bigger wave board-part 2(fat b**tard wave sailing)

Hi Hooksey,

not finished yet. the shaper only just got back from his annual 2 month trip abroad windsurfing. i refined things further than those original sketches and produced a 3d model. did a couple of graphics options also. plus it's now a bonzer. total volume is 111lt in board cad so probably 103 lt once built. probably make it another 4-5mm thicker and bump the volume up to 109lt built.

so this is where it's at.





shaper got back 2 weeks ago, it's back on the table. with all the light wind for the last 4 months i'm looking at sailable wave sups also.

Just buy a exocet minitanker

Yes! Been a bit dismayed at the construction of some productions in the last few years...

@markaus,

yeah, it's a real problem. i can't help but feel it's market driven though. everyone just wants the lightest board on the rack.

@mat,

the freewave widow is fairly well resolved. it's a smaller version of my current board so the volume distribution and rocker has already seen several prototypes. i feel pretty comfortable that it will work well.

the quadfish is new so i've been going in circles a little in the design stage. best to sort it out on paper first though.

one of my mates i sail with about once a week has the 9'5 kona. he had the 10'5 prior to that and a kona surf before that. i think he liked the 10'5 the most as he could sail it in no wind, do old school freestyle and new school freestyle. i htink he said the 9'5 needed just a little more wind to get going. he's a walking advert for exocet to be honest. he does freetyle tricks and on flat water jumps it higher than most of us on shortboards. he's faster in a straight line than some of the guys on freeride kit. in the surf he's looping it and riding waves.

i probably should hit him up for a sail of the 9'5.....
edit* i think the 9'5 might also be a little slower it prob has a touch more rocker but that's a guess. also i've sailed a kona one before.

i tweaked the bonzer a bit further today. it's starting to get where i'd like it. i managed to get it down to 112mm thickness and still keep the volume.... i'm very happy about that. tweaked the nose shape/width a little also and modified the rocker so it's got less nose lift.

No need for a 115L board... get a 99 JP Single Thruster in combo with one of those new 5.8 Atlas sails... the Atlas rigs on a 400 mast... it feels like a 5.1 but with the power of a 6.2. No need to spend any money to test it out. Windsurf N Snow have both on demo to try out... just returned the 5.8 demo and picked up a none demo keeper.

Well... that's why I said "take a demo out for a spin and form your own opinion".

All I know is that most people that had a go on these where surprised in a positive way.

I am not saying you can sail that board in 5 knts when you weigh 100kg+ but you can definitely take it out if you have a consistent 10 knts that keep you moving... but as I said test it and form your own opinion.

agree with your comments cjw,

the uploaded version are work in progress and i am spending about a half hour each day tweaking things by pushing the volume around.

the whole project is still work in progress but the foam is being ordered so i need to finisah off the design for the cnc mill.

i am trying to keep the cad volume at 117lt so when it's built it will be around 109-110 lt. rails have been reduced so they are heading in the direction you've suggested. i've also reduced the width down to 65 wide and am currently working through the rail outline and rocker. if i can't get the rail flow to work (especially in the middle of the board) then i'll push it back up to 66cm wide.

i know the current trend with wave boards is to have 12-13cm thick with domed decks but i'm convinced i can get the rail down to 25mm on a board under 12cm in thickness.

this is where it's at currently and still tweaking.

Keep an eye out for the ExoWave 105ltr - super buoyant and great in the waves. Waz certainly seems to do well on it. If he knew how to use a computer he'd no doubt comment on it

fatties meet double skip lol!

We agreed on 10% of sale value, right?

Contact James Hooper via this website(hoops) or email nudesailboards@aapt.net.au or
website www.nudeboards.com.au
You will probably be able to buy a new sail with the price difference and great boards!

thought i'd post up my final design out of interests sake. feel free to critique!

this is the version i'm taking to the shaper for final input/tweaks prior to cnc blank machining.

i thought i'd take decrepits lead and document the entire process (shaper willing) with photos, descriptions etc, then testing. i'll start a new thread for all of that.

board is lightwind wave, thin with flat deck, even volume distribution to assist tacking and dredging, bonzer fin setup (quad/single convertible) for small to logo high east coast surf.

board dimensions are.

vol - 109lt finaished
length - 238
width - 65.7 @ 122.5
thickness - 11.5
tail ofo - 42.8
tail lift - 23mm
nose ofo - 46.8
nose lift - 175mm
mid rail - 25mm with 7mm tuck
tail rail - hard 5 mm
tail rail on image is ofo section which is about 18mm
middle v - 5 mm
tail v - 3.5 mm
tail is swallow, didn't model swallow cutout in software as it's problematic.

gut feel is shaper will advise to reduce nose width and tweak tail rocker further.

hi sideskirt,

i'm not sure if your dims are correct? 20mm nose rocker is not enough. a freestyle board is around 140mm a wave board is 170mm+. overall tail rocker for a wave board is 20-30mm but again the tangent point describes the flow. less than 20mm for freestyle/slalom

planing flats also make a board stiff. so 1m flat for a wavish board is way too long. a waveish board would be more around 350mm and a wave board no flat.

with tail kick, anything over 7mm creates too much drag, this comes down to the flow of the rocker from the tangent point to the max lift at the tail. rocker is about overall rocker and needs to be looked at as such.

i'd really suggest designing your board in boardcad or something similar. you can dramatically alter the volume of a board by how you flow the rails/rocker etc. experienced shapers can do it based on "experience". us mortals need to either build years worth of boards to understand it or use a 3d model program that gives instant feedback.

i find boardcad pretty handy as it overlays volume distribution curves both in plan and profile as well as rail flow lines so you can see exactly what's going on. board cad also fills in the gaps and provides a curve that you can control with grips.

what i don't like about boardcad is that it doesn't handle single concaves and swallow tails very well or cutouts.

from there you can print out templates for hotwire.

if you look at the board at the top of the page i did i'd say it's not something to copy. there are elements in that design that are incorrect. it was the first draft and has been heavily modified after talking with shapers, measuring my own boards and reasearching information from designers.

the first thing i was advised to do was ditch the flat for a wave board. my freestyle board (which i helped design) has a flat of 500mm and it's works extremely well but horses for courses. freestyle wave probably more like 350mm flat.

the other thing i was advised to do is talk in terms of overall rocker. so my example at the top of the page was not designed around the balance point or rocker apex. i have heard other people refer to this as the tangent point. without knowing the apex or tangent point of the rocker curve it's not possible to understand the overall curve relative to the overall tail lift or nose lift. for eg. 2 boards could have 20mm tail lift but completely different curves, 1 being medium rocker and the other being light rocker.

what dictates the curve amount is the position of the apex of the rocker along the length versus the rocker lift. it seems that shapers all use slightly different terminology to describe the same thing. moving it forward or backwards changes things dramatically.

so what i guess that means is it's impossible to fully understand the curve outcomes online on a forum.

anyways, on friday i am sitting down with my shaper mate (40 years experience)and a computer and i will be absorbing everything he will teach me beyond my current understanding.

should be fun.

ok, i found the boards review articel and had a read. i too thought something was not right as a 150cm flat is crazy. i then dug deeper to find out how boards come up with their figures.

what they do is turn the board upside down and place a straight edge on the board. they then measure the distance along the straight edge until the rocker is 2cm below the straight edge and they call this the flat distance. i understand that they use this to describe the amount of curve but it's retarded. because flat is flat. not slightly curved or nearly flat etc.

when a shaper puts flat into a board it is done after the rocker has been cut. so it is a flat section. my figures are taling about the flat section and it's length. the way boards measure a board that board may in fact have no flat at all.

then for tail rocker they measure the distance from the tail to the straight edge and come up with their figures of 7mm or whatever it is. this wont work on wave boards as there is no "flat" so how do they know when the straight edge is level or not.

from my experience any tail kick more than 7mm from the flat is too much and will cause drag. for a pure down the line wave board this is probably not an issue but on all other bards it's a problem.

so looking again at your board, i to usually place the apex of the rocker at the balance point or middle of the board. i also on freestyle boards put the wide point in the middle or 2cm forward of that. some boards have it further forward,

in short the further forward the earlier the planing but the less the board will plane through lulls. not taking into account ofo tail width and other volume distrbutions.

on your board your 200mm nose is too high for a freewave board. 140-150mm is the norm based on your ballance point. 20mm tail rocker is probably a little high also for your board based on your balance point in the middle. but that depends on how you distribute your rocker. also a flatter enty rocker aids early planing but reduces gybing ability.

from a rocker point of view i will have a much better understanding after friday.

i thought your rails sounded good also. one thing to note though is that when you shape the blank you need to drop your rails lower than the finished height because the construction of the laminate layers add height to the rails.

on freestyle boards i think hard rails at the rear are a must. in my opinion a freestyle wave board should have slightly lower rails than a freestyle board. like 5mm lower and about 2-3mm more overall rocker in the tail as well as a little bit more curve in the outline. bearing in mind that adding curve to the outline will effect the tracking and make the board feel looser as will reducing the flat in the rocker or adding more rocker in general.