27 May 2023
https://www.facebook.com/groups/paipobe ... 916390080/
I swapped out my quad set-up for a largish keel on my paipo just to see how it went. I'm convinced that the board is more responsive. It seems quicker and makes a tighter radius turn. I haven't noticed any less hold in the 2 to 5ft surf on offer recently. This is contrary to what is written up on various sites.
Next winter I'm getting a new paipo with modifications to the shape for larger surf. Among the changes compared to my current board I'm considering fin placement optimized for a keel, or possibly a twinzer. Scrolling through the web offerings on 'twinzer' I came across the following. This is not an endorsement or recommendation, but these 'Liquid Force' twinzer wake boards look like they might work as surfing paipos.
TWINZER
Original price $919.99 Current price $551.99$919.99 $551.99
Built for the surfer that wants a fast, lively, and loose ride while still having enough bite to power through big bottom turns and cutbacks. The Twinzer features a unique four fin configuration using a small front canard fin placed just before the larger side fin. Creating a wider effective base on the main fin allowing a higher angle of attack. You will love the full body diamond tip and tail shape with a single concave thoroughout the hull of the board, finishing with a slight vee in the tail for some serious push. Sharp rails tip to tail, this board has plenty of glide speed to charge the wake, but still a blast to hang back and ride.
EPS Core with Wood Stringer
Reinforced Carbon/Innegra Top and Bottom
Single Concave Hull
Crisp Rails
Twinzer Fin Configuration: Forward Mounted Single-Tab Canard Fins and Back Mounted Carbon Honeycomb Side Fins
EVA Surf Traction Pad
Sizes: 4'2" | 4'6" | 4'10"
Martin Hallen
Make sure the toe in and cant is correct for wave surfing, not parallel and vertical as for wake boarding.
John Morris
Looks parallel in the photo.
Keith Usher
"Crisp Rails" what is that supposed to mean?
John Morris
Yeah, I noticed that wake board world has its own vernacular. There's a large selection of shapes and fin configurations, but they don't provide many specifics. I am curious how/why parallel fins work on a wake wave.
Keith Usher
you are going far faster when pulled by a boat and the turns you make are not as sharp, so you dont need the toe for tighter turns and you dont need cant because you arent on a curved wave face. Are you paipoing wakeboards? i'm kinda confused what's going on here. I ride the same paipo from 1 to 20ft. I think the only thing a bigger board help with in bigger waves is catching them, then once on the wave the bigger is just a hindrance.
John Morris
No, not a wakeboarder. Never. I just spotted this site for wakeboards that had a variety of shapes and fin arrangements. Some of them appear not too different from what some people (not you, evidently) are prone riding in surf. I like a larger paipo to allow for switching off arm paddling and kicking with flippers and getting around the line-up. I only started prone a couple of years ago after nearly 60 years of standing on my boards: longboards, then shortboards, back to longboards and nearly everything in-between. Especially in-between. I'm aiming to recreate some of the wave interactions I knew for decades, and for that, I like a longer board than others may choose. The main issue I'm dealing with riding prone in large surf, particularly the not-so-clean large surf I typically get locally, is the board wanting to skip, or hop. Whatever you call it, it's not helpful when trying to set a rail or make sections. I have an idea that the great difference in drag created by fins, shins and flippers compared to everything forward of the fins is part of the problem. It's a design question I've been exploring and I'll take input from any source.
Keith Usher
also look at it as a possible riding position problem. stand-up your knees are shock absorbers, prone our knees become our shoulders. You must lift your chest and stomach off the board and use your shoulders to dampen chop.
John Morris
good observation. Without any photos I'm not sure about my body position. I do know that the elbow on the inside rail approach that works on my boogie board doesn't work so well on my large paipo. Standing up allows for much more range of motion, including vertical shock absorbing. But kneeboarders, in comparison, have much less, and I've never observed or heard that they have the bounce problem. It does appear that they have an upper limit on size but, at 72 years old, so do I. Above a couple of feet overhead I switch to a boogie.
Keith Usher
if you switch to a boogie at 2feet overhead and can catch waves then I see no reason for the large paipo, the stiffness and added planning area is one going to add to launching off chops, my paipo is the same size as my boogieboard. if you also put thick 1/2" EVA foam on the deck of the paipo it will give some shock absorption. YOu need to be in this position as much as possible with only inner thigh and rail elbow/forearm contacting the inner rail to have a range of motion to absorb shock. No board design will substitute for this.
John Morris
I've got 1/4" of foam on the deck. During the last couple of sessions the rip was pulling me out of position and I had to paddle and kick (I switch off) constantly or end up 20 to 30 yards off the peak. I was happy to be on a 5' paipo and not a 3 1/2' boogie board. But I am now more conscious of when and how much my torso is off the board when riding. First impression is that I'm resting more on the paipo than I do on my boogie board. Good insight, thanks.
Rod Rodgers
A toed-in short length board being towed by a speed boat would whack craziness into the board as the toe-in decreases speed when planing in a relatively straight line. Toe-in and cant in surfobards is for creating speed from turning, not for down-the-line speed (which a speed boat tow accentuates).
Some of my 50 inch paipos have relatively straight parallel positions, not as much drag and still good at turning. I am also using sub-2.5" side bites and a 4.5" center fin.
John Morris
I'm not sure, but I think the Liquid Force boards are for wake surfing, not for getting towed by a speed boat. I also don't know how much turning they do, but it's bound to be less than on an actual wave. I recall that in the '60's some surfboard manufacturers offered wake boards. Never saw one, only the advertisements.
19 June 2023
https://www.facebook.com/groups/paipobe ... 677660080/
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50 x 20-3/8 - center fin is 4.5 inches and 4 small runners @2-1/8 inches.
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John Morris
Rod Rodgers, are those Bonzer type keel runners? Foiled one side or two?
Rod Rodgers
Those are Bonzer Runners, foiled on the outside, flat insides. The standard non - stretch rectangular non-foiled, traditional bonzer runners. Typically the foiled are removable and the non-foiled are glassed and twins. Foiled are quads, usually pair of large and pair of small.
John Morris
...and a lotta cant...
Rod Rodgers
yes. The fin box version runners come with built-in cant and the fin boxes come in three different cant levels.
Here is a photo showing the traditional version of Bonzer runners from the Dr. Robert paipo interview
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Jeff Quam rides variations of the Laguna-style paipo board and a Bonzer or two along similar lines. The Bonzeer runners tend to be forward to work in conjuction with the channels and center fin for aft. The standard Bonzer center fin is a True Ames shape. However, Jeff has opted for a taller Greenough style. In contrast, I went with a smaller center fin and all small runners.
The Jeff Quam interiew is at:
https://mypaipoboards.org/.../JeffQuam_2013-0713.shtml
Mitchell Pellegrin
The tail! When I throw a bottom turn that's the only thing left in the water. The tail
Kneeboarding at least. Don't like to fish design on a belly board. The v the water hits my balls. Doesn't feel good
John Morris
Re: bottom turning, when dropping straight down I'm probably overcompensating by shifting weight back to make certain I don't pearl. Most of my take-offs are late, so I usually take off at an angle. I've tried the boogie boarder trick of stalling in the face by spreading the legs apart on a late drop and it works, if I can remember to do it. In high speed situations where a lot of my body is off the back of my 5' paipo. it feels like the drag created by knees, shins and fins in the water wants to lift the nose. That makes it hard to accelerate out of a bottom turn seamlessly.
Bob Green
Sean Ross rode Pipeline on a wooden Paipo Nui, here's what he had to say: "I started riding at Pipe in 1972, and I learned right away that it was hard to make the drop, make the turn, and get out into the flats. The challenge was that I didn't have the projection with a paipo board when I made the drop. I learned that I had to have a tremendous amount of speed when I took off and that I had to have my angle set. I learned how to position myself so that I was exactly at the perfect place when I took off. Once I figured it all out, making the drop at Pipe was easy. The waves there break on a shallow reef close to shore, so the faces and the barrels are almost always smooth, which made it easy, too, for a paipo board. Once I made a drop, I'd bury my inside rail to make a turn and ride up into the barrel". In the photo the board is almost sideways. https://mypaipoboards.org/.../Sean_Ross_2009-1109.shtml
Rod Rodgers
NoMasTomas, a shaper from the Central California coast, started making paipo boards during the past decade. And riding them so has an inside track to paipo paramenters that many shapers do not have. He has commented extensively on skeg/fin placement on the Paipo Forums. Search options:
https://mypaipoboards.org/SearchMyPaipoBds.shtml
John Morris
Rod Rodgers, thanks for putting in the effort to compile all the opinion in that site. For me, it's an instant step into a rabbit hole.
Ray Simmons
I ride a 5 footer with quad set up but found having bigger fins at back works the best by using down pressure of my knees to crank a turn.
Mike Powell
Generally speaking, tailward and railward increases hold, all else equal.
John DeVivo
I ride a 50” board and the rear of the fin is probably 6-7” from the tail… it’s the only way I’ve ridden it and it seems to hold like it’s on rails.
John Mandybur
I like 7" from the tail for all types of wave but the rails are what I look at most for hagin' high.
John DeVivo
Your middle board looks killer.
What sizes (lengths) are those?John Morris
Not my boards, just an image I found looking for ideas. The twinzer keels in the photo have mind boggling amount of base. I ride a 61" fish shape, originally a quad, I'm experimenting with keels.
Bob Green
28 July 2023
https://www.facebook.com/groups/paipobe ... 503310080/
Bob, Love that vid! Nice bit of surfing, too. On a board that length (56", right?) you might want to push the fin cluster forward a bit, maybe 2-3". I would guess that about 2/3 of your body is on the board. Identify where you place the most weight/pressure when turning and that is where your fin's leading edge should go. This was the solution kneeboarders discovered for solving the same problem presented by the Lis fish. A little more curve in the outline would also help...maybe on your next board
-tpDamian Coase
I like that you are willing to experiment with your boards. Lots of experience in your decisions. The fins need a story all of their own. Again experimentation and improvement.
Bob Green
I'll travel down this road for awhile, then back to finless. I've borrowed a 5' twin fin, rounded pin. I'll post it after I surfed it.
Bob Green
Thanks Thomas. In the board below, it originally only had the forward fin slots. I didn't like the board and asked the shaper to put another set in further back (I just realised this is probably the first board modification so that makes 5 boards tweaked). The board went much better. Obviously a different design etc. The other thing about kneeboards, the centre of gravity is further forward. I'll soon try a curvier board. I'll post some photos of it. The next board I was thinking of wasn't going to be curvier, but more flat bottomed (I thought I posted some of Larry Goddard's design sheets but couldn't find them) . The curved board may change my thinking.
Thomas Haugh
On the red and blue board, the fin plugs appear to be parallel with the stringer, Is that so, or just an optics thing? I can see the toe-in on the yellow board. I use 1/4" toe-in on the front a 1/8" toe on the rear, unless I set the rear more towards the stringer a la McKee. Then only 1/16" or straight. fin setting is more art than science, what with toe-in, distance from rail, fin cant, the list goes on and on as you know.. Can't just stick a set of fins on and call it a day.
Bob Green
I don't have the board anymore. It was made for me to test out and eventually a friend of the shaper (Huie) took it to ride. The actual plugs look a little angled though placement seems parallel (if that makes sense).
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Bob, it is possible the extra 2 plugs were placed in line with the existing ones to allow 3 fin positions as a twin fin - old (front), half back using the centre 2 plugs, or back, using the rear plugs. Or as a quad with a canted front pair so they sit out of line with the rear fins and do not disturb the flow......
Bob Green
I only used it as a twin fin, using the rear plugs. I was happy with the new setup, so never explored any further.
Thomas Years ago you recommended a Wayne Rich hatchet fin. It was just too much fin for my liking and I've never used it. I was thinking of giving them a spin on this board. Looking at the rear nubsters underneath it looks like overkill. WOuld you keep them in or take them out?
Thomas Haugh
Yes, the WR Nightmare Twin was the best twin fin set-up that I ran on a G7. It had the hold that a quad set has on the same shape, but it wasn't quite as loose as the quad. Nubsters are usually added to a quad that feels too loose, especialy in that transition from one rail turn to the another. I think that is more of an issue for a stand up surfer with a high center-of-gravity than a prone or kneeling surfer. That little bit of drift becomes part of the fun. Its not like its gonna cause a prone rider to lose balance and fall off.
Bob Green
Thanks. I don't mind a bit of drift.
Alan Bruce
You need a set of my leaf fins Bob. Turn tight & draw nice lines.
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Experimentation is still the name of the game for larger prone boards. I've moved fins, swapped fins, modified fins, modified boards, ordered new boards (4 so far) tried new ways to ride, etc., over the last few years. One conclusion that seems general is, that if there's too much volume, or rails are too fat, you may never be completely satisfied with swapping out fins. Regarding placement, I've felt that having the fins forward puts them under the heaviest part of my body (the soft middle). But I've been working on making it intuitive to bend the inside knee during a turn. That lifts the fin out of the water and applies pressure on the inside rail near the tail. Still working on that, but the results are promising.
Bob Green
Finless is my preference, this is a tangent.
John Morris
All my boards up until now have somewhat high volume to allow for switching off between kicking and paddling. I need to be able to get around in the line up. My most recent board is low volume, including much thinner rails, but I'm waiting for some energy before putting it to the test. I can imagine the new board being less reliant on the fins to hold a line steep and deep. No way would my previous boards do that. I do sometimes ride a boogie board or an airmat, so I am familiar with finless sliding.
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