Modern-ish twin?

VonMeister

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I don't find this to be true though. You aren't dumbing down one side of the board to improve the other. You're utilizing the qualities that give you advantages on each side of the board.
How many boards do you have to go through to find the two qualities you want on each side of the board? No two people are alike so if the reason for an asymmetrical board is to match the rail with the surfer than one size can't fit all.
 

Duffy LaCoronilla

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With board design, you want a board as symmetrical as possible. Water flow depends on it.
If you are facing forward with you feet parallel to the stringer. Boards don’t surf without a rider and rider input is different on each side of the board.

For a surfboard to work you need flow and lift in order for it to plane and turn.
Plus rider input, which is not symmetrical.

Is the answer to some subjective performance deficiency on one half of the surfboard...
It can be one answer.

...to make the better half worse?
I don’t accept the premise that that would be the case. Take my fish. The deep swallow works great for toe turns but not so great for heel turns. If I could cut off the swallow on the heel side and make it a round tail and nudge the fin forward a bit that would improve heel turns and would do Jack sh!t to my my toe turns because the heel side isn’t even in the water. I don’t how you ride surfboards but I ride them on one side or the other, not flat. Water flow goes across at an angle. Tail shape, bottom contours, fins and fin placement can all be optimized to the different mechanics of rider input depending on if you are heel weighted or toe weighted. To simply write that off as impossible is rather closed minded IMHO.

Again, I ride my fish with different keels for toe and heel and it works objectively better both frontside and backside.


That's what the asymmetrical design does. It arbitrarily takes performance away from one side to match the subjectively worse side.
It can, but not because the idea of asymmetrical design is bad. That happens because the shaper didn’t do it right. Shapers tend to make outlines, tails, rails asymmetrical but don’t really always consider bottom contours. They just do, say, single concave to flat out the tail basically ‘symmetrical’ relative to the stringer. This is usually a mistake. A friend of mine made an asym that if you just looked at it deck view you wouldn’t know it. The bottom contour, rocker and fin placement were different toe vs heel. The board fucking worked. He made about a dozen of them before he got it right.

This is all conjecture though because dynamically asymmetrical surfboards reduce performance on both sides.
Any board made wrong will suffer. Asyms are harder to make right. That doesn’t mean the concept of an asym board will automatically reduce performance.

You used snowboards as an example. I don't snowboard so I can't comment on snowboard design but can say that while there is some skillset crossover between snowboarding and surfing, there is nothing similar about how you would design the board for each, obviously. The mediums are radically different.
Riding an asym snowboard is what got me interested in the concept for surfboards in the same way that grappling got me interested in kick boxing. Two different things with one just sparking the idea to do the other. And snowboarding in powder, while not the same as surfing, there’s no other activity feels as close.

At the end of the days these are toys and you get enjoyment from riding different styles and shapes of surfboards and the experience and challenges each offers I'm sure there are asymmetrical surfboards that are an absolute blast to ride....but the claim that asymmetrical surfboards are a leap forward or a cure for some performance deficiency, WHICH IS THE CLAIM is absurd and stupid.
I never claimed they were a leap forward. I‘m just recognizing that they can be one perfectly valid way to make a surfboard and they can produce performance advantages.

People thought boards shorter than 7 feet long were stupid. People thought boards with three fins were stupid.

I think the reason asyms aren’t more ubiquitous is twofold...

1. They are very hard to make correctly.

2. They are stance dependent so OTR you just cut out half of your potential buyers.
 

VonMeister

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I think if you had the ability to shape your own boards you could keep going back to the drawing board and get something that fits you....but an asymmetrical board shaped to subjective dimensions is going to suffer from the same limitations you already see with a symmetrical board.


If there were any advantage to asymmetrical boards you would see them under the best in the world. These are guys that make a living by fractions of a point. They are going to use any equipment advantage they can get within the rules.
 
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Retropete

Phil Edwards status
Jan 20, 2006
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I think if you had the ability to shape your own boards you could keep going back to the drawing board and get something that fits you....but an asymmetrical board shaped to subjective dimensions is going to suffer from the same limitations you already see with a symmetrical board.


If there were any advantage to asymmetrical boards you would see them under the best in the world. These are guys that make a living by fractions of a point. They are going to use any equipment advantage they can get within the rules.
On your last sentence...maybe the judges awarding those points are the primary roadblock to riding alternative looking boards in competition not the boards.
 

johnson7

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Just out of curiosity who was the first pro to use a twin, quad, or unconventional shape post "momentum generation" in a heat? I know Dane Reynolds use the MTF in France in 09ish, did Wardo ever ride twins or quads in heats when he was on tour?
 

teeroi

Miki Dora status
Oct 21, 2007
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CJ used a quad to win a qs at Trestles. I remember reading a magazine article about it. Think it was shaped by Bill Johnson, Teqoph Surfboards.
 

johnson7

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CJ used a quad to win a qs at Trestles. I remember reading a magazine article about it. Think it was shaped by Bill Johnson, Teqoph Surfboards.
He used to shape for Rusty too, I remember I ordered a C5 from him a million years ago. I can't say the little canard fins did anything but fall out really well, but I think that was more FCS's fault, than board design.
 

Duffy LaCoronilla

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I think if you had the ability to shape your own boards you could keep going back to the drawing board and get something that fits you....but an asymmetrical board shaped to subjective dimensions is going to suffer from the same limitations you already see with a symmetrical board.


If there were any advantage to asymmetrical boards you would see them under the best in the world. These are guys that make a living by fractions of a point. They are going to use any equipment advantage they can get within the rules.
They make their living from how they visually fit a certain criteria and part of that visual (for pro contests) requires the asthmatic of a pointy nosed symmetrical board.

Kelly was ripping the **** out of his wizard sleeves but round nose - less points.

look at the surfing Dane Reynolds has done on asyms, Josh Kerr as well.

This paradigm of squash tail thrusters has come to the point where it’s stifling innovation.

Look at Bobby. Surfing better than ever riding quads. He’d never be doing that if he was still on tour.

Again, good asyms are hard to make. That doesn’t mean the concept is bad.

As for surfer/shaper sure. The asym that didn’t look like an asym was made by a surfer/shaper for himself.

It worked killer for me and a couple others that rode it as well as the maker.


 
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