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"Just on the hugeness of the day, so it's Longboarding so design is far more individual than the shortboard world tour, there are more surfer shapers, design is evolving faster, and there are two paths you can take - traditional, or performance."

Jeez, you reckon ?

How is design evolving faster?

The LWWT is massively favouring trad long boarding and boards reflect that.

Finally…blue give a nearly floater re entry.

I love it…it looks cool imo

do you longboard, @RK?

anyone heard how Ramzi's going?

basesix wrote:

do you longboard, @RK?

Yep..I surf a range of boards. I usually ride a 6.2 mashup…have a Chris Garrett 8 which is glassed too heavy so has to be perfect waves for it to be pulled out. Have a TJ Gem 9.2. Also have a 7.2 bossup.

nice. I've always had a range around 6' - 7' since teenhood and a heavy 7+ mini-mal from Greg Reynolds in beachport that's fun, taught the kids on it and a foamie when they were little.. started hitting the waves with a handplane as of a couple years ago (so as not to 'waste' shitty days, or teeny windows by not getting wet), last 12 months I have gotten a 5'+ fish, an 8' red dingo (thanks @seeds), and a frigging 10' gravelle rhino I've been trying to use as a glider and to lengthen my paddle strokes till I get my fitness up to use it on a bommie down here. No idea what I'm doing, haha. I just feel my window of possibilities closing in, and the kids have half flown the coop, so I can do whatever I want for the first time in two decades.. I always keep a super light delta dream 7' quad in the back of the ute.

anyone catch why @john.calhoun's ex-compadre Sam Bleakley was in the booth?

Been a pretty regular part of the commentary team for LWT for years B6.

cheers, @fr. assume that's longboard world tour.
an unfamiliar world for me. I really enjoyed that today.

Roadkill wrote:

basesix wrote:

do you longboard, @RK?

Yep..I surf a range of boards. I usually ride a 6.2 mashup…have a Chris Garrett 8 which is glassed too heavy so has to be perfect waves for it to be pulled out. Have a TJ Gem 9.2. Also have a 7.2 bossup.

RK what are your thoughts on the Bossup...any good?

simba wrote:

Roadkill wrote:

basesix wrote:

do you longboard, @RK?

Yep..I surf a range of boards. I usually ride a 6.2 mashup…have a Chris Garrett 8 which is glassed too heavy so has to be perfect waves for it to be pulled out. Have a TJ Gem 9.2. Also have a 7.2 bossup.

RK what are your thoughts on the Bossup...any good?

Easy to paddle, the tail lets it turn off the bottom really fast, with your back foot in the right spot it digs in nicely (still working this out). I’m still new to it so anything following my bottom turn is a bit average. I can’t throw it around like others can…I have bogged a bit but I think I keep my weight too far back in the top turns. Down the line it’s pretty fast when pumping but I still need to work on that.
2ft / 3 ft Burleigh point a few weeks back it was just magic…bumpy and messy I struggled.
K
Will only get better with use and when it clicks it won’t hold me back getting it to do more.

I’m an average surfer but imagine a better surfer will work it out better than me.

freeride76 wrote:

"Just on the hugeness of the day, so it's Longboarding so design is far more individual than the shortboard world tour, there are more surfer shapers, design is evolving faster, and there are two paths you can take - traditional, or performance."

Jeez, you reckon ?

How is design evolving faster?

The LWWT is massively favouring trad long boarding and boards reflect that.

Yes I reckon. Far more variety of shapes being surfed at the pointy end. Not just a 6'0" rounded pin. Or every half decade, Kelly uses a quad. More variety in the LB dimensions too.

Design is evolving faster because of the conundrum "how do I keep this traditional with traditional aspects and make it work better?" The biggest hint of this today was Delperro - his board is the answer. In the meantime they are trying all sorts of things, I saw Ben C surfing the Involvement shape last year and it didn't seem to answer the question for mine, this year they are doing these chiseled wide squarish tails, rails are changing as I mentioned above, others are just going with the wide traditional noseriders. They will search around more and more but not really find a solution so long as they keep it traditional. The LWWT has set the rules to look for the impossible, it creates maximum evolution seeking an answer. Eduard's board had it all comp, hence I was going for Delperro.

I very much appreciate your insights and analysis VJ- but I can't see any of that in this comp.

Caught up on most of finals Day.

What I saw was traditional longboarding done overwhelmingly on minor variations of the classic Californian log.
Single fins, with a curvey aft to square tail- very much straight off the Takayama templates from 64-66.

I've ridden these boards, they are very fine logs but there's no performance evolution happening on them.

Modern longboarding is dead mate, it's never coming back.

What we saw from Bonga Perkins, Duane De Soto, Harley Ingleby etc etc was an aberration.

The answer to the question of how to make a longboard work better was solved conclusively between 67-69 and was called the shortboard revolution.

This is a little throwback niche of a niche activity to keep the art of longboarding alive- not a crucible focussed on evolution and performance gains.

Edit: Caught a bit of Delpero's surfing.

OK, I see what you mean.

FR - cheers. The traditional log will work really well on a clean little 2ft point, but the spectacle of this comp was that Bells stood up at 6ft+ and said "You won't get away with that here." Would've been excellent to see your write up of the comp, thank you for all the thoughtful ideas watching the shortboard comps.

I agree with

"The answer to the question of how to make a longboard work better was solved conclusively between 67-69 and was called the shortboard revolution.

This is a little throwback niche of a niche activity to keep the art of longboarding alive- not a crucible focussed on evolution and performance gains."

It's tantalising. There are alterations to the shape that have been known for decades that can turn even a 9ft board into a fox in the traditional hen house once it gets sizey and powerful. We almost saw the crucible form during the comp, but Skvarna's ripper semi final heat on the traditional board put it back it back in the kitchen cupboard and the recipe will be traditional for the foreseeable future. But that crucible awaits a daring chef to cook up a dish that will give Longboarding the spice, the time and place will occur again.

I was so hoping Delperro would win, wanted a Rolf Aurness 1970 Bells-style result where his longer semi-gun shape told the Aussie stubbies: "No, you've gone too far."

Rode these Dick Van Straalen all-rounders - speed shape 2+1 in sizes from 6'4 to 9'4.

You could ride the 9'4's in cyclone surf as big as it gets- so functional.

Slightly pulled nose and rounded pin.

* the 7' is 'delta design' (not delta dream), sorry @RK.. margs guy that shapes windsurfers now I think.. the wa crew know who he is.. friggin interesting construction, however he's gone about it..

Yep, this kind of board is surprisingly functional FR. Bert Berger used to do these lightweight composite performance longboards in the West, saw some unlikely big turns done on them. Seen some of Leigh Steven's 9ft longboards for southern Tassie with pulled noses, beaut & decent rockers and when you understand what kind of waves they are for, they are unreal!

Pulling the nose, rockering it decently, 2+1, edged rails & pin is a good combination.

There was a guy from WA used to ride 8ft mals when that was a category- Bert Burger shapes I think in some type of composite construction.

He hung out here for a while and did some very impressive surfing on that board.

Just can't think of his name.

That's the kind of board. That 8ft division would have been a cracker out at Bells this weekend, with no rules to make that type of board traditional. Quite a few in the comments were frothing at having a go at it on a midlength!

freeride76 wrote:

There was a guy from WA used to ride 8ft mals when that was a category- Bert Burger shapes I think in some type of composite construction.

He hung out here for a while and did some very impressive surfing on that board.

Just can't think of his name.

That was Justin Redman : he won the 8’ division at 1999 Longboard Titles at Bells. If memory serves me correctly!

I can recall Burt and his boards at the comp, a bit ahead of their time!

Cheers

Trickster

Thats him- Justin Redman.

Unreal.

Throw that into the mix and watch the judges have an aneurysm.