Nice message from Nicky Stanley at Harbour Holidays about Poppy’s 5’8 Porpoise EVO3 with 7” Protect Safety fin…
“Its amazing, Poppy loves it :) thank you so much xxx”
Showing posts with label Porpoise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Porpoise. Show all posts
Poppy’s porpoise EVO3 bonzer
Custom bonzer surfboard for Poppy with a beautiful resin tint and a lot of pen artwork to follow.
Buttercup - baby bonzer Porpoise
Resin tint by Jason Grey. Design, shaping and artwork by yours truly, Tim Stafford, for Lilia Grace, age 1yr.
Porpoise update
It’s still off with the fins, but i had an excellent session on it at North Watergate last week… it just flew.
I think the secret was the board, as is, needed to be ridden harder with the current fin set up to get the best out of it.
It’s still off with the fins but now i see this as just improving the initial speed and getting it planing sooner rather than anything more radical. As a shape it is incredibly manoeuvrable and harnesses loads of energy… a really fun board for the small stuff.
Porpoise 2
After some revisions and test rides by Anthony, discussions with my guru-panel (Phil & Nigel) we have concluded that the area for improvement is fin placement. There was always going to be a lot of force going through them with the narrow base (and I have already cracked the rovings) but the proximity to the bonzer EVO3 sides is the real issue… so its off with all of them and then back on with some reinforcement. I am going to reduce the size of the bonzer side EVO3s to the same as the front EVO5 set up, AND most crucially give them more space between them… it has felt like the water at times is having to squeeze between them and this may account for the feeling of drag just before take off, which isn’t ideal for a lazy paddler like me. So an extra 1/2 inch gap should sort that out.
Anthony has been riding it quite a bit and is really loving it… he grabs it whenever he can and seems to just flow into a ridiculous number of long walled up waves. It’s definitely his small wave board of choice just exactly as it is… but for me the lazy paddler the reduction in drag will be welcome and should improve the boards already great speed.
There is definitely something special going on with this board, it just feels great under you when paddling and riding and seems to smooth out whatever your normal style is… and yet you can still whack it off the top when you feel inclined.
Wedges
I have to say that almost a week of clean swell, great light winds and sunshine are pretty rare but it all came together last week. I didn’t get in as often as i would have liked (“responsibilities”) but I got my share. Highlight was at a known beach break I'll call “Wedges” which had a wedging take off and a fast wall with plenty of juice. The freakfish was just awesome and i was stoked to have some guy ask me about it based on how it was surfing… it was handling late-late drops, and then just shooting round the sections into nice big carves and hooks, all backhand. I just loved it.
The porpoise is on the other hand in need of some mods. The biggest issue for me is that it doesn’t seem to get up planing as quickly as i would like. On the plus sides it is very drivey off the bottom and gets round sections beautifully, but it feels stiff off the top. It’s the projected rake, so I'm going to sand the fins off and place them further up the board by a full inch, remove the EVO3 sides and replace them with EVO5 fronts only… all this should loosen the board up a bit and provide a little less drag which will help a little with wave entry speed too.
Anyways, I'm stoked to build an improved Porpoise, so someone please order one :)
Nothing new under the sun...
I was browsing Duncan and Malcolm's site this evening and came across an interesting photo which proves the saying "there is nothing new under the sun"...
An early bonzer by Malcolm contrasted against a modern high performance | My "new" shapes: 6'0" Porpoise Vs. 6'10" Cleanline.
An early bonzer by Malcolm contrasted against a modern high performance | My "new" shapes: 6'0" Porpoise Vs. 6'10" Cleanline.
Porpoise christening…
First porpoise with the tubercle fins was tested yesterday at a small but clean Boobys Bay… it was only just big enough to surf but the odd waist high set came through and overcame the stiff offshore NEs. The board absolutely flew – really surprising was how it just loved to get up and go, all rides backside, flying across the face with more speed and lift than i had expected. I made lots of long lefts into the shallows with the board seeming to keep speed and flow throughout. The only drawback so far was on take off, a feeling of the board hanging in the lip, though this may have been the wide nose combined with the wind. Otherwise it felt very fluid especially considering the low rocker and straight tail outline. Pretty difficult to gauge the performance characteristics on such small waves but it definitely is a fun ride, just how different, how drivey, and whether it has any drawbacks we will have to wait until we get some more serious surf… hopefully soon…
on Porpoise...
Porpoise bonzer EVO4 with tubercle fins: 6’0 x 22” x 2 5/8” low entry rocker with concave soft-channel running from the chest and under the front foot (V’d off the rails for roll and the concave for turbulence to overcome the width and enhance rail to rail flow) into the double concave V with bonzer channels between the fins (guide the water flow)... with a little spiral V kick in the tail to keep it loose... just a little "almost" summer madness...
Demos at the ready…
A little sanding, a little artwork, speed coats, some microgrooves and these three demos will be ready for some aquatics…
6’0 Porpoise EVO4 in clear and trans blue resin tint, Cleanline 6’4” EVO5 in clear (this one is for Anthony but he says he’ll let people borrow it), Cleanline 6’10” EVO5 in amber tint…
Tubercle porpoise fins - bonzer EVO4
Today I finally finished foiling my new tubercle fins for the 6'0" demo porpoise bonzer EVO4. The panel was a lay-up of 4 x 6oz translucent blue + 6mm aircraft grade birch 12 ply + 4 x 6oz in translucent blue. Really stoked with how they have come out and it will be interesting to see if the fins have the same hydrodynamic energy conversion characteristics that have been found on wind-turbine blades. The design is of course based on nature, coming strait from scientific research into the hump back whale after scientists struggled to understand how the whales could manouvre so tightly at low speeds as they blew their bubble curtains to contain the plankton.
1st Board, 1st Wave, 1st Birthday
Seren enjoying her very first board; 5'4" Porpoise EVO3 baby bonzer... more pics of the board and artwork when it stops raining for long enough to shoot some decent pics!
Baby bonzer fins
Seren’s board gets a step closer – having just tacked on her baby bonzer fins that I foiled out of American Ash… they will get glassed and hot coated on on Monday and the rear fin will probably be an FCS plug based Protect fin to start with and then a larger custom FCS EVO fin that I will make when the time comes…
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