With sup boards I see is a huge advancement from the early days of giant boards but then the advancements slowed way down as board design stopped advancing while we come to realize the wall of
bulk... Sup surfing board bottoms are basically a conventional surfboard blown up with some modifications. Even thinned out, shortened sup board with whatever kind of rocker, outline, pinched rails whatever will be a big bulky thing in comparison to shortboards because we as stand up paddlers have to be able to stand on the thing. We will NEVER rip like a true shortboard because of the bulk, width issue.
That's OK though... Where WE
CAN take this sup thing will be plenty enough for happiness amongst the people who want to rip, tear and lacerate... (I love those MR words!) I feel we truely CAN Rip, Tear and Lacerate. BUT and this is a big BUT... IMO opinion you will never see it on a conventional surfboard type bottomed board. It's crystal clear the sup surfing World is in about the same performance place now as last year and the year before. Don't be afraid to say it... It's true... Best the shapers and designers recognize that now so we can advance designs to get better quicker... Same design place = same level of surfing... The surfing talent has already arrived...
Here's another important thing to point out... The average person doing SUP surfing will not EVER destroy a section, throw buckets of spray, pump in the barrel or rip the bag out of a wave. In this case, a flat bottom, more conventional type board is MORE THAN ENOUGH to put a huge smile on their face... What I'm talking about is pure performance advancements... So maybe people need to ask themselves this...
Do I even have the ability to do a true, radical turn, throw buckets and destroy sections if I had a board that is capable of it? If the answer is no then the conventional sup board is plenty awesome for them... Seriously... Most people don't even stand far enough back on the tail when they turn a sup board. If ALL the best shortboarders stand right on the tail on a 6' board then why would a sup board surfer try and turn a foot or more from the tail???? It always seems funny when people say a board doesn't turn well then you see them surf and realize it's not the board at all... They're standing to far forward... If you are not standing right on the tail you will never snap a huge, mind blowing turn! That's just a reality that people need to come to grips with...
With the Hull Rippers and similar designed boards things are gonna change in the High Performance area and more general purpose models can accomodate the average person but it won't make a person who never slammed into a lip all of a sudden become Ikaika Kalama or a Kai Lenny... What it will do is take the person who has the skill set to hit sections have an much easier time of it. Where we are already at now with the HR's is allowing us the quicker, snappier, tighter turns. The design allows us more speed along with the much quicker rail transitions... Not just speed. Speed is easy to come by... Other shapers will figure out variations of the "Raised Rail" theory and "Board within a Board" that we are doing. They will also start to realize the benefits...
Austin on a board with a planing bottom of 24" That's pretty narrow for a pretty big guy... Paddling stability of 29+ inches with surfing width of much less... His surfing has dramatically improved too...
Hull bottoms, beveled rails etc have been around for years and years. But always on surfboards or windsurfers. I've never seen them put together to work really well where it ever made a big design impact. Ben Aipa even went straight to a bevel rail with sup but didn't quite explore it fully to make an impact. The way we are designing them now with the blend of things and how they feel tells me we are heading in the right direction AND the fact that this concept fits well into sup board design because of the width issues. We are currently riding bottoms as narrow as 20" on some of our boards. Look at the photo's of me surfing and compare it to those of even a year ago... My surfing has improved in leaps and bounds. I'm 47 years old. My hey day is long gone but my surfing has become easily 10+ years younger within a matter of months on these boards... I'm so freakin stoked! If an old fart like me can rip a turn then what could the good guys do? Blow our minds that's what... Other shapers and designers need to get off what's old and start playing and thinking out of the box...
I could never consistently turn like this on a sup board until just months ago... Key word... CONSISTENT. The day before yesterday I was hitting turns way more quick and critical than these... One after another. These were shot on 1-27-11. One month later and I'm already looking at these pics thinking they look kinda weak... The board I'm riding now is allowing even more power and snap...
Regardless if the Hull Rippers or the concept becomes a popular thing or not doesn't really matter that much to me at this point... My level of surfing and where the designs are taking my surfing and others surfing matters to me most... Sure it would be nice to see financial benefit from it but I've been around long enough to see I'm never gonna get rich off this industry and especially the performance side of it... All I can hope for is we collectively push each others designs, performance levels etc and start surfing the way I know we can... I'll post more detail bottom stuff soon. Lets blow the f***in roof off this thing! Haha!! Aloha, BC
Oh, they come off the bottom is sweet too...
