin on my McCoy Nugget. It is supposedly a good noseriding fin.

I almost bought a used Walden CD - it was gone before I pulled the trigger - I think you are on the right path. We also have a turbo tunnel and I am still up in the air on that. It does have some impact, but I can't give it a nod just yet.

Nice write up Jeff.

Matt, I also looked at the Walden CD -- I'm probably going to shape something similar to that and see how it works with the Turbo Tunnel as well.

I used to have one when I lived in CA - had it on a 9'0" performance longboard and it actually worked fairly OK - could definitely tell the difference when walking up to the nose. Without it my board would just pearl.

Was also thinking of designing a fin that has "wings" to better hold the back of the board to the wave...

Jeff - how much have you guys used the TTunnel?

Matt, what about the star fin Cheyne Horan used. It has wings. I'll look for a pic of it.

Hey Matt,

I think only 3 times in one day. We have that HUGE concave with the almost vertical stop in the nose to help slow the board down, so we don't want the nose too high...we were still messing with the wake and speed though so...we just haven't given it a good test yet.

Foiling a fin set would be a cool project.

i have all the waldens in a 6'10,7'6,7'8,9'0,9'4,9'6 compact disc,mini majic and the majic models..i love em all.i been riden a southpoint 10'6 tandem with some hotties..super tech!is all i have to say about nose riding behind the boat.my favorite now is the walden 7'8 i got some on clearance for under 500 brand new.same blue and white one.peace

There was a turbo fin on the Stewart that John brought to nationals. The Stewart didn't seem to nose ride especially well.

I don't see a concave tunnel on the Walden pictured above. I see a beveled edge and some feature about a foot back of the nose on the sides. Is it just me?

An adjustable star fin seems like it would be handy for tuning the negative lift needed to keep the tail down.

Why not put a small fin in the nose to aid steering. If you installed a fin box you could change the size of the fin maybe even the angle of the fin.

I've read about transition but I'm not sure what features define the transition. I think along the lines of a three stage wakeboard rocker. Suppose you have a nose, a flat spot and some tail kick. Defining where the flat spot is would define the transition point?

My take on the whole noseriding thing. Where to start? I agree with Jeff that the board doesn't need to be long as you have way to much board to cover to the nose and back. The nose will have to have a concave to slow it down it will need a fairly hard transition maybe half of what Jeff's board has. I think the nose should also have some thickness to give some float. As Jeff stated the board will need some control while perched on the nose or it will slide out. I think a Harbour channel nose would work well on the sides of the concave. The TT fin is a must to help hold the tail down. Maybe thin rails in back to allow water to wrap around the deck better.

Seems like a thin board should have more stringers.

I thought that concave bottom would add speed to a board. A wide channel at the nose followed by a narrow channel at the tail should provide lift at the tail. The volume of water at the nose gets channeled to narrow tail.

I might need to dial this project back a little. I barely know what I'm doing in the first place.

Hey Ed,
Yes the concave would add speed, if it went most of the way to the tail but we are stopping it in front of the mid point of the board. This in effect is a brake from slowing the water flow.

The design elements of a noserider are significantly different than what we ride most of the time. You really need to study it or have grown up with them like Dennis.

Ed, you talked about not seeing a concave in the Walden. So I lifted the description of the "original magic" it's the big board that all of the Magic series are patterened after:

"The Magic Model is designed with a concave nose flowing to the middle of the board that transitions into double concave hulls extending to the tail with a moderate “V”. Rails are hard in the rear and soften to the nose to maintain responsiveness in all conditions. Although the rails tend to be harder than most other longboards, the unique bottom curve and beveled rails keep them from catching like most other hard rail boards."

So you're right the last few inches of the bottom towards the rails are beveled, but in between is a concave at the nose.

Also, when I was talking about a transition, I wasn't referring to a componnent of the board, but where you COMMIT to running to the nose. When you nose ride you can move forward a bit and still keep the board trimmed - floating in the back of the pocket, but take one step forward and the board is RACING toward the boat. Leaning back doesn't offere enough adjustment, so you either take a step BACK, or move forward on the board to start taking advantage of the "braking" elements in the nose.

This is one of the most critical aspects of the design. TOO much braking and you can't ride the nose you drift out the back, not enough and you are in the back of the boat. I'd pick the brains of Billy (waterdog) who shapes ASC boards and Dennis who has noseriders in his blood

Jeff, thanks for the Magic info.

Ya, I kind of missed the boat when it came to growing up around surfing. It's really cool that in my late 40s I found surfing behind a boat. It's a real blast. I think most folks still look at wakesurfing as an oddity around here. Although I have an incredibly long leash, my wife doesn’t understand why you need more than one board. I have about a half dozen boards in my quiver, and I’ve made surf boards from a flat sheet of plywood, two cardboard surfboards, an ultra light balsa surfboard, and I have two blanks in the garage ready to shape well. That’s is a little off the norm around here. I might give off a little of the mad professor vibe too. It’s all fun.

There's a lot of intangible experience that I will never have. I can't drive down to my local surf shop and look at boards, I can't walk down the street and borrow my neighbor’s board, or I can’t swap boards at the beach. The cool thing about the web is that my community can include a bunch of west coast guys. We can get together and share the experience on line. There’s also a lot of good online surf text. I wasn’t spending a lot of time at Swaylock’s until recently.

As it is I'm having a lot of fun researching the sport. Building boards will help me understand just a little more.

Surfing on a small lake in southern Michigan around 1972.

So the leading characteristics are a V- Tail, nose and mid body concave and soft to hard rails. Conceptually I'm thinking about a design like this.


(Message edited by Bigshow on December 20, 2007)

Ed - I think you are on the right track with that design. I also think the rounded square or square tail will work best for our smallish wakes/waves.

Here's a design update. I've added a the rocker profile. The rocker profile includes a first step 1, quarter inch concave and a step 2, half inch concave. I'll plane the first step down, then the second, and then surform and sand the steps smooth - I think.

Hey Matt - i'm not familiar with the star fin you mentioned - definitely post up a pic if you can find one.

Ed - the picture above of the Magic - the concave goes from the nose to just before the tail. i had the opp to take one and put it on a rack yesterday and look at in depth - it would be like taking what you've pictured above and stretching the concave about to the the M starts on the Mild V. It is not that deep though, maybe 1/2 inch to 3/4"...

Cool, thanks for the info. It helps to get a little intel on broad that work well. I was planning a relatively shallow concave depth at 1/2 inch.

The star fin looks more like a 'T' or 'Y' to me. The idea must be that its a foil that generates downward force.