MyPaipoBoards Forums

I've played with tiny mini-paipos a few times through the last 10-15 years, generally looking for something to travel with unobtrusively and conveniently...stashable, packable boards. I've made a couple of wood and in 2014 got a mini bodyboard. They've all been rideable, and meet my basic criteria - but that basic criteria wasn't ever really performance orientated. In fact, I think the performance highlight of them all was ease in getting out through the surf and in catching waves, which was a noticeable improvement over basic bodysurfing. Riding waves...not so much.

My experience has been that everything has to revolve around the wrist-to elbow sections of both arms...and that all translates up through the upper arms and shoulders when riding a wave. I'm not sure the upper arms and shoulders are meant to absorb that kind of stress over a long term. Plus the rest of the body is still in the water, creating drag, and that all flows back to the wrist to elbow area. Hopefully the wing can raise you out enough to free the flow.

Nels

Hi Nels
Thanks you obviously understand the pros and cons of small boards, as I say my problem is as the wave jacks I instinctively want to move forward and cant connect my hip area to the tail , and the foil cant lock and washes out, I wonder what the minimum deck size is to get a good hip elbow lock ? because small has a lot going for it

It seems to go back to the ideas about getting your hips up out of the water, either through float or planing. I'd expect that would still hold true for a wing board too, jeez, maybe more so since you'd have more weight out of the water. Probably the thing to do would be work back and forth in some kind of increments until you learn what you learn.

Aloha brother, it's all good, I like how you shape your board, we had a guy name "King-Kai-Da"and his shape is similar to yours and all he wanted was speed. It's NEW and if you just want speed, then "speed it is". I'm 5'-11" @ 220lbs Kanaka and I shaped my own boards after learning many styles of Kahanalu (Bodysurfing) with handboards / kick board & Papa Paepo`o (paipo) boards. I'd tried many wood-shapes boards, even standing on a 52" spoon-shape that has no skegs but has to bottom-center contour. I now ride a 48"(H) x 21"(W) x 19"(tail) x 1/2" mahagany press wood, flat-bottom board. Hawaiian Scale 2'ft.-10'ft. surf my board is capable on drop's, long-rides, floaters, under-water take-off, power-rail slide, shore-breaks. When "PAU", send us some photo's in action...."PRONE - style, with your board> I'll call it "Jus'-Press".
Peace n Aloha

Aloha thanks for the complement. My main objective is speed and to ride as high as possible in the barrel that why my board rails are so [hard] ? sharp and need the horizontal fins to get purchase and drive on the vertical part off the wave face , mainly shore- break .I spend a lot of time in the water 100 barrel sessions are possible in smaller conditions and the crowds are away ,I don’t like the bigger shifty sessions were you only get one or two waves . I love the diversity of this forum.

Here is the latest mini horizontal fin board, this is the so called first customer board . I think he has buyer’s remorse and has never called back. I can always sell them as Christmas tree decorations . I think the Red faze is now over.
It is about 2in longer and the fin [ foil ] ? has more surface area . The idea is will the foil create less form drag than a conventional displacement hulled board at the same speed ?

Great craftsmanship! Those have got to be a "labor of love". How many man-hours do you have in just one? Beautiful work...

My design/performance question is "How high does the upper hull rise out of the water when the board rises up to plane on the foil?" And, is leg drag increased, decreased or about the same when the board rises up?

This is frustrating me , Haveing no video to show, in fact I have very little visual evidence of how my boards track on a wave ,because I am on the board. So I compare ride length to other types of boards riding the same break , strangely the most significant gains is its ability to ride over flats pots were other boards bog out short boarders try to pump through ,the wing board gilds over. And that with the Maine hull in the water not out the water, it has an amazing ability to link sections together. It rids over foam well , its amazing how it catches the shock wave in front of the foam ball. The only time it gets up on the wing plate is on steeper sections , as the wave jacks up it end up on one wing tip. To sum it up thies boards have a amazingly wide wave riding envelope , from slop to pitching shore break , and no chatter .Legs I pull up at speed and lower to brack and hang out the side to balance

Willing to ship? I am willing to buy one of ya.
Like you I go to the same reef breaks and would be able to report back.

Feedback from other riders would be invaluable , however these boards needs more than one session to master, at the top end of the speed range when the board is plaining on one wing tip .It needs a good grip and you need to relearn your lines. The value of our currency has collapsed recently, That last board cost plus labour would cost you 260 dollars. But all the materials will cost more from now on, the shipping cost will be through the roof, I will check,

Beautiful as ever,, I wish you weren't building them on the other side of the world,, I would buy one in a hearbeat. I've been thinking about building a convex wing because I'm interested to see how they would handle the vertical sections ( not that I see those much), unfortunately I don't currently have a shop that I can build out of, I hope that changes soon..

Thanks Dave, post some drawings, so we can see, That’s one big plus building short boards , you don’t need a lot of space to start building them

I plan on starting with basically a version of my foil turned up side down with no fins on the sides, I think I've taken a picture of it mocked up before I will look around for it.
My problem really isn't the space, it's the smell and the dust. My garage is attached to a common area in my condo so it limits what is possible there. But I just started a new job so hopefully I'll be able to afford to rent a little workshop somewhere close.

I think home builders should use epoxy, but dust is the biggest problem to me

Here is my next project. Card board models help me visualise the construction prose’s, I feel it’s better than drawing prototypes I get an all angle fell and prospective, this project will be a full size board . Body boarders would call it 40’’. The big difference is the bow wave splitter or you could call it a shock wave propagator.

Fitting the corrugated stringers, to the horizontal fin plate, I have tried to improve roll with the domed pin tail and the fin tips forward. It’s difficult to describe this rail type.

This is upside down ,it is felling strong.

Chrispi,

What sort of foam are you using? Looked pretty coarse celled.

Bob

It is Airex core foam, I found by laminating two or more sheets with 6 oz cloth I can press form the rocker, concaves etc into the foam using simple tools .That’s a 1m ruler

Chrispi,

I reckon you could just about glass that top section as is, without the hydrofoil, and have an interesting finless board.

Bob