I know there has been a lot of discussion on volume of boards but can anyone explain why a 2.4m modern board has the same volume as an old 2.7m or longer board. There a re several free ride boards that have high volume at a relatively short length and they are not that wide either, yet they have great flotation. Is it in the construction or what?
You have come to the right place, Seabreeze is at the forefront of the Experimental Board Volume Theory.
Modern boards have more surface area, the more surface area a board has the better it will float*
How they do this is when you move volume to the rails you increase the surface area and therefore the volume of the board, think about a canoe*
Also, boards were once upon a time measured in 'Old School Volume' and now they are measured in 'New School Volume'. Which is why new boards float better. It takes many years of meditation and an Onion on your belt before this concept can be fully understood. When exactly the switch happened between OSV and NSV is not known, but it was a bloody battle and many brave shapers lost an Onions from their belts.*
* I pieced this all together from reading Seabreeze.
Things have length width and thickness
So if the boards are shorter and the same width they must be ........
They don't have a big pointy nose anymore, which artificially inflated the length figure compared to the volume figure.
Also they're a bit wider now. But the pointy nose is the main thing I think.
Big fat boards float big fat blokes. Question answered as I get older the board will continue to widen.
Its not just the volume of a board that determines its bouyancy you also need to consider its density, ie mass= volume x density. Another factor is relative density of the water so the saltier the water the better it will float.
I had access to a rectangular tank a while ago and submerged a few boards in it to calculate volume by multiplying the length x breadth x rise in water level. The production boards were pretty close but a couple of custom boards were nowhere near what the manufacturer claimed. just something to consider
HHHmmm so to mix things up a bit , according to Starboard there is virtual volume as well. I think that's what we are talking about with wider board widths seeming to to have more float
You are all wrong old and new boards float the same..... The difference is the era in which they were floated, global warming = warmer oceans = warmer water = water has lower density = water more easily displaced = less floaty boards.
The water was cooler and moe dense in the 80s so boards floatier in in the past (although, arguably the onion may have had some influence)
When Dr Karl is asked why steel ships float he always says "If an object is lighter than the volume of water it displaces, then it floats" so a lighter board should float more readily as it has to displace less water to do so???
Fantastic responses (except the smartarse that thought I didnt understand volume=LxWxD). It seems that a few people out there might have been wondering about this. I have a new board that is as thick as my old board, a touch wider and heaps shorter but it is more buoyant. The comment about the core having more air is a good one. I guess a piece of styrofoam the same dimension as a piece of iron will float simply because it contains air. If this is the case then the new technology will float better since it is lighter (using lighter weight components). Volume is volume. My old board weighed much more yet has the same float as my new board which I can carry in one hand. Thanks for the responses. You have gotta love a sport that makes things easier as you get older!!!!
It's more a density thing...containing air doesn't sound as a reliable structure....
water has about 1kg/L density (salt water has a bit more weight than that), and styropore (EPS core) has 0,015kg/L ...this is why it floats... piece of iron is more dense than water this is why it doesn't float.
An avreage board has about 0,06kg/L density which is stil much less than water.
also you can try to imagine how much extra surface gains a 240cm and lets say 5cm wider board then your old one, which is about 30cm longer, has a pointy nose, which doesn't add much flotation benefits, because there isn't much weight added on the tip of the board and the rocker shape makes the nose high and thus it more or less points out of water... but on a 240cm board you get at least 190x5cm extra support all the time . surface area that gives you support is quite larger at new boards than the old ones...
then you have volume distribution...if the tail has more volume, you will get better flotation, because there is wher a great deal of weight is added on the board when you stand on it, so with thicker tail there is more resistance to sink and you can get planing earlier...
this is just my point of view.
- styro has a lot of voids containing air. That is why modern boards have breather screws
- styro has a lot of voids containing air. That is why modern boards have breather screws
