The Beginning of Two Cobras

The round tailed hollow single fin is a board that's been on my schedule for a while. I love the feel of a big turn on the nine foot single fin, just not the feeling of terror when my 12 stone wooden longboard takes to the air above me, so I've settled on a nice performance six foot version for my next hollow board.

The preparation for this board began in the summer when the strips were cut, the board designed and ribs traced and cut out, but now that it's too cold and dark to get out into the shed it's time to begin construction of the Cobra in the comfort of my conservatory.

Incidentally, the name Cobra has come from the intended design of the board which will have two racing stripes down the top and bottom of the board in the style of the Shelby Cobra. The other Cobra referred to in the title is the model I picked up on sale in a model shop that was closing down. Seeing it looking lonely on the shelf it felt like too much of a premonition to not buy it.

I'll just have to see which Cobra comes out the best at the end of winter.

Long time no post

Well it's been a while since my last post but I haven't forgotten about it, two holidays, some great surf and too many things on the go put me into a spiral of not posting I've struggled to get out of but the motivation is here again! 

After a week of blasting around the Alps I took a trip to Colorado to visit the lovely Katie and incredibly just one month after returning home I've already finished sorting out the holiday snaps.

              Europe photos                         Colorado photos

Few More Paipo Snaps

Couple more pictures of my new bodyboards before I cover them in wax and put them into active service.

Same Same But Different - Development of my Bodyboard Concept

Been playing around with this design on three previous occasions now and it has come a long way from the first heavy, bulky version. This time around I wanted to finesse some of the finer details of the design so thought the best way would be to create two boards, both similar in design but with some slight differences to compare their effects. 

The outline for both is based on the original Little Patriot shape but for the green board I've pulled the tail in a little.

Concave's for both are pretty similar, though I went slightly deeper with the yellow board and I chamfered the rail down more as the intention is to ride this board finless only while I've added two fin plugs to the green board to give it the option of fins should it require more hold. 

The profiles are quite different but both are far more aggressive in rocker than previous Patriots which was a result of building my own blanks from a block of foam and pre-cutting some paulownia stringers to glue between them. They both have considerably less volume than previous models, I never found catching waves an issue before so these boards should feel a lot less corky. The addition of paulownia stringers means there's no reduction in strength and now feel considerably lighter.

The yellow board having more volume throughout as well as slightly more nose rocker and slightly less tail rocker. The green board has more volume removed from the tail and also a slight kick to it, the intention being that by keeping my weight back on steep take-offs I can keep the nose from pearling. Will be interesting to compare the two to see which approach proves more successful.

Tail shape is something I haven't played around with much so I've mixed it up a bit with a crescent tail and a diamond tail, the fin plugs an obvious addition to the green plugs with matching fins to follow when I have time to glass them.

They both share the same belly in the nose to allow easy entry into the wave, always seemed to be quite successful on my previous boards so felt no need to change for these.

Finally the rails; both are hard edged, similar to the Patriot 3, but both much thinner as a result of the boards having a lot less volume. The yellow board has slightly more angle cut into it but forgot to mix it up too much when I was shaping so the difference probably isn't so much to make a difference.

Well now the photos are done I guess the only thing left is to try them out. 

About time I made a decent attempt at an alaia

I can't imagine how anybody who has watched footage of alaia surfing could not want to have a go. Had a crack a couple of years back but it was not too successful. It wasn't the prettiest of boards, the concave was too shallow so it had absolutely no traction on the wave and it was too long. At least I had a target for what to achieve this time round!

The peanut alaia, as popularised by Rob Machado, isn't not the easiest to ride by all accounts but it is the prettiest in my opinion and as I've always been a big believer in style over substance, that was the shape I went for. 

The eagle eyed amongst you might have noticed that it looks like the board is made from planks that are too short and you would be right. Being that the longest strips of paulownia I had were 150cm long I had to biscuit joint them together, this was the one aspect of the last alaia that I was quite pleased with. By staggering the joints the board seems to stay strong, and test bends show that it doesn't seem to affect the flex to any degree.

Still got a bit of the graffiti bug which inspired the design and to protect the paint I've applied a couple of coats of varnish which has given it a glossy finish. Haven't had an opportunity to ride her yet but she looks an awful lot more manageable than the last one!