20 interesting statemente re quad v tri

john - · Post by **john -** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 2:53 pm

debaaaate gota love it!!!

is low and drivey then the preferred mode of true champions and the "always best" against all other styles?

can another style be "FULL TILT" or do i remain ever only half tit i mean tilt?

in tennis sometimes its the base liner and sometimes the serve and volley style - and not always based on surface

there are some hot low and drivey exponents sure - but one of my fav pics from the site is Don's arial - he tells me hes on similar equipment to mine

go ahead make my day!

dorje dirty wales

hart · Post by **hart** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 3:44 pm

headwax wrote:
By the way, if you get a chance have a surf with Baden and watch his eyes on his first turn off the bottom. You got to be paddling out on the shoulder to see the eyeball glint. Like all good surfers he tries to hit the lip off his first bottom turn, so he delays as long as possible, eyballing that lip like its Gwenneth Paltrow's, curls up his body and does a cat jump from the bottom of the wave to the top at the last possible moment.

Once seen you might change your mind that unweighting is not a manoevre.

Hi Wax,

Glad that we are getting down to specific observations.

Baden is a good mate of mine..always stoked to see him. Even though it is only during the contest arena these days.

I first surfed with Baden around 20 plus years ago..and I have witnessed his last 20 years of contest surfing closely. He has contributed much to kneeboarding through his committment and attendances to contests whenever he can.

I am quite objective however, if I were to assess the technicalities of his style.

We have talked before about the 'Smithback'..a modified cutback that Baden and his twin brother Andrew 'created' during the late 80's. These guys were so into contests (and their results speak for themselves) that they would use body torque and an animated style to express their manoeuvres to the fullest. Similar to the way standups might swing their arms to catch the attention of the viewer.

Baden has grown into the consumate contest professional..almost like no other.

To my point..

Baden does delay his bottom turns well..and looks for that lip..but he doesn't quite attack it like (say) Bryant or Farrer.

A quick look at "Sparrow has landed" will confirm this.

Baden is the master of the floater..of the hovering lip stall..master of the parallel launch..Baden would be one of the hottest surfers in the World over 40 years of age.

But,I cannot remember the last time I saw Baden vertical..its not his style. His cutbacks are flat, with no rail..no displacement.

His boards are quads..full concaves nose to tail. His fins are so laid over that I don't know how the sander can do his job. He uses a standup shaper to build his boards.

Baden's boards emphasise the way Baden surfs and with every respect to him, and to you..I see nothing to learn from them.

Baden has developed a very successfull contest style approach to surfing that is almost in a completely opposite direction to the one that I'm on.

Truly.

So you see, I have seen him surf..and 'unweight'.

And that is one of the reasons I posted the comment that I did..I just can't rate it as a manoeuvre.

hart

PS

You mention Hot Buttered a lot..do you remember a (life defining comment..for me anyway) quote from TF c.1976..?

"It is better to be positive in one direction, than mediocre in all.."

Terry was and still is, one of surfing's first true intellectuals..and I have followed his advice closely.

john - · Post by **john -** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 4:53 pm

Hart

much of the discussion can be attributed to choosing that one direction, gaining confidence in a choosen direction and havin the confidence to debate

beauty (of style) is in the eye of the beholder

vicent van gough never sold a painting in his lifetime!

sometimes faith (in a direction) can become blind or a dogma

the master of their craft leaves the door open for a gentle breeze to cool their passion

tf's philosophy is also my teaching philosophy - it protects me against the crowded curriculum - becomming the master of one identifies how to master all

does baden not like going vertical or does he just prefer other fun?

dorje

hart · Post by **hart** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 5:48 pm

dorje wrote:
does baden not like going vertical or does he just prefer other fun?

Baden covers SO MUCH ground when he surfs..it's like he 'bounds' from section to section..almost every wave.

It's his choice and his direction..and yes, it is his fun.

These last few comments (from everyone) have really been in sinc with the topic..quads and thrusters..how some of us choose to surf compared to others.

Polarising stuff.

Dorje..just wait till you get your hands on "The Sparrow..." I'm sure a lot more will soon be revealed about style..and about boards.

Regards,

hart

john - · Post by **john -** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 6:49 pm

Hart

this is where steenos is of interest given his earlier comments about placement of fins over number - this seems to be the third option - plus he has been such a fly on the wall of late

further is it possible to drop a centre fin into a board designed as quad to ride as a tri?

if so what fins become the two outsides or is this a variable - would it have to be a box to slide the fin up and down to utilise both outside fin placement possibilities?

would dropping in a centre box compromise the structure of the board?

I was going to mention my anticipation of the vid - so as to inform my thoughts more studiously - didnt have to - you knew it!

more education parallels - intelligence is always at its optimum as a group dynamic

i want to be a baden and a farrer - does that contradict the tf's statement?!

the vid might answer questions as to whether tri riders can do what quads can do but not vice versa

Steeno · Post by **Steeno** » Thu Jun 24, 2004 11:35 pm

There is only three guys that I reckon surf really vertical in Australia, Matt Gallagher, Andrew Heaton and Simon and thats it. Jamie Mchugh's surfing has gone more vertical in the past two years through Neil Lukes board designs. Sorry Bruce, Damon Gaynor aswell.

A big fly on the wall aswell.........lol

maybe even a good ol aussie bush fly

have been reading with interest, but work has kept me from making debated statements due to time restraints.

I will be back

Bryan Jackson · Post by **Bryan Jackson** » Fri Jun 25, 2004 12:04 am

Willi for someone who wants to be taken as so astute on matters involving physics you seem rather unabashed in displaying your ignorance when it comes to the dynamics and forces involved with springs

:

"So think through what you're saying, that the flexed fin is the bow string and the surfboard the arrow (NOTE: actually, I never said this). The relative masses involved argue against that comparison but we're assuming bodies in motion and not at rest." - Willi

In other words, according to your beliefs the springs on a car, for example, couldn't possibly support the weight of the car and return the energy stored (when they are compressed) to the car itself because everyone knows the mass of the car far outweights by many times over the mass of the springs! In other words, once compressed the springs should remain compressed until the car is suddenly "unweighted" (perhaps when it flys over a a dip in the road!). Clearly absurd

!

"So at what part of the turn does this twang happen?"

Not having done any precise scientific experiments I couldn't really say. I would suspect it is more of a continuous phenomenon rather than a sudden "twang", another term I never used, BTW. I referred to a board "springing out of a turn", in other words, acceleration, a phenomenon I am sure even you could not deny exists

.

Anyway I am sure there are also quite a few other dynamics at work in acceleration ("spinging out of a turn"). The effects of applying and then releasing torque, for example

.

"How does it compare to the continuous acceleration of a multi fin setup?"

Since multi-fin set-ups involve the same basic dynamics then it is not an all or nothing affair. They experience the same phenomenon, perhaps just not to the same degree. Also as I discussed they are designed with the idea of manuevering the board in a particular manner so that will factor into the equation as well.

"Are you riding GG fins exclusively?"

The answer is no, although I am moving back in that direction

. I started out (a long, long time ago) on GG fins. Although i have surfed principally quads for the last few years my newest board (not yet in the water) will have a GG style fin (plus two small stabilzers, kind of a 2+1 set-up ala long boards). I also have a good KB friend who recently went back to the single GG fin (an actual GG model with the little Flying Tiger logo

) and he is quite satisfied with it. I have no problem with quads and have ridden tri's as well. No fin set-up is without its advantages and disadvantages

.

Finally, there are obviously a lot of variables involved in fin design and you actually pointed out quite a few of them despite your rather dismissive attitude (e.g., "mythology")

. If you had some hard facts/data that would be fine but you didn't, only your opinion and theories, none of which are any more valid than mine, perhaps even less so considering some of your comments, especially those regarding "relative mass" and attributing statements to me that I never made

(e.g., "bow and arrow", "twang". etc.).

Anyway, my hope was to get a discussion going on how fin dynamics effect KBing but as so often happens when these debates veer off into arcane technical arguments it seems to have been for naught and the debate has devolved into a food fight

.

john - · Post by **john -** » Fri Jun 25, 2004 1:24 am

re dorje surfing like dorje, not others (archetypes?!)

to be sure to be sure Wax - but in line with my whole view of things im a composite of copying my betters of which ive lost count - and put that all together comes version "dorje" - my Indian/Chinese/Tibetan history master, (who was Indian) at uni, Zaradhin Ahmed explained this process of perception quite clearly - he loved debate - classic old world gentleman scholar

2 weeks holiday and i can hear the swell from the back yard

scoop · Post by **scoop** » Fri Jun 25, 2004 2:44 am

waxxy...
I dont understand you Hitting the lip with a limp wrist....
it woudnt make quite as good a spray as flicking the tail of your board around......must be a special Newcastle move....lol

cheers

straight as a die....

tony

willli · Post by **willli** » Fri Jun 25, 2004 4:27 am

Well Brian you're right about my physics, I lost pace when "string theory" became the flavor of the day, cancelled my subscription to Scientific American in protest.

When board is placed in a turn, especially a hard bottom turn, fin flexes (like a spring) and energy is stored in fin. When board is released from turn, stored energy is transmitted back to board (thus board “springs out of turn”)

So how did my changing the analogy to exaggerate the claimed effect change the essence of what you were saying?
Besides springs are rather primitive comparisons, you should have used torsion bars in your example to eliminate the "slinky" effect. Like how is it possible for a diver to walk out on a spring board and get so much height?
You talk about being able to bend fins, bravo, you have strong fingers. but to really see what flex means you'll have to capture the fin tip in a bench vice and move the board laterally (not too far mind you, the relative force you can apply will easily shatter either the fin or its attachment method). Dear god the board is trying to return to a neutral plane due to the torque, Plus it can also act like a diving board, proved that with me fingers! So all these curves and tapers applied to a plastic material (fiberglass) make this shape respond to forces( twist torque deflection). Well there was another flexible fin out there used on Dewey webber performers, looked like a squared off boat rudder with a narrow shaft, and comparing the response of that fin and the rudder/keel fin to the emerging Greenough design the accolades were that the GG fin rocketed you out of turns and made the board so much more responsive. Truth was the flex and curve pattern allowed the fin to twist and bend in response to the forces applied, including some responsive layover even while going straight( but also moving sideways with the wave force) and the resulting reduction of RELATIVE drag forces (relative to the poorly designed crap available) gave them their storied reputation that holds to this day, like fondly remembering an old Morgan roadster forerunner to the MG (bringing cars back into it).
But your point ("." to quote Parker) is that the fin itself stores force and imparts it to the board causing the board to "spring" forward. But the fin is not stabilized in a vice so it can transmit this force directly to the board, board and fin are in water where the board itself has the base of the fin gripped tight so the fin must move against the very water forces that moved it in the first place, and these forces are changing all the time, and so is the fin deflection in response to them. And thats the key. If you said the deep GG fin was a very responsive fin and gave a pleasing feeling when pumping the board I would agree completely.(slushy might be used today) But insisting this old Morgan is in fact a Ferrari, or that modern fin setups are just for "tricks" IS ignoring 30 years of surfers searching for SPEED and ACCELERATION far beyond the capabilities of the deep flexi fin, and on the cusp of foil changes that will dramatically improve performance (according to FCS and Rusty).
Hey those old Morgans are a treat to tool around winding back roads, put on the old goggles and a nice silk scarf, but that Ferrari in your rearview mirror is going to shift to a gear you dont even have and give a respectful toot as he blows by cause he knows his ride wouldn't exist if yours didn't come first, but as he power-slides the hairpin in the distance try and remember its no trick, just skill and proper equipment.

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20 interesting statemente re quad v tri

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