What designs next?!

[benjl]

Over the 4.5 months of sitting out of the water with my injury, i've just started to get back in to following the surf world and seems things have changed already in that short space of time!

When I was getting my custom made, the hypto krypto was still all the rage while the new tomo boards were starting to become more accepted.
I've now seen the Evo and more recently, the sci-phi which seems to be all the hype now. These new designs just keep popping out and getting more crazy, it feels like my custom is already a dated design despite being less than 6 months old.

I began reading an article on channel bottom surfboards yesterday with the re-birth of all these tomo boards and how they're making channels cool again.
Many older readers mentioned about how the channel basics have not changed and that Firewire have just found a way or re-marketing the old rather than re-inventing the wheel like a lot of people think.
It was fascinating and made me wish i'd asked for my custom to have channels.

I'm curious to know how many of you have tried these new tomo boards, channel bottoms or what you think the new trends will be??
What other old trends might come back?

I tried the tomo vader breifly and it was amazing on wally, clean waves. So much speed and hold.

[Big H]

I don't know about tomo boards, but I've been riding this throughout the season here....6'11x19 3/4"x2 7/8" gunther rohn swallowtail channel bottom....for the fast down the line waves here this board rocks.....lots of drive and with the length and volume handles big powerful stuff well.

I definitely think you should get more boards! Maybe wait to ride your new one first though....you were so stoked and barely go to know her.

[Big H]

FWIW.....most of the tomo vanguard riders I see in the lineups fight over scraps.....those boards might ride well but can't compete in paddle battles, esp. with "cheaters" like me who use something like the above to get in a bit earlier. Read a lot of glowing reviews about the EVO, save for the common complaint that they snap easy, relatively speaking.

[benjl]

That's a cool board man! Tight swallow tail, looks narrow as! From what I gather, channels really suit down the line, fast and clean surf so I imagine it would rock for Bali!

My new 5'9 would actually be a good base for a board with channels due to the rounded pin design and shorter / loser style of outline. I read that to make a board with channels you first make a board thats lose and then add in the channels as they provide grip and drive. Probably not great for our crappy beach break style of waves though.
If any of those tomo's come up near you Big H, you should definitely give one a try!

I would also love to hear from the older surfers what they think will come up next with surfing in design terms or what from the past will re-surfacel.

Even in my short space of surfing (under 3 years), i've seen the changes from :
- Epoxy technologies from basic flexlite to carbon rails, stringers, FST, vector nets etc etc
- more and more shift from pu to epoxy boards
- boards moving away from classic shortboard to '1 board quiver style'
- shorter, wider, boards
- resurgence of classic fish templates with hybrid twists
- rounded pins coming in fashion heavily (hypto krypto style of board now produced by basically all shaping brands)
- channels coming back, in combination with the above (shorter, wider, flatter) boards
- single fin hybrids coming back

Personally I think channels will keep getting more mainstream, especially as they experiment with different tail designs and ways to take all of the pro's of channels but minimise all of the cons. Then I think they'll either die down as the channels are too intricate for mainstream companies to manufacture high-end epoxy materials in to or technology will evolve with something new to suit the design. I know Firewire can't put FST in to their evo, sci-phi etc because the substrate is too hard to keep consistent with the channel intricacies etc.

[dtc]

Keep in mind that pretty much all of the design changes you have listed (other than materials) were all around from the 1980s and 5 years ago were being called 'retro designs'.

Just read an article right on point

http://www.coastalwatch.com/surfing/204 ... ard-design

So to think we are in a time of massive development is only partly true - we are in a time of more board designs but many of them are borrowing from the classics

My view is that CAD/machine shaping has made the cost of trying out a weird design so much less than the hand shaping days, so people are willing to try - some of them work and some don't. Information is now much more widely available and can plug into design choices - you can sit in Sydney and see what people are surfing in J bay or Trestles (in the older days that might involve having to read a magazine with only photos)

Also the average age of surfers is increasing - no longer is it a beach grommet activity given up by respectable adults. People keep surfing, learn late in life, it's become a middle class 'respectable' (or at least not disreputable) activity. Boards have changed to deal with bigger, heavier and less frequent surfers.

[benjl]

Nice post DTC and interesting article. My new custom is basically everything that article mentions (shorter, wider, volume forward, pulled in tail and requested bit of VEE to help it sit on rail).

I had another feel of it lastnight and it's so hard to look at it but not be able to surf it!
Funnily enough since I've had it made, i've seen several other mainstream companies that have boards with almost identical dims, volumes and ideas ie. superbrand pigdog, pyzel xxxxx stubby, dhd black diamond etc.

Maybe I should've been a surfboard designer

[waikikikichan]

I'm curious to know how many of you have tried these new tomo boards, channel bottoms or what you think the new trends will be?? What other old trends might come back?

Back in 2012, Daniel Thompson "Tomo" hand made 12 boards for the shop I worked at. Check it out here http://alohaki.jugem.jp/?eid=333 Customer laughed at them and Shapers were saying too weird and wouldn't work. Next thing you know people are copying his shapes and surfers are paying big bucks for non-hand shaped Tomo's.

As it go for the Hypto Krypto, it's all the "flavor of the month". Marketing and Planned Obsolescence.
Look at Apple releasing a new phone every year.
Honda used to release a new sportbike every 3 years, that's until Yamaha broke the trend and released a new R1 the following year.
If you have a old MTB in storage and want to get a new 7 speed shifter, you can't. And the new 9 speed is not compatible.
Manufacturers don't make money unless you keep buying their product over and over again.

[jaffa1949]

At one stage channels were just too challenging for run of the mill shapers to get right, they blamed the glassers who they said were likely to create sand throughs when they were working . Rock trumped channels, which tracked in the hands of unskilled riders.
A lot of channels were basically just steps in bottom of the longer boards no venturii, concaves have come and gone a number of fashion trends single to double " spiral concaves" exotic erotic twist and turns. Please appear on the beach with the latest fashion article under your arm!
Most of us are in the average to good range and a good basic board will meet all the requirements of the skill set for that kind of surfer.
The super board is a marketable holy grail, often with a rebellious name. Let's be honest the name could be "Sheep Merchantising" and it would sell after a few fashion articles.

Recommendation to counter this rant , find a really good shaper who you can yarn with and come up with your ideal board!

[dtc]

Wow, Tomo and George Greenough!

[Big H]

Back in 2012, Daniel Thompson "Tomo" hand made 12 boards for the shop I worked at. Check it out here http://alohaki.jugem.jp/?eid=333

Looks like it shares some similarities with the Gemini (more like his new Mutant design, Gemini without pontoons) up in the nose.

[oldmansurfer]

I like that nose, the concave will create lift when you are paddling into a wave and probably help to keep it from pearling. If it were me I would make it a little more rounded just for safety.

[icetime]

Back in 2012, Daniel Thompson "Tomo" hand made 12 boards for the shop I worked at. Check it out here http://alohaki.jugem.jp/?eid=333

Looks like it shares some similarities with the Gemini (more like his new Mutant design, Gemini without pontoons) up in the nose.

That's by far the weirdest board design I've seen yet, how does it handle in the water though?

[benjl]

I would love to give that Gemini a try!

Although with my latest set back it will be some time before I'm on the board again.

Have any of you ever shaped your own
Board?

[waikikikichan]

Have any of you ever shaped your own Board?

That questions comes up a lot, as for me I rather spend any free time getting better at surfing. People say there's a sense of pride riding something you made, but have any of you:
Welded up your own bike frame ?
Lathed your own bat ?
Cut out and pressed your own skateboard deck ? ( 2 x 4 with trucks taken off a roller skate doesn't count, Jaffa )

Funny thing though, is you don't need to be a good surfer to shape. I know some really good shapers that don't surf very well.

[benjl]

Considering im going to have about 6-8months until I can surf again I will have a lot of time on my hands haha.

Have always thought it would be cool to shape your own board but would hate for
It to be a dog after several months work and a bit of coin.
It would be sweet to make up a grovel board

[Big H]

Back in 2012, Daniel Thompson "Tomo" hand made 12 boards for the shop I worked at. Check it out here http://alohaki.jugem.jp/?eid=333

Looks like it shares some similarities with the Gemini (more like his new Mutant design, Gemini without pontoons) up in the nose.

That's by far the weirdest board design I've seen yet, how does it handle in the water though?

Ice...this is the original gemini that the toned down mutant was based off of.....

[oldmansurfer]

I shaped my own board once long ago. I did some designs I probably wouldn't do today but what I wanted was a board that could hang high on a steep wall and it was most definitely that. It was a 7 foot swalow tail single fin (glassed in) and the back one third of the board was essentially flat. This was in the days before leashes. I used to surf a break called Pokemoe and it broke right in front of a steep cliff with boulders at the bottom. This meant if you lost your board on the takeoff or a little more down the line it usually got washed up on the boulders unless you were quick or lucky. The wave was a right YAY!!!! and a steep tubing wave on good days. I started trying that board there because it was exactly the kind of waves I made it for. It was so awesome there but I broke off the nose and both ends of the swallows twice. When I first made it it looked so awesome all shiny and shapely and I was just buffing it out when a good friend came by to say high and he was so amazed I made a board. He asked me if he could handle it and proud father that I was I let him pick it up and he promptly dropped in on the edge of the cement slab lanai (porch) that I had been using as a shaping glassing shack. It made a huge ding all the was through 2 layers of glass in that area and an inch and a half deep. I was so upset. I never let him forget that....but now he probably has forgot it because he has dementia.