MyPaipoBoards Forums

The paddle out yesterday afternoon was a study in contrasts due to the Papagayo's upwelling winds... air in the low- to mid-90s and water that I guessed was in the mid-60s. Most of the visit has had water in the low- to mid-70s is my guess. Hard to tell when the air is so warm.

That is exactly what the doctor ordered about 3 days ago as I took a vicious pounding onto my board on my right side during the drop on an 8 foot wave down in Costa Rica. This poor boy is still rather tender on the right side, part of the back and tummy rib cage areas. Have been out a couple of time...

I am a long time wrist leash guy. Most of the bicep types are coiled which I simply don't care for -- one reason being they tend to run short in length which isn't too good in larger waves or powerful waves because they tend to recoil back to one's body or head -- not too good for a hard foam and fi...

I asked Thomas to work up rough volume estimates of my baseline Austin and the S&S Checkered RPM (thinner). The S&S seems so much thinner and like my "short board" compared to the Orange Matter (baseline Austin) and the RPM boards are my choice in tropical/more powerful surf now an...

Rod, I missed the question, sorry about that. The fin is 3 1/2" high and 3 1/8" long. These are used as twin fins. I would probably go a little shorter, but this is just me. A bit more bite than the shallow fins, but also some noticeable drag at times. I changed fins between surfs. I have...

bgreen wrote:
My latest 2 sets of fins made by Huie from Swaylocks. Haven't had them out in decent surf yet.

Bob

Bob, what are the dimensions of this red fin? That is something up my alley for my sidebites if it is around 2".

Terry "Moses" Newcomb and I have been paipo surfing in Costa Rica the past week. Have to say we are having a good time at the little cove I frequent every year. He brought two boards, 1) a Romanosky paipo which has a rather wide and thick nose pulling into a wide square tail and 2) the bas...

Trev, I have been doing some general patent gathering but most of it is stored away for now except for when they have been included in the Paipo Interviews. Keep 'em coming!

Looking nice. Many thanks for the thorough design discussion, Thomas.

Here is a link to Buzzy's obituary:
http://obits.staradvertiser.com/2012/03 ... ubuhl-iii/

An email I received today: Just a great opportunity to reminisce. My family also operated out of Hale AuAu. I was never nearly as good, connected, or inspired as Buzzy was at surfing. But he was a great person and I'm so glad that he was responsible from the grave for reminding me of such good times...

nomastomas wrote:<snip>
Has anyone tried a "Wave Grinder" fin on a belly?

Nope. Do they come in sizes other than... 10 inches (they look to be very long). I would love to try one in the 4 to 6 inch range.

nomastomas wrote:Too many ideas, not enough time to play with them...

You are right about that!

There are always so many trade offs in optimizing a design. It is good to have you on this forum discussing these issues, Thomas. In JW's case (all of us for that matter), experimenting with different fins can make a huge difference in performance behavior of the board. My 2" side bites are my ...

Good stuff you added here Uncle Grumpy.

I recall a while back -- maybe 3 or 4 years ago -- we had an active discussion on the forums about the various "Val's" in paipo surfing with some believing they were all one and the same. In all fairness it wasn't very clear at that point. We also had basic questions such as "where di...

Always good to ready a happy wave rider talk story about their boards (even unhappy riders since we learn from that experience as well).

I will be giving my new S&S Checkered RPM a first spin in Costa Rica next week

Matt Warshaw's book The Encyclopedia of Surfing claims Japanese fisherman were prone riding small belly boards as early as the 12th century. So it does! Warshaw uses the qualification of "evidence suggests..." but no reference to the evidence in the text of the entry. To be fair I have no...

Interesting. This postcard features one girl dressed in swimming attire and board similar to the 1903 figure with identical appearing background landscape and seascape.

Who knew that the Japanese were paipo boarding back in the early 1900s?

If your command of French is not good (such as me where it is nil):
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1903-Japanese-S ... 3cc2a39870

Bob Green passed along this message to me: You may already have heard but Buzzy Kneubuhl recently died. I read about it on the Ewa Beach thread on Swaylocks and checked with John Clark. Robert Moynier wrote: "It's a sad morning today as I just heard our good friend Buzzy has passed on. Apparent...