bodyboard shape evolution

[krusher74]

Saw this interesting article on influential boardboard designs.

Interesting to see how the wide point started out way back, then moved to way forward and for most boards is now a little forward of centre.

no fins, then some fins, then back to no fins.

http://www.riptidemag.com.au/news/3256- ... -the-sport

[SJB]

Interesting trip down memory lane Krusher. I was 25 when the first Morey came out....and had forgotten that it was wider at the bottom of the board.
Today my go to board is a TPG2 which is also wider at the bottom of the board. I will leave it to Nomas to discuss his thinking on this design.
To quote TS Elliot....
"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time."
Go Thomas.

[Nels]

That was a fun one. Reminds me of a lot of bygone times, and also that I need to clean up the garage.

Widepoint mid-to back for prone, forward for drop knee...jeez...that's how I vaguely recall that issue. Don't recall for certain. Never drop-kneed - one of the great mysteries for me is the appeal of that.

Fins as they have been applied to bodyboards so far - regressive. Same with stinger rails, IMO, but that's me.

Before slick skins and rail stiffeners and stringers the boogies were very flexible, more and more as they "broke in". They were the closest thing to a modern air mat you could find, not that most anybody had tried a modern air mat then (including me- discovered that later). Massively different from stiffer boards.

I've spent a fair bit of time over the last few years thinking about the bodyboard...and this article really illustrates a couple of things. There have been improvements...but mostly in materials. Take away materials and deck features and you have slight variation in outline, tail configuration, and channels. Almost like the basic design came out 75% realized from inception, which should be mind-boggling, really. I've railed a bit in the past about lack of change in BB design but eventually realized that maybe there are some limits and that it started really advanced for what it is, and that I should just shut up and ride when that's the call.

Nels

[krusher74]

That was a fun one. Reminds me of a lot of bygone times, and also that I need to clean up the garage.

Widepoint mid-to back for prone, forward for drop knee...jeez...that's how I vaguely recall that issue. Don't recall for certain. Never drop-kneed - one of the great mysteries for me is the appeal of that.

Nels

your recall has it flipped 180. The DK boards these days have the wide point rear of centre and the prone forward of centre.

I see this as: prone you have you weight forward of centre and drive though the elbow and pivot around that point, DK you and riding on the tail and pivot around your torso which would be back from centre.

I have discussed this with thomas in the past. and I think with fins back there it it make sense to have the wide point back towards the fins. I remembering him having a better explanation than that though.

On a board 42" long there isnt that much room for shape variation so I think they soon when though all combo ad found what worked best. I take the template for my paipos from my fav bodyboard and they both turn the same.

[Nels]

With such a short distance, roughly 42 inches give or take (and I presume differences in length corresponding to surfer height make this universal really), we're talking mere inches to find a good balance/crux point. While elbow areas are key, it still seems to me our "bulk" in a few inches "south" of that plus there's a need to account for legs dangling off the back. Or not! I used to just boggle my mind on that stuff, but then video shows the bodyboards can do some really amazing stuff...somewhat dependent on the rider and wave. Maybe designers and shapers have gone through all the minute details...it would be nice to hear about it from them some time, but the bodyboarding world never succeeded in getting much of a culture off the ground, and the internet is pretty vast.

Since a lot of our ages skew higher in paipoworld, this might sound familiar to some: I came from bodysurfing and as a kid prone riding into standup surfing during the shortboard revolution, living in Ventura County, California, between L.A. and Santa Barbara (think Malibu and Rincon for reference). Who knew? That was an exciting time, and it stayed exciting into the thruster age. Tom Morey may have invented the bodyboard in 1971, but he was still selling kits in 1977. I have a photocopy of a great interview he did with Sports Illustrated in 1981 and he pretty much still felt the future was in those materials even then a few years after selling the boogie to Kransco. I expected to see more design innovations...but didn't outwardly see much when compared to the short surfboard evolutions. In retrospect I think most riders hadn't fully explored the limits of the equipment of the day. Perhaps there are still surprises to be discovered.

Alas, the world changes around us...how much of our exploration of hard prone craft is in response to outside factors? Crowds, injury, wear and tear, changing attitudes (our own and those of others)?

Nels

[rodndtube]

Vektor Systems has been doing some interesting things in boogie board design and use of fins (skegs).
https://www.facebook.com/vektorsystems

[krusher74]

With such a short distance, roughly 42 inches give or take (and I presume differences in length corresponding to surfer height make this universal really), we're talking mere inches to find a good balance/crux point. While elbow areas are key, it still seems to me our "bulk" in a few inches "south" of that plus there's a need to account for legs dangling off the back. Or not! I used to just boggle my mind on that stuff, but then video shows the bodyboards can do some really amazing stuff...somewhat dependent on the rider and wave. Maybe designers and shapers have gone through all the minute details...it would be nice to hear about it from them some time, but the bodyboarding world never succeeded in getting much of a culture off the ground, and the internet is pretty vast.

Since a lot of our ages skew higher in paipoworld, this might sound familiar to some: I came from bodysurfing and as a kid prone riding into standup surfing during the shortboard revolution, living in Ventura County, California, between L.A. and Santa Barbara (think Malibu and Rincon for reference). Who knew? That was an exciting time, and it stayed exciting into the thruster age. Tom Morey may have invented the bodyboard in 1971, but he was still selling kits in 1977. I have a photocopy of a great interview he did with Sports Illustrated in 1981 and he pretty much still felt the future was in those materials even then a few years after selling the boogie to Kransco. I expected to see more design innovations...but didn't outwardly see much when compared to the short surfboard evolutions. In retrospect I think most riders hadn't fully explored the limits of the equipment of the day. Perhaps there are still surprises to be discovered.

Alas, the world changes around us...how much of our exploration of hard prone craft is in response to outside factors? Crowds, injury, wear and tear, changing attitudes (our own and those of others)?

Nels

Over the years I found very few other bodyboarders who were interested in board design, the only think most seem interested in is flex (and the industry drive that) I was my interest in design that got me in to foam and fibre glass paipo as, as the vision i had was not really an option as a custom bodyboard. I do sometime want to try out as close as possible to my paipo a bodyboard as toobz could get me close, but i feel it would be just a $200 exercise to find it it was still way slower that my paipo.

[OG-AZN]

I didn't know the original Morey Boogie had the wide point at the tail. I recall the 13x BE branded mass production boards had the wide point at the nose. There was a 1980's Scott Hawaii board called the X-15 that also had a narrow nose and wide point near its square tail. Kinda similar to the shapes Nomastomas is doing. My friends and I shared a X-15 when we were kids. It was fast, but super thick and stiff. I found it good for kneeriding, but not so good for prone tricks. My friend who was bigger and taller had the best luck with it because he rode prone, paipo style and was only concerned about barrels and going fast. Funny that the last Bodypo I shaped came out very similar to the original Boogie and X15. The Bodypo shape was dictated primarily by the constraints of the narrow blank, but the board works great and I've been having a lot of fun with it.

Originally, DK riders preferred the wide nose boards. Take a look at the Northshore board in the article. Jack Lindholm was behind the design. It was later that Dk'ers started going for narrow nose boards. The Northshore was a great board despite not having a slick bottom. I had one second hand and it still outlasted some of the early Mach 7's my friends had. I wonder if the early durability issues they had with bodyboards is partly responsible for the lack of design develpment. It took awhile to overcome that. It probably wasn't until the early 90's that you could be reasonably confident that your new board was going to last for at least a few months. Up to that time, you always feared the fatal crease could come at any time. Saw so many boards fatally crease, lose a rail, or bottom delaminate, sometimes after only 1 session, at Sandys or Maks when I was growing up.

[krusher74]

interesting to hear the first generation dk'ers were going wide point forward. But i guess then a DK specific board did not actually exist, or was there a lindholm model?

[Nels]

When bodyboards started - the Morey Boogie - it was a magic one board does it all kind of thing. For the first 5 years-ish it was sold as a kit or as an assembled kit, with the factory boards getting more and more professional looking. Morey and Doyle sold their respective shares (don't ask me how they had that worked out) to Kransco in 1978 if I recall, and I think after that is when the Bahai year-branded boards started coming out. Those were the soft boards that I remember as eventually riding not-unlike air mats. Anti-flex in regards to flex projection.

For a long time...and in many ways still fairly valid today depending on your purchase choice...you could buy a bodyboard off the rack and legitimately ride your local 1' beach break or Waimea Bay...limited by your mind and experience only. Yes, you can do that with anything...but you get the drift.

Other companies were entering the bodyboard field, the explosion of product and it's subsequent conquering of rental and beach toy wave riders meant literal wealth, 1980 saw the thruster and pro surfing and the real serious start of surf clothing industry (Wall Street level)...there were so many material, financial, and social forces pushing and pulling at bodyboarding that it couldn't help but affect design. The surf industry had bodyboarding as a captive customer base and flirted with supporting the sport at the risk of alienating the rising pro standup surfing faction. Money talks and BS walks, and bodyboarders just went surfing.

At the start the two most noticeable well-known bodyboarders were Jack Lindholm and Phyllis Damron in Hawaii...she rode huge waves, he did drop knee at Pipeline...but in socio-political-cultural terms they were about 20-30 years ahead of standup surfing. In terms of physical wave riding and manuevers, surfing only recently caught up with bodyboarding. Now it seems from net video that bodyboarding is chasing surfing...perhaps having plateaued with the ARS years ago...now going to slab survival as cutting edge/envelope pushing...Dying for Dollars seeming to be the operating concept of extreme sports these days.

Bodyboard materials are expensive and not all that easy to come by, drastically limiting the ability to "backyard" much innovation. A few have, though. The general attitudes that only hard board materials can make serious surfcraft has hamstrung the soft material development as it pretty much makes the economics unworkable.

Nels