Exceeding the hull speed on older longboards

[boardsurfr]

[boardsurfr]

[whitevan01]

[quote="boardsurfr"]

[konajoe]

This discussion is getting a little strange. Since the beginning of longboard racing, sailors have always been trying to drop body weight. The goal then, and now with Kona, is to be the lightest person in your fleet, even though that gives you the shortest waterline. In true one design, where everybody used the same sail, folks would sometimes comment that it looked like a 'little people' convention.

You'd have to go to the major Kona events to see what happens. Eat salty snacks, drink alot of water, and step on the scale, just to barely get into your weight class.

Competitive Kona women always use the 7.4. You'd also have had to attend those big Kona events to note the wind speed in individual races. The overall results don't tell the whole story.

I raced last night. The waterline length of the hull changes gradually and continuously, getting shorter and shorter with speed. Check it out for yourselves. These things behave nothing like a keel boat. I was getting on a slow plane with a speed of about 5 or 6 knots going down waves.

Ittiandro, probably the best post for showing that the waterline equation doesn't apply to boards with centerboards, is the one with the graph on page 1. The graph shows what I've been saying about the subplane/slow plane/medium plane/ fast plane, and everything between. The boards he tested were capable of going ALL speeds. Reread it, and think about it.

Finally, that strange comment from the Kona site. That step tail is weird. When lightweights and women rail that board upwind, it makes a gurgletrousers noise. It gives you the impression that there's alot of drag back there. When you hear it, it makes you want to keep the board flat. When a heavyweight rails the board in the same conditions, it doesn't seem to make nearly as much noise. This is different from any other longboard.

[konajoe]

[boardsurfr]

[konajoe]

It seemed like you were suggesting that, in a light wind race, a heavier person on a Kona 7.4 would have an advantage over a lighter person on a Kona 7.4 because the heavier person would have a longer waterline. That isn't the case.

[boardsurfr]

[GURGLETROUSERS]

i know it's a cliche but, outside of actual racing, it's not what a board does, but how it feels while doing it. Dedicated slalom boards of the 90's were fast, but failed on all else, and were a wrong direction for the industry.

My old Bamba was always the bridesmaid at racing, but in free use it had an uncanny knack of 'galumphing' along at 12 m.p.h.ish in easy going conditions (harness but not in straps) which was (to me) really magical.

All this longboard chat had me bringing it back out yesterday, just to double check. I know the board is in the throes of a nervous breakdown, with tiny little ridges all over it's bottom skin, but they haven't worsened, and I can't just throw it out. After all, it's old and very well used, and entitled to shrink with age just a little, as I assume is happening inside with the skin still unbroken. If I can shrink -used to be 6ft 3 and a bit, but now only 6ft2 and a bit less - I feel it's entitled to also.

The point is that it behaved just as ever when I did exactly as I had on the Kona a few days back. (All over the bay and beyond - here there and everywhere.) I couldn't keep that grin at bay when it still could touch that magical feel.

Despite being a normal short board wind junkie, I do believe that there is a point to longboards which will never see them become redundant in windsurfing. In fact I'm hoping, just as John Cleese said in the Holy Grail film when they were trying a suspected witch 'She turned me into a frog!' So when they all turned and stared at him he then sheepishly said, 'but I got better.'

Such, I hope, will my old Bamba do!

[skyking1231]

so Dennis.... this is the thread you were talking about..... oiy