Buying a longboard (yes me!!) will this work?

[JohnyOhio]

Beautiful looking board. Have fun!

[themathteacher]

Took it out to try again. It was about a foot overhead, walled and fast. A blast to catch waves, but I could not paddle into some slow rollers, even without the sidebites, although I was kind of far outside. Still, caught 3 waves, all with big faces and it held up fine. After catching a long one I went in and traded boards for the shortie, and caught another 3 waves.

Still, wrong conditions, gotta wait for a day with 1ft waves to see if I like this board.

However, it fits perfectly in my car!! The tail sits between the two front seats on the arm rest, very comfortably, which was one of the reasons to get it LOL

[Jimi]

so, I noticed you said it didn't paddle like a 10ft board. I just did a few sums using a formula for boat design. speed(kts)=the square root of (1.3 x length(ft)). This formula establishes the maximum displacement speed of a non planing hull... i.e. a surfboard whilst paddling.

so a 6ft board will do 2.8kts
8ft board 3.2kts
10ft board 3.6kts.

so an 8ft board paddles 14% faster than a 6ft,
a 10ft is 28% faster than 6ft and 12%faster than the 8ft.

this all assumes that you're able to paddle strongly enough to overcome most of the resistance of your body in the water. On a log, you should be mostly out of the water anyway, so comparison should be valid.

Obviously it is possible to paddle faster than these numbers, but the amount of energy needed increases exponentially... that's where the wave helps to give enough power to get the board planing.

Hope that made sense.

[themathteacher]

Got it, but you mentioned it's a formula for non-paning hulls. Don't surfboards plane?

[Jimi]

Indeed they do, but not until they exceed the 'hull speed' as mentioned above. Up to that point, the board and rider is floating at displacement. You can't generate (nor can anyone) enough power just using your arms to get a surfboard to plane (without the wave's assistance) so for the purposes of paddling speed, it's non-planing.

Once it's planing, a whole new equation comes into play, that relates to power/energy and weight/mass. The power in a surfboard will be determined by the steepness of the wave (i.e. gravitational acceleration) and the whole thing gets very complicated to figure out.

[themathteacher]

Gotcha, thanks!

[themathteacher]

Ok, so finally I got to take it side by sie with my other board. I took out the new 8ft board and my bud took out my 9 1/2 and we traded back and forth.

The 8ft does not paddle like my bigger board, much less in fact. Where they where almost the same was in the actual catching of waves, I was able to pick of waves way outside with both boards, they almost plane the same.

Funny, I bought it so I could fit a longboard in my car and it turns out I moved by the beach, thinking of selling it LOL

[dtc]

Does the 8ft turn easier? I guess usually the reason people go shorter.

[themathteacher]

Does the 8ft turn easier? I guess usually the reason people go shorter.

Yes, as expected. I think if I wanted better performance I would have gone thinner and longer, this was specifically made so it would fit in my car easier.