Here's a new vid from Blane talking about his new Hull-Ripper designs... Interesting stuff.

DJ

This is very interesting. A paradigm shift perhaps ?

Thanks DJ... This is an old vid from last year that they finally got around to putting online... Since this time we have really went crazy developing and testing hull bottom boards in all sizes for all types of uses... It's mainly evolved into 2 types. The paddle fast, thicker, surf models like the 10-6 in that video and the thinner, surf only performance models that vary from 7' up to 12' big wave guns.

Lately I been on performance Hull prototypes in the 9-2 range, thinned out for extreme ripping with an Asymmetrical tail. My personal surfing has improved dramatically in the last few months. Consistent solid rail surfing and bigger, super fast hits are much easier for my 47 yr old body... Haha!

I'm really working hard at getting these going in production so they can and will eventually be down under for our Aussie friends too... In the mean time, a few more shots... One things for sure... SUP surfing has never been more fun! Aloha, BC

Austin shreads,

Probably the SUPer I admire the most.

He doesnt hit the lip he removes it.

Smokin

Phill

B Chambers said...

Another vid of Austin having fun on a 9-3 Hull Ripper... You can see the level of his surfing has dramatically improved too... Now when we surf all we wanna do is spray each other... Ha! Aloha, BC

Hi Blane , I also have a 47 year old body and been surfing since i was ten, I own three PSH SUPS and every time i take them out i get the same stocke like it was my first surf/SUP on them. Love the rippers,love the bottom curves on them, nicely blended and balanced. So the ripper evolution continues, great stuff, we need a shake up! When will your 12'6" hybrids come into production, all I here are positive things, cant wait to get one ! Leon.

hilly said...

Makaha said...

husq2100 said...

as SUP surfing gets more popular I can see a bigger difference in board design appearing from Hawaii compared to Oz. Being that we have such different waves

Totally agree with the above after talking to a legend Australian shaper a while back he explain to me why the Hawaiian boards won't always be best for our conditions.

Mine seem to work ok here can you expand???

I have a JL Kwad that is a sick small wave board and a couple of PSH's that rip in the larger stuff. All come out of Oahu or Maui.

never been to nore surfed WA so cant comment on your conditions compared to the goldie and nrth NSW....but for our beachies short, low volume, low rails works best...your not riding runners or swell. Just suckie waves that stand up on shallow banks

im not anti PSH or pro one brand or custom V popout...

also becasue something is working doesnt make it best design....what sort of numbers of diferent designs have been tried in our conditions.

it will be interesting to see how these boards perform all around OZ

Makaha said...

husq2100 said...

as SUP surfing gets more popular I can see a bigger difference in board design appearing from Hawaii compared to Oz. Being that we have such different waves

Totally agree with the above after talking to a legend Australian shaper a while back he explain to me why the Hawaiian boards won't always be best for our conditions.

I hear what is being said but after what I have been surfing the last 4 weeks here on the Goldie , fat waves coming through onto a shallow bank I think this board would have been great. We all have been scratching on our take offs making us that touch late to pull through some sections.

I really like the narrow bottom line makes alot of sense for getting these beast on their rails. I'm over in HI in mid june so hopefully I can jump on one.

Been in this sport coming on 3 years now and just love the amount of R&D still being poured into it.

Piros said...

Makaha said...

husq2100 said...

as SUP surfing gets more popular I can see a bigger difference in board design appearing from Hawaii compared to Oz. Being that we have such different waves

Totally agree with the above after talking to a legend Australian shaper a while back he explain to me why the Hawaiian boards won't always be best for our conditions.

I hear what is being said but after what I have been surfing the last 4 weeks here on the Goldie , fat waves coming through onto a shallow bank I think this board would have been great. We all have been scratching on our take offs making us that touch late to pull through some sections.

I really like the narrow bottom line makes alot of sense for getting these beast on their rails. I'm over in HI in mid june so hopefully I can jump on one.

Been in this sport coming on 3 years now and just love the amount of R&D still being poured into it.

I totally agree on the exciting R&D in sup these days Piro! I only started riding the Hull Rippers a few months ago and cant believe the difference in my surfing. I am looking at waves and where I can go on them in whole new way. It feels like when I first started riding twin fins back the 70's and discovered the design could take me places I could never go on previous single fin shapes. In my experience and observation of others, I am consistently seeing every single one improve their surfing by a significant percentage from the level they previously surfed.

BTW-I am sure we can find something for you ride when you come here this summer!

Big Volume is not for short beach break waves... It's for those looong slow burger rollers. Our hulls that we are turning vertical etc are in the 3-1/4 to 4-1/2" type of thicknesses depending on what kind of weight the rider is, ability etc... The Hull Ripper itself is not a model... It is a bottom concept that is made into many models for various applications...

The pics of me turning hard are on boards of much less volume. (Those turns BTW I never could do on a consistent basis before) The truth is, flat bottom, low rail boards for ultra high performance surfing by the best guys is limited.

Just look at the best in the world surfing at their best... Is everyone satisfied with that??? I'm not... I don't look at them carving a turn and say WOW!! That's awesome!! I look at them and it just proves my point traditional surfboard design bottoms are holding the best performances back... Waaaaaaaaaaaay behind where I want it to be and know it can be... They've had more than enough time to push it and are showing us all the limitations of mainstream board designs... It's not their ability. The top guys are more than talented enough to rip at a much, much higher level. I have yet to see anyone rip on any brand board including mine the way I think we should be ripping by now. The level of small to medium wave surfing should be so much farther ahead by now.

The average person can have mega-fun for sure with a flat bottom low rail board. It's more than enough to have lots of fun on. I'm not talking about that. Where I want to take the high end of the performance spectrum is not possible on a flat bottom board with low rails... The problem is width not thickness. We already are going thin enough to blast but I still don't see anyone doing what I think is possible. Wide planing bottoms and tails equal less power and ability to throw it on rail quickly. Anyway... More on this later if you guys are interested... I won't ramble on about it if no one wants to hear it... Waves are calling and I'm losing valuable time sitting here typing!! Haha! Gotta go surf!! Aloha, BC

XXL hazza said...

Blane full respect to you as a board builder and surfer.

Ya not wrong a 47yr old throwing buckets half the "WORLD TOUR"
would like to do..

I agree... The World Tour has nothing to do with anything. I watch a lot the top guys surf off the tour in waves more "normal". That's what I'm talkin about... Giant windy waves are surfed hardly ever and even less by us mortals...

The board I'm riding now has doubles in it too. Good choice for speed. Speed is only part of the equation. It's actually fairly simple to make a board fly across a wave. Deep doubles definitely add to the ability to pump and generate even more speed. Flatter rocker, doubles all equal speed... Then what? Flying fast is all great till you need to gouge a devastating turn on rail and do it with control and power.

This is where width throws the monkey wrench into the mix... The ONLY reason sup boards are so wide is so we can stand and paddle on them. Mid width and tail width off the traditional bottoms regardless of concaves etc are the biggest drawbacks to higher performance surfing... There are a lot of people that are content with where performance is now. No problems with that... I personally want performance to go mental. I feel the top sup guys should be ripping the bag out of waves at a much higher level. It's not their ability. Those guys are really good surfers. There are incredible talented surfers doing sup now.

"How narrow do you think boards have to go before they hit the performance mark?"
What's Mick Fanning and Parko riding? We'll never get that narrow but this is the Holy Grail of performance in my eyes... I have come to grips that we will NEVER achieve these levels of performance but I am confident we can do a whole lot better than what's going on today... I don't know the answer to the question yet. An example of the board I'm riding is 28-3/4" wide with a planing bottom of 23". In essence I'm really cranking off of 23". We can get narrower no problem... How narrow? We'll see...

Tom Carroll and I have played around with other designs based on my Hull ripper concepts and other concepts he's brought to the table... In the end the best I ever seen him surf was easily on a hull ripper. One day he was freakin destroying sections... I just got a bunch cut for him with his concepts blended that are heading to Hawaii so I can scrub them out...

You can take Kai Lenny, Peyo, etc.. Heck I bet even Dogman (Goatman?)... Ask them are they satisfied where they are at with there surfing a sup? I'm willing to bet each and everyone of them want to get WAAAAAAYYY more radical... Way heavier, commited powerful turns... Way more gouging at speed with out the nose catching in steep sections etc... I just don't see how much farther you can take a traditional board design to achieve the level of shredding I'm thinking of... Sure we can make it better but it won't take us to where I wanna go with it...

This is all just my opinions... They are all toys in the end anyway... Let's play!! BC

CMC said...

Thanks for the insight into your designs Blane. Kind of amazing that you actually take the time to rap with guys on this forum.

I was talking with a friend the other day about surfing SUP and how so often you feel like especially in comparison to a short board you need to taper away from turns or think about how you will get back down before you go up kind of thing.

I for one am stoked that guys like yourself and local guys here also are playing with the factors to help SUP get to where it can be. The biggest hurdle as you say above is the fact that you need to stand on the thing to paddle.

If you have more to say about designs please share if you have the time, I know most guys here would be stoked to here them.

Totally agree CMC certainly makes the brand more real too (although I'm sure thats not why Blane posts) Just wish I could get a PSH 10'6 Gun in New Zealand

info@eastcoastpaddler.co.nz should get you onto to them. Apparently taking the Boardworks distribution over and looking to start importing some WAA and perhaps Rippers

Would love them to bring in some Hull/Rippers when available !

husq2100 said...

dont bring the world tour into it.............. it doesnt prove anything either way. Im yet to see footage of them surfing waves that are clean and not massive and/or totally wind effected.....wind is the bigest killer to SUP.

Did'nt want to bring the 'WORLD TOUR' into it, was just trying to say that at 47yrs he is ripping,they are serious turns he's doing
Good to see a surfer-shaper doing well not only in the bay but in the surf too..

Hi Blane, great to read some of your ideas regarding design etc. But is width the real enemy of rail to rail surfing? Alot of other designers are building tail V into their designs to initiate the turn so if we get down to, say 25" wide boards aren't we just riding wide longboards? I was talking SUP design with another seabreeze regular at Point Roadknight(what a give away) the other day and his take on design seems to be the opposite. He recons( and I tend to agree) that over 30" wide boards are not the problem. OK, so here's my 2 cents worth. The last 3 feet of rail has to be at the greatest angle to straight ahead as possible, so that means in the last 3 feet of rail, the board goes from a fairly parallel rail to a severe round pin....... with very full round rails everywhere. Does that make sense? Let the kicking begin!!!

log man said...

Hi Blane, great to read some of your ideas regarding design etc. But is width the real enemy of rail to rail surfing? Alot of other designers are building tail V into their designs to initiate the turn so if we get down to, say 25" wide boards aren't we just riding wide longboards?

I tend to agree logman, to a point. The narrower boards seem to definitely go over on a rail a lot easier but high volume rails on a standard bottom shape - no matter how narrow you go are hard to sink particularly at speed IMO. I learnt this from my 9'1" gun which was only 27" wide but had a lot of rail volume up near the centre of the board.

My latest short SUP is 27 3/4" with low volume rails but low volume narrow tail as well, and it goes onto a rail very easily (in fact it is low volume overall at 100 litres). Only had it up to 2 x overhead so far and never had a problem initiating a hard turn - limited only by my lack of balls sometimes

The other design factor that Dan has been playing with is the rocker line. The SUPs we have been playing with have a slightly more pronounced and continuous rocker which means they 'drive' through turns very easily (making turn initiation at high speed quite easy).

These sort of designs don't suit everyone as they require a more shortboard style of riding - ie constant turning.

I notice Kai Lenny was riding a very low volume fairly rockered 8 footer at Sunset (which I thought looked very surfable on the last day) and he was standing out in terms of ability to pocket surf IMO.

Differences in Waves between here and Hawaii? Which part of Oz are you talking about? Sydney on its day has waves to rival South West WA or Medium size Hawaii if ya go looking for em. A lot of the time however we ride powerless, short period wind swell like the videos shown on here lately. Qld/nth coast NSW have a huge variety as well - not to mention Vicco, Tas and SA. Anyone ever ridden the Eyre Peninsula? Bloody hell, it's mean.

Stoked like the others, to hear your comments on design Blane and it sounds like you are on to a major innovation that will eventually filter down to all of us.

Apologies in advance for my rant - but isn't that what 'discussion' forums are all about - and they're just big boys toys anyways