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Yes, Another one.
This board is the second of the KAGPS Duo and builds upon all my learning from the previous prototypes. The design brief was exactly the same as for the GPS64, a selfish design brief created solely to develop my ideal board, fast both in rough water and on the flat, quick to plane and easy to sail. A board that suits the type of sailing I love...going as fast as I can even in less than ideal water. In my mind the perfect board for the GPSTC.
So LeeD....it is designed on a computer, so as you consider CAD designers no more than trained Monkeys you probably should pop off to another thread rather than read my dribble.
This board shares the bottom shape with the 64, we have machined the bottom shim that it gets vacuumed down onto so it suits both boards. It is flat V in the tail constant angle to 500 off then the V spirals slightly the whole way to the nose, so has more V in the front. A subtle parallel concave starts at 400 off, is deepest just in front of the mast track and then washes out at the nose. It is the outline of this board that varies quite a lot from the 64 with this board geared for lighter winds and bigger sails. This board has it,s wide point further back and is proportionally wider in the tail, the 64 being more pin tailed.
These first images are my CAD work and graphics showing some of the evaluation tools I use to ensure really clean and fair surfaces.
James at Carbonart has again done a magnificent job at crafting this board. The blank was machined from my file and as I mentioned the board had been vacuumed down on to a machined bottom shim to ensure the designed bottom shape is maintained. The layup is the Carbon art Tech construction which is a mix of carbon and S glass and we have added an additional carbon stringer on the bottom to assist in preserving the rocker. It is finished in heavily sanded white 2 pack to reduce weight then the deck is painted in a fade with bright lemon yellow 2 pack. A superb piece of board building.
You can see that the bottom has a generous amount of V which helps smooth the rough water and the subtle concave which also helps to cushion the ride. The cutouts are reasonably large but not ridiculous and assist in reducing drag and enabling a very high top speed.
Unfortunately the wind let me down today to give it it,s maiden voyage...maybe tomorrow???
If you have any questions...fire away.
Thanks Martin
If it goes half as well as it looks it'll still be a winner, nice job again Martin.
Obviously not from a trained monkey!
Thanks Hoop, yep narrowed the nose a little from its predecessor and thinned it, all the volume is around the front straps. It should feel very stable and floaty sloggin but once planing light and agile. Come on wind stop teasing me.
amazing work !
I notice that surf boards are getting wider & shorter. This was explained to me that it helps them catch a wave quicker than a narrower board. Does the surf board design influence your designs? Do you try one shape and as you make changes then go onto the next after testing? Is the theory that the wide board gets onto plane fast & then once planning the wider part is out of the water & the narrow tail reduces drag = speed? Apologies for questions, but I'm fascinated by the process! Nigel
Hi Blazing...... I know bugger all about surfboards so no they do not influence my designs.
There are a number of things that contribute to a boards ability to plane early...yes width is one of them. In theory a wider "high aspect" planing surface will generate more lift and plane earlier than a longer, narrower planing surface.
My process....well really I just do it!!!! I create a brief outlining what I am trying to achieve, what type of board I want. I draw on my experience of having ridden lots of boards, observe what works for me and what doesn't, do research, talk s..t with like minded people then get on with it. Then try it and figure out what was good and what could be better then strive to improve it. That,s about it, no mystery just lots of work.
Good stuff.
And surfboard design has very little to do with windsurfing, even wave sailing.
Windsurfing design is an art onto itself, and experience, and many many prototypes, are needed for any new design change.
Slalom and go fast is a new world, and one that has the most changes coming up.
Keep those prototypes coming.
The CAD didn't design the board. A human punched in the numbers, how it flows together, the concaves where and how much, and all CAD did was to transfer it into computer space and spit out the result. The result allowed the human to LOOK at what is the projected finished product.
Nothing EXPERIENCE as a shaper cannot give you.
And did you consider the RRD idea of decreasing board width in front of the wide point, to lower the incidence of lift occuring from higher board speeds and overpowering winds?
How about Exocet's idea of straighter lines being faster, like all Formula boards, with straighter cutouts part of the equation? Every Formula board now has parallel outline with straight cutouts, not that they are directly applicable to speed/slalom boards.
How about the truly hard rail? All down, no tuck from widepoint back thru the tail? It's definetly faster, as HyperTech and Delta Speed proved, although it can be clumsy to jibe in rough water and confused chop.
Sharply decreasing foam, surface area, in front of the mast track would speed up board response to incoming chop, less resistance, more speed. No real need for high volume noses for tacking.
Current fad is lowered mast track deck, to lower center of effort, to keep the board in line at speed. Can you place the mast track on the bottom of the board?
Can a computer consider some of the design questions? Or maybe a human is needed? Or is your idea of "design" the color of the board?
Sorry, just kidding that last one, I know you design and build some really cool boards, but so did lots of shapers BEFORE the advent of CAD.
Further... if you want fast.
Mike Zaicheck, you've heard of Mike's Lab, used to make a few customs for the Pritchards. A few of the boards were special "faster" designs, with hard down rails from tail to just past widepoint, but slightly less (sharper) than 90 degrees and slab sided, no convex leading to the deck. It forced a shape into a blocky looking rail, and flat looking deck, so was not normally accepted at the time, late '90's. Not convex sided like HiPerTecks, but flat slab sided.
They were by far, the fastest slalom/speed boards around, were slightly touchy to jibe in rough water, but for sheer speed, upwind speed, and least wetted surface downwind speed, they were well ahead of their time, and nothing close has been used widely since those blue "AHD" specials were made, all 2 of them, one I owned.
I'm not sure Matt remembered those two boards, one a 9' x 22, the other longer and wider so I was not interested in it. But you can contact him at Pritchard Windsurfing in Maui and ask if he remembered those boards and how fast WERE they in reality. The 9'er was ridden twice my Mike Z, a few times by Linda Moroz, and I bought it off her. Not sure if Matt rode the smaller one.
Whats your point Lee. I have said it and I will say it again CAD is a design TOOL.
Where does a hand shaper start??? A sketch?, a set of figures? drawings then templates? The shaper does not just grab a hunk of foam and go for it, there is a plan and a design done first or at least there should be. I am doing exactly the same thing but using a computer to do it, it's just a tool.
If you look at the very first image that shows the wire frame model of the board you will clearly see that it is not a bunch of punched in numbers but a series of curves that I have created. Exactly like lofting the curves of a board manually using french curves and splines, its just done electronically instead of on paper.
Advantages....way easier to edit, I can scale it, warp it and use multiple tools to change the shape quickly and accurately. It is symmetrical. I have an oodle of evaluation tools to measure how smooth and fair the shape is. I can accurately measure the volume and I can compare the shape to previous boards by overlaying them..... and the list goes on. Once the design is done then depending on who builds it I can print plan views and sections to hand make templates, I can laser cut templates or the file can be used to CNC foam, it's up to the builder/shaper to decide how they want to do it but with the CAD file I can support any method.
I just don't get your point and objection to CAD being part of the process if the designer so chooses, you appear really threatened by the idea of designing things on computers. I am not young and have been a professional designer in the Marine and Auto industries for 35 years. When I started everything was sketched and drafted manually on paper. I have lived the transition to computer AIDED design. Frankly at first like most creative designers at the time there was a degree of scepticism, now there would not be an Industrial designer that has not embraced the power and creative opportunities that computers have opened up to them in some form or another. End of sermon.
Now back to the designs themselves. Yes I have considered lots of things when I designed them and will continue to consider lots of things on the next one and the next one. These boards are working great to the design brief I wrote... they are fast, easy, accessible boards. Could they be better, well I am sure, couldn't anything??? so I will continue to fuel my board design obsession as long as I can.
And if you doubt the power of these tools to assist your creativity maybe take a peek at this.
www.carbodydesign.com/2013/10/autodesk-releases-automotive-design-showreel/
Great design and finished product. Congratulations all round on your skills and commitment to the craft.
Evolution!
Every shaper, when he starts his first prototype, knows it will need further refinement AFTER IT HITS THE WATER.
You shape one, you test it in the water, you bring it back to the shaping/design room, and you place it aside, new blank on the shaping stands.
THAT is how evolution takes place, most needing several to a handful to dozens of prototypes before the new final shape is adopted.
If you shaped a prototype, tested it on the water, brought it back to the shop, you already have an idea of what changes are needed.
Sitting the prototype on the wall behind the new blank, you shape that new board with the changes in mind.
So, why the CAD? You can LOOK at the old prototype, correct the mistakes or make the changes, on the new blank. How many times have you heard Sebastian Wentzel, Roberto Ricci, or any shaper say they had to make countless.....5-20 different prototypes, before the final edition was approved?
They can use CAD all they want, but they STILL have to shape a working prototype that passes all the requirements.
Cad gives them a chance to share their changes with other's in another country, but the actual prototype still has to be shaped.
Hey Mr Love...these look like great boards..is there a business plan to sell them through KA anybody time soon as standard model, if so any guides on prices.. The designs are great tick a lot of boxes for a large group of weekend blasters I'm sure, colours look great also.
If I had a wish list on these , I would recess the fin bolt heads, into the board like all the big brands, bolt heads on the deck are bad news alway end up with a sharp screw head and there's always that one time when you least expect it where you kick it, ends up a bloody mess.....get starboard Atom pads on the board (or similar) they are really really good, nice and thick firm not too spongy, tapered and angled to fit your feet. My personal hate is a board with thin crap pads, for the extra few hundred grams of weight you can increase sailor comfort and therefor board control massively with nice pads, they are like little suspension kits for your body!
Keep up the good work on them, don't worry about CAD you don't need it..just write down the details on the back of your lunch bag then reproduce 100's of clones of yourself so you shape/make them in larger volume all over the world...much better than CAD...don't waste time using CAD or an 3D inventor type programs to list and order the correct specifcation and amount of materials required, just get tonnes of stuff you need and wing it..it's all cheap...accurate drawings and specifications on computer --ppffttt who needs that.. HB pencil and some tracing paper is all you need! 
mr love said..
" fast both in rough water and on the flat "
Looks good Mr Love, along with the Severne Fox, you're the only designer highlighting that design aspect. But surely you're going to have to compromise on the design of a dedicated flat water speedster?
It's all a mystery to me. Why are some slalom boards so sketchy in chop and others passable?
Sometimes I've thought it's all in the footstrap design and placement? Some slalom boards have boxy sharp rails a long way forward. That must help with early planing, but does it make them sketchy in chop? Once planing maybe not so important to have bitey rails all the way forward. Once planing in chop maybe the manoeuvrability to milk the most out of the chop is what you need to stay on the plane.
Why are the wide tails on slalom boards usually boxy. This makes slowish gybes in swell a challenge. Could you combine the wide tail of a slalom board with the low rails of a free ride board? How come designers keep all this a secret?
Laurie,
Please bring back the red thumb for this topic because sometimes only a red thumb will do the job
Hi Ian, I don't really want to comment on other brands slalom board designs other than say that I am not sure Hoop with the Fox and I are the only ones thinking about going fast in rough water... Chris' Mistral designs are pretty bloody quick and easy in the rough stuff and I am sure there are lots of boards I have never ridden that are nice and swift in messy water as well.
I am just concentrating on my ideal board for the type of sailing I like and I am pretty confident that there would be quite a few other people out there that would like them as well.
Jonesy....Carbonart is in a position to build more of these boards for us, set up to do so. Peter will get something on the KA website soonish.
Nothing wrong with an HB pencil and tracing paper, some of my best ideas are doodled on the inside of the shower screen in the mornings.
I don't have an issue with LeeD expressing his point of view...I would probably be a bit less frustrated if I actually knew what point he is trying to make other than "CAD sucks" but hey it's a diverse world we live in. I put myself out there by posting these design threads, do it mainly to fuel my enormous ego but also think their might be a few like minded people who are interested in them. If you put yourself out there then you have to accept the critics I guess.
Hi LeeD, you seem a little confused about the use of CAD in the board development process. For me it's pretty simple, a good board is a good board. It doesn't matter whether it's been shaped by a human or shaped by a machine. The shape is the shape. The development and improvement process is entirely separate.
I'm with Mr Love on this one, I'm not sure what your point is
