Today for the most part when you go to a surf shop and look at the different boards in the racks you will see models. What people have come to expect is a certain surfboard shaped a certain way. It has a specific name and sometimes even specific color schemes.
If you have a certain model board you particularly like that has gotten well worn from use you can go buy another board of the same model and find it will surf pretty much like your last one.
It’s really pretty easy to replicate a certain shape via the various CNC shaping machines now days but to replicate a shape by hand is not that easy. It takes a lot of hand shaping for a guy to get to that repeat ability factor that so many surfers have come to expect.
Short boards have continued to evolve so that usually what is the hot item this year won’t be next year. Something will replace lasts years models and last years model may not be available anymore. But long board and alt board models once introduced may stay available for multiple years. Actually there are some long board models that have been around for decades.
I make a few boards that were first introduced in the mid sixties. Have they changed? Yes, though the right term would be evolved. These boards, or models, are still identifiable as the same board from the sixties but on close examination they are different. That’s a good thing. Small incremental changes in a design are what should happen over time to get the design to its optimum.
In the Sixties boards where going through rapid changes. Because surfing was advancing at a rapid pace the boards were going through changes continually. Even the models. You may see a certain model made in ’66 then see that same model made in ’67 and it may be noticeably different. Then of course that same model was not made at all from ’68 to ’82 and the ’82 make is different from the ’67 make. If you wanted the same exact board in the old days you may have gotten disappointed because your old board was not replicated well or the model went through some change.
Change was what happened in times past. Change is not what you see these days. Is the way we do things with surfboards today better than the way we did it in the past? Because models evolved in the past bad and now they don’t better?
Well you tell me… does riding a different surfboard, one that you will need to figure out better for your surfing? Does it help you advance? Or riding the same model over and over do that?
D.R.
3 comments:
Dennis,
I think its good to go and try different things from riding the same model over and over. No matter how good a board is, I feel there will be a point where you've done all you can with that board. Trying a different board(s) can do a few things, you might be able to incorporate something you like back into your previous board or it will make you appreciate the finer points of the previous board and accept it for what it is. You might find that going wider or narrower may either hamper or enhance performance, or going thicker helps with catching waves, etc. Whatever the case, I do think it's to your advantage to try different things but also have a model that you like to fall back on. Hope that makes sense.
Yes, your comment make perfect sense. And, I agree that working with different designs is advantages. Riding the same design continually can make your surfing stale. Changing things up can be a good thing even when you go back to riding a favorite model after riding something different.
Thanks for posting.
D.R.
Oh, by the way it was me, Derek from Hawaii with the comment...Aloha
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