How convenient, a delam...

I originally made this board to take to puerto rico in November and as an educational exercise it came out perfectly-basically everything went wrong while glassing it and the shape worked the opposite of how I thought it would.  I affectionately call it the mistake, but that's a good thing.  I learned a ton about what works in finless boards or bottom and rail contours in general really.  It's basically a copy of one of my alaias, thickened out in foam and the biggest difference is that it caught waves like a dream. I feel like if I can get a foam alaia dialed I won't want to surf anything else.

What I learned....

1. First off, those square rails dont stick unless they're super thin, but bodyboarders seem to be onto something with chines by making the flat side face the wave.  I'm putting some chines in to straiten the outline a bit.

2. The concave doesn't work unless the bumps are closer to the rail-near your toe and heel.  The bump of the concave is really a fin.  It's not really about creating lift under the board to get it out of the water, it's about water flowing out towards the rail and driving the rail into the wave face.  If it were a hard edge it  would create turbulence-no stick.  Nice big rounded bump seems to work best, and right near the rail.  I've done that on thinner alias and it worked like a dream, especially on steep faces.

3. The straitest part of the rail is what sticks the best.  On this board the part that held an edge was the forward part of the board so I ended up going tail first a lot unless I camped out on the tail.

The bottom of the tail conveniently delaminated in my icy cold shop, so I'm reshaping it next week.

board art compliments of Matty Pickles

thin tail, add chines, move concave...