May 22

Same as it ever was

That’s a line from a song by the Talking Heads, entitled Once in a Lifetime.   We’ll come back to that in a minute.

We were taking some left over supplies to the hazardous waste pick up for San Joaquin County which is down by the Stockton Airport. On the south end of the airport we passed this cool airplane from we’d guess was WWII era. You can’t see it too well but there is a machine gun turret on the top behind the wings.  That clear canopy that is just ahead of the left hand side rudder has two machine gun barrels poing out.  Can you imagine the being in that rear gunners position?!

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We have no idea what make or model it is, we just thought it was cool, but then we got to thinking. Surfboard and really wakesurf board technology hasn’t changed from that era. If you look at airplanes they haven’t changed all that much either. We mean, it’s not like we are being transported via light beams or some such. Still a couple of engines, wings, tail, elevator, fuselage and machine guns. OK OK OK, skip the guns part, but for the most part modern planes all have the same stuff as they did in the 40′s. There are minor changes or maybe they are major. Instead of piston driven radial engines, we see modern jets for military and most commercial airplanes.

It’s like surfboards, shapes remain mostly the same, and there are changes in terms of construction and material. Wings have those little winglets on the tips and we see Boeing working with Carbon Fiber instead of aluminum. But you know what that takes? Thinking outside the box, we’d guess.

We were reading some weird spam about an event and all we could think about was how did those folks following along drink that kool-aid? Followers, no matter what their pre-disposition, never come up with new or different. Maybe they can refine an existing idea, but it’s always still following something that exists. We think those folks also have trouble saying: ummm, that’s freakish! What are you thinking?! All they can do is join in and follow the leader, even if it’s drinking poision kool-aid!

Have you noticed that for the most part, all wakesurf boards are the same? Same shape, same construction, same fin pod arrangement, same paint, blah, blah, blah. As a manufacturer, you’ll go broke doing that. Someone else is going to buy it from China and sell it at half the cost you’re making it for. Or, pretty soon another shaper is going to offer the exact same thing, out of his garage, for $100 less. Working 14 hour days or working a day job and subbing out the laminating is the slow road to the poor house. It’s certainly been paved by many folks that have come and gone before. Plus when you are chasing your tail like that, what is the opportunity to develop new shapes and use new materials? It’s kinda tough! Or you just copy from someone else that makes something work. What is that saying? R&D stands for Rip-off and Duplicate!!!!

You can see why there is such a slow progression in this market, folks get excited about a new graphic, but the underlying wakesurf board is the same ‘ol thing that’s been done for the last 5 years. Can you imagine that plane above, with a shiny color-change paint job, THAT’s the crap that folks do. Oh so cool! Color-change paint on your 70 year old design, that’s so RAD! No it’s not, it’s just different paint. Sheesh.

So we really don’t care about those folks, the; “look at my 70 year old tech and design with a different paint job.” We don’t mean they are stupid or anything, good for them that they’re happy with that. We just know there’s more and better than just a new or different laminate.

So we started thinking about some of the design stuff that is used. Thick EPS while a fine material, is just a holdover from ocean surfing. Not really all that applicable to the type of riding we do and probably not even the cheapest to build with.

Most skim style wakesurf boards are built with 5 pound or heavier density PVC foam. Most typically that’s Divinycell. Now Divinycell is a great foam, cross-linked PVC and it’s closed cell. EPS is great foam too, but has limits compared to something higher end like Divinycell. Remember the whole kool-aid drinking followers metaphor, well here is one. Divinycell is not used, in total, for surf style boards because of it’s weight. Wood stringers down the middle of a hunk of PolyUrethane or EPS and about 2+ inches of foam, are a nice weight and sturdiness balance. If that same shape were made from 5 pound density foam, it’d weigh a ton and not really perform all that well. Our wakesurf boards aren’t the same size and shape as a typical ocean shortboard. We just don’t ride 6’2″ x 2 7/8″ thick performance boards they would be total dogs. YET, we still use the same materials.

Skim style boards, which are way closer to our wakesurf surf style boards in terms of dimensions, are made from higher density foam, but they are super thin in comparison. 5/8″ thick is very common. For our surf style boards, 1.5 to 2 inches thick is a better thickness for the type of ride we want. So what do shapers do? Same as it ever was. It seems they are so busy cranking out a new graphic or rushing to their day job that they don’t even think of an alternative.

So, we will. :)

Let’s use some Divinycell as a core, this is a lightweight 3 pound density H45 Divinycell. There is some lighter weight material, but it’s hard to source. So we’ll start with this.

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The very first thing we do is trace the outline from an existing shape onto the flat stock, we’ll trim that a little closer to our desired shape, but you can see we had to make the outline diagonally across the “1/4 sheet”‘ish of Divinycell. So from a production standpoint, we’d hope to be able to get 4 boards from a standard sheet or maybe 3. We’ll see, for now, that’s the plan.

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That’s where we’ll end today, let’s break away from the me too’s and the kool-aid drinkers and see if we can build a lightweight responsive board that is made entirely of closed cell foam, that we can use to throw down sick wakesurf tricks. We’ll talk some about shear and it’s properties as it relates to wakesurf boards here soon. Sorry, we just have no new graphics to share!

Thanks for following along, we appreciate it.

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May 21

Ollie Indecision

We thought we’d share some video and pictures from over the weekend of James Walker wakesuring his Flyboy Wakesurf Board and performing a wakesurf trick we call the Ollie Indecision. It is an Ollie 180 entry and then a revert, switch frontside surface 180 out. The naming convention for wakesurf tricks is all messed up, because we have names fro tricks that never took into consideration that our riders would develop alternatives in and out of the tricks. So we have an alley oop, which is that ollie 180 in and continues into a backside surface 180 out. BUT when you stop the rotation and bring the frontside, it became some weirded-out name like:

Backside Ollie 180 to switch revert frontside surface 180. Lordy, no one is ever going to say that and from a judging standpoint, who can write all that down? Hence, the ollie indecision. The ollie differentiates it from a surface indecision.

As we stated the trick is an ollie entry and then at the 180 mark, James stops it and brings it back around in the opposite rotation. Stopping the rotation is ridiculously hard and then bringing the board back around frontside is even harder!

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We’re skipping some of the individual frames, you can always double click on any of the pictures to be taken to the Flyboy Wakesurf Flickr Album or you can click on the link. Here James is landing back down on the lip where he’ll stp the rotation.

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Board revert, James is pointed to blind and is stopping the rotation

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It’s really hard to see in this picture, but James walker is wakesurfing his Flyboy Wakesurf board finless. All of the Twinzer fin pod is free of the wake and he is using the nose ONLY to guide the board back down the wake face. We’ve seen nose channels with the concept that they give more grip, but as you see with James, who is the pre-eminent stalling and revert rider, those nose channels aren’t needed and in fact, we’ve found them a hinderance for riding revert like this. Where is the water flow? What is the direct of travel of the board to stay with the boat? How would those channels work in this situation? They’d be diagonal to the board travel, wouldn’t they? The nose of James’ flyboy is specially shaped to give him the control he needs for just this sort of trick.

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Skipping ahead you can see that James Walker and his Flyboy are at the bottom of the wake and he is changing the rotation, the next three shots are crucial.

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The fins are engaging right here and once they do, it will bring the board around tremendously fast.

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WHOA! It’s around in a flash and the nose shape prevented James from hanging in that frontside rotation. The pointed nose, prevents hanging up at the apex of that rotation, where as a broad nose tip would tend to drag and hang up. Also, the location of the rear fins are set so that the engage or release in such a manner that James is able to manage these revert stalls and backside to frontside rotations all within a single trick. As is, the shape of the rails up at the nose.  And interestingly enough, that isn’t EPS foam!

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…and the last picture in that sequence, James sighting his next trick.

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Here is a short video of JUST that Ollie Indecision.

If you prefer to watch that wakesurf trick on your youtube console, or you’re joining us from a mobile device, you can use the link to take you to the video.

Thanks so much for following along, we appreciate it.

 

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May 20

Venting low density EPS, the final installment

We wanted to chat briefly about the 0.75 EPS wrapped in Carbon Fiber test panel for venting purposes. If you’ve just joined in we wanted to put to rest this concept that lower density EPS needs venting while higher density EPS doesn’t. ALL densities of EPS expand at the same rate. The concept that lower density EPS needs venting but not others is BULL and is most indicative of the folks not understanding the material properties of the foam they are working with.

So we stuck the test panel in the sun all day yesterday starting at around 7 am until close to sunset. Nothing. No bubbling, no delamination. It got warm alright, a shade over 100 degrees on the surface, but nothing more than that.

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So we got a little impatient and took a hair dryer too it. We placed a meat thermometer onto the surface and held it in place, then used the hair dryer to bring the temperature up to around 170 degrees F.

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Now we’ll talk a little more about the physical properties of EPS after this next photo, but suffice it to say that after about 5 minutes of exposure to 170 degree heat…

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Still nothing. It’s just like it was when we finished laminating it. No bubbles no delamination. It’s just the same brick we started with.

As we’ve mentioned, EPS is amazing foam and Polystyrene is one of the most amazing plastics ever. One of the physical properties of EPS is that it liquifies at 212 degrees F. It completely melts and changes states. As you can see, 212 isn’t all that hot. If we can get to 170 out of a hair dryer, another 42 dgrees won’t be hard. But that change isn’t instanteous. It’s not like the polystyrene is perfectly fine until it reaches 212 and then POOF turns to liquid. At 158 degrees F, it starts to get soft and then progressively more so until it reaches 212 F and liquifies.

So will a vent help at 212 degrees? No! Unless you want a non-drip spout for pouring out the contents of your wakesurf board. Will a vent help at 158 degrees? Delmaination at that temperature isn’t due to off-gassing or an expansion of the underlying foam, it’s because it’s MELTING and changing states from solid to liquid. It might allow some of the pentane gas that was trapped in the EPS beads to escape, but that’s not the cause of the delamination, it’s because folks melted their boards!!!!! If there is gas that escaped from ruptured EPS beads, that have MELTED, guess what? That board is already damaged. The polystyrene in that area has deformed and collapsed. Venting won’t fix that. Also recognize that 3 pound or 1 pound, still melts at the same temperature, because it’s all the same stuff!

Maybe that’s the biggest misnomer here. It’s plastic. EPS foam is an extremely soft plastic and when it gets to hair dryer temperatures it’s starting to melt. Can it get that hot on the boat? Oh easily. Leave a dark board flat out in the sun when it’s 110 and it’ll reach 158 at the surface without too much effort.

Anyway…Melting the core of your wakesurf board is NOT a good thing and venting it won’t help it if it’s melted.

Remember that link we provided for the Coefficient of Thermal Expansion of EPS, where it was the same for all densities of EPS? Directly below that is a maximum working temperature for each of the densities. 180 is the point where EPS begins deformation due to changing states and quess what that max temperature is for ALL densities of EPS? Yeppers, 180 for short term exposure. So 3 pound or 1 pound beyond 180, it’s damaged. Period. As you saw, at 170, there is no delamination or expansion to destruction.

Bag it and shade it is a simple rule of thumb for an EPS and epoxy board and here is a another point to ponder. You’ll remember the concept that was introduced in the spammers and misinformers forum, that heat treating foam prevented delamination. Ok, not true, it’s post curing epoxy. Obviously it’s not post cured at 180, because the internal foam would melt. Know what happens to epoxy that is heated above it’s post cure temperature? It starts getting soft. So, if the wakesurf board is post cured at 130 and then it gets to 150 can you guess what’s happening to the epoxy? That’s right, it’s working on turning to a liquid!!!!!

If you want to see delamination really quickly, turn your laminating resin to a liquid and forget about the core. Liquified epoxy doesn’t retain it’s shape or really stick to much of anything! :)

So maybe that is the takeaway. If the person you’re buying your board from doesn’t understand the material properties of the stuff they are working with, that product may not be built adequately. Certainly, spammers and misinformation forums are not authorities but are typically great sources of advertising copy.

Thanks so much for following along, we really appreciate it!  We got out on the boat this weekend, in the crazy wind.  So we’ll have some wakesurfing pictures and also we’ve started work on that new wakesurfer.

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May 18

Putting it altogether wakesurfer design

We are testing our carbon fiber wrapped 0.75 pound density EPS test panel today. We have a thermometer laying across the top of it and we’ve placed it in the sun. The forecast isn’t for extreme heat, so we’ll most likely have to continue the test through the weekend. However, the solid black does tend to attract heat, if you’ve ever worn a solid black shirt out in the sun, you know what we’re talking about.

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We’ll keep you posted on how that turns out.

So we are going to be trying something new in a wakesurfer design. We want to put together all of our findings of late and test a different construction and perhaps design. If you’ve been following along, you’ll remember that we observed that buoyancy didn’t seem to be a major player in wakesurfer design, that being performance boards. We get how it’s useful in the ocean, but conceptually, it doesn’t offer much for wakesurfing. All anyone needs to do is look at the various skim boards and you’ll understand how little buoyancy those boards have and they perform very well. Another was this concept of bottom structures doing much of anything OTHER than adding stiffness. Wakesurf wakes are an open system so the idea of compressing fluids or forcing them through a concave or channel, doesn’t make sense. Lastly, thickness is a contributor to stiffness in a wakesurf board but we are doubtful that it adds more than that. Rail thickness does impact a wakesurf boards responsiveness, thinner tends to be quicker to respond. Also, we aren’t talking about rail shape, just the thickness.

So here is our plan, we are going to make a relatively stiff wakesurf board. We are going to abandon the EPS core and instead use a slightly more dense material, with an eye on total weight. We’re also going to minimize the thickness of this R&D board. Somewhere in the area of 1.5 inches thick. We are going to include a concave. Not for the purposes of funneling water through the middle, that just doesn’t happen, in our opinion, but to affect control rail-to-rail. So to summarize, less buoyancy, thinner, about the same weight and we are working on stiffer or at least stiffer for this thickness.

We’ll start that build after the weekend and go into some depth of the changes in the process and design as we work on each phase. Hopefully we’ll have some wakesurfing videos and pictures to share also!  We’ll also update you on our EPS venting test panel.

Thanks so much for following along, we appreciate it!

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May 17

Venting EPS foam wakesurf boards

This post is sort of a cautionary tale and then leads into an experiment. If you’ve been around wakesurfing for any length of time you’ll recognize that many wakesurf boards are built from a core of EPS foam. EPS is short for Expanded PolyStyrene foam. Polystyrene is a plastic and it is found in everything from disposable coffee cups to the dashboard of your car. It’s a remarkably versital plastic and can be injection molded, extruded and just about all manner of processing.

Now for wakesurf boards, the most common method is block molding in which small beads of EPS are pre-expanded, then dumped into a mold and heated up again and also compressed. The beads get soft and melt together and the expansion from heating sort of forces the beads together. The key point there is that the beads aren’t glued together, they are melted together. Now EPS foam comes in several different densities. The most common for wakesurf board construction are 1 pound, 1.5 pound, 2 pound and 3 pound. But, there are all manner of other densities available.

Ok, so here is where the cautionary tale comes in. You may have seen wakesurf boards with one way vents in them. The Walker Project was one of the early adopters of this tech. Although they no longer use that with their newest construction. There was this thought that lower density EPS foam would expand at a higher rate than higher density EPS foams and so anything below 1.5 pound density needed a vent. There was never any factual information to back that up and it was sort of a rule of thumb and would be tossed around like a football.

There was a discussion on a wakesurf forum that is known for it’s spamming and misinformation. It started as a “look at my board” and spam the manufacturer. The board had a deck of black carbon fiber. Another manufacturer came in and said that needs a vent. Another shaper came in with the rule of thumb is 1 pound does, but nothing above that and finally the owner came in with his board was placed in an oven and so didn’t need a vent. No one questioned that.

So the oven toasting is referring to post-curing of the epoxy and has nothing to do with heat-treating the internal foam. Epoxy needs a post cure to reach it’s full cure and strength. We’ve discussed this in-depth in previous posts. Neither foam nor air can be heat-treated to prevent further expansion or to make it tougher. But also remember this, online forums are filled with all manner of misinformation.

So let’s go back to the whole concept of heat causing EPS to expand and that 1 pound needs venting whereas 1.5 and above doesn’t. That almost sounds reasonable doesn’t it? Certainly you’ve probably never seen a 3 pound density EPS foam board with a vent. Let’s get some factual information here.

There is a term when measuring or grading EPS foam that deals with this expansion. It’s referred to as the Coefficient of Thermal Expansion. It’s a fancy term for how much does the EPS foam expand with each degree increase in temperature. It just so happens that within the useful temperature range of EPS, that expansion is linear. So for each 1 degree increase there is a specific amount of expansion.

BUT, if all of the talking heads were correct then we would expect each separate density of EPS foam to have a unique Coefficient of Thermal Expansion. AND if the whole 1 pound needs venting and the others don’t we’d also expect the 1 pound density foam to have some crazy larger number compared to the other densities. AND if we believed any of that crap, we’d be wrong.

Welcome to misinformation age!!!

All EPS no matter what density, has the exact same Coefficient of Thermal Expansion. So no matter if it’s 1 pound or 3 pound density, it expands at the exact same rate. Here is a link to a common table of physical properties of EPS foam. It’s just the first one we found, so feel free to google the CofTE for EPS and you’ll find that same table again and again. Working up from the bottom, the 3 item is the Coefficient of Thermal Expansion.

http://www.thefoamfactory.com/tech/StyroTech.html

Did you find it? The three columns correspond to 1 pound, 2 pound and 3 pound densities of EPS foam and each shows the same number:

Coefficient of Thermal Expansion in./(in.)(F) 0.000035

Huh! No matter what the density, it all expands at the same rate. Wait, wait, wait! 1 Pound needs to be vented! No it doesn’t, just more crap that gets tossed out there from folks that really are being negligent. If you don’t know, just say that. It’s fine to say: I don’t know that answer, but I’ll sure find out! Instead it comes out as: my ego’s so big don’t question me and you’re a poopyhead for even asking. Blech. Anyway, the reality is that ALL EPS foam would benefit from a vent, if the board is going to be subjected to an environment where heat and this thermal expansion is going to be an issue.

Anyway, all EPS does expand and all EPS expands at the exact same rate. That’s true because it’s all the same stuff. It’s Polystyrene, pentane gas and air. The plastic doesn’t really expand measurably with heat, but the two gases do. And we’ll repeat this, they can’t be heat-treated to prevent further expansion. So normally there is some truth to these wives-tales. If we see large 1 pound density SUPs they often have vents. So here is our thinking. ALL EPS can benefit from a vent, especially those being subjected to extreme heat or heat build up. It’s not strictly 1 pound EPS, but ALL EPS. We’d also think that folks that are working with higher density foams have their processes worked out, so have found that within a relative range, venting just isn’t really needed to prevent delamination or other failures. The folks that use 1 pound without vents, like Surftech and Inland Surfer have refined their processes so that the vents are needed.

If you are making $2,000 SUPs, a $20 vent is pretty safe way to avoid returns if folks are leaving their SUPs out in the sun all day long.

Really, we think that’s probably the long and short of it. Not that 1 pound needs venting and other densities don’t only that the processes for some have been worked out and the rest haven’t figured it out for 1 pound or the manufacturer says, $20 is cheap insurance!

So we decided to do a little test, let’s get some factual information here. So here is our test, we took a piece of really crappy 1 pound density EPS and laminated it on all exposed surfaces with some 4 oz Carbon Fiber. It’s nice and black and the core is really crappy low density foam, probably a little lighter than 1 pound, it feels like a nominal weight of 0.5 pound density.

We’ll post cure the project and then take it out and leave it in the sun. We are hoping for some 90 degrees days here in NorCal soon. We’ll leave it out all day and get some temperature readings. What we are wanting to test is whether it will delaminate and if so at what temperature.

We don’t question that it’s possible, only that 1 pound or 3 pound will both delam at the same point and also, it really requires that you mishandle the board. Don’t leave your black EPS board in the sun, unprotected all day.

So here is the lamination process. A chunk of EPS foam and some scrap Carbon Fiber cloth.

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We wrapped it up like a Christmas Package and then wrapped that with clear plastic wrap to hold it all in place while the epoxy cured.

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Imagine that’s a carbon wrapped EPS board! We’ve used plenty of Epoxy and then squeezed it nice an tight with the clear plastic wrap.

It’s currently RAINING in NorCal, so we won’t be testing the whole heat expansion concept today, but the weekend is projected as 90, so hopefully that will give us some useful information. We may not be able to replicate 110 in the shade conditions, but if we can get it to delam, we’ll know at what point that took place and if your environment is cooler than THAT, you should be golden.

Thanks so much for following along, we really appreciate it.  Hopefully we’ll get out on teh water this weekend for some buoyancy testing!

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May 16

Salt water and buoyancy

No doubt you’ve heard that salt water is more bouyant than fresh water. If you ever been in a salt water pool, like they have on ocean liners, you know that you seem to float more or more of your body is out of the water. It’s a weird sensation.

What’s happening is that salt water, of course, has salt in it. It’s fresh water with more stuff in it! Have you ever poured salt into a glass of tap water? Does the salt float? No, it sinks to the bottom unless you stir it up. It sinks, because salt is more dense than plain water.

Salt water from the ocean is more dense than fresh water. So when you’re floating in it, your volume and weight don’t change simply because you are in the ocean. Hence, your density remained the same but the fluid you chose to FLOAT in, became more dense with the addition of the salt and related chemicals.

Are you more buoyant? No, feels that way, but it’s just that the water is more dense. That is for a given volume, that amount of salt water weighs more. Your volume, weight and density doesn’t change simple by jumping into the saltwater, so you’d displace a smaller volume of water when you jump in, and you’d float higher in the water.

Here is an amazing drawing that gives you a visual. When you are floating in water, you are displacing an equal volume of water. If you weigh MORE than that volume of water, you sink. If you weigh less you float. When, like people, you are almost the same density you float semi-submerged until that equalization occurs. So since salt water is denser that fresh water, you’ll reach that equalization point “earlier” if you will.  Causing you to float higher in the water.

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So here are some interesting observations. If ocean water is more dense than fresh water, such that we displace less salt water and more fresh water, if float and displacement or even volume or bouyancy were a “deal” what would be the relationship between wakesurf boards and ocean surfboards in terms of size and volume? If there were a corrolation there.

Wakesurf boards would need to be bigger, huh? Fresh water being less dense, requires more displacement, so boards should be BIGGER, have more volume, more buoyancy, be longer and wider and thicker in order to achieve the same level of performance. IF bouyancy were a deal. Right? If buoyancy were a performance deal when surfing whether it be fresh or salt water, that corrolation would remain consistent and linear and our wakesurf boards would need to be LARGER in all dimensions to compensate for the decreased buoyancy.

Huh, imagine that?! And wakesurf boards aren’t “larger” in all dimensions because – that’s all squat! Surfboard length and volume and buoyancy is mostly for purposes of paddling in and out, which mostly we don’t do…ever…behind the boat.  We get there are exceptions and some folks wakesurf in brackish or salt water, but by-and-large, that isn’t the norm.

At the Supreme Mexico Wake Surf Championship, no one had any problems surfing due to increased buoyancy in the salt water. BUT we did hear folks talk about the water being soft. Almost like how we treat hard water with ionized salt to remove some of the checmicals and make it feel “softer”. We aren’t sure what’s happening there, but one thing we did note was that in terms of density, salt water is about 3% more dense that fresh water. So in the above example, your body would float at some point when that 3% increase in density was met. It doesn’t really relate to the depth that you’d float in, only the 3% change in displacement. But, here is the thing, if you’ve ever been in a salt water pool, you know that you can feel it!

So could our wakesurfing pro’s feel it? Yeah probably. If we can feel the difference when floating in a pool, wakesurf pros no doubt recognize the change. BUT it’s not float and really buoyancy isn’t an effect when we are planing on the surface.

As mentioned above, salt water, according to any number of sources, is about 3% more dense than fresh water. Let’s put that into perspective Our boat and ballast combination is probably somewhere in the area of 6,000 pounds. 3 percent of that number is 180 pounds. Not very much, huh? If you weigh 150 pounds, it would be like adding 4′ish pounds. Would it stop you dead in your tracks? No, but you’d feel it! Heck we all do, who hasn’t tried to loose that last 5 pounds???!!!

Anyway, is salt water more bouyant than fresh water? Yes indeedy. Is it significant, probably not. What’s interesting to us is that we have a quatifiable number. Where 3% of something, in this case the density of the salt water compared to fresh water, is noticeable. It didn’t impact wakesurfing negatively as we still saw tons of Tricks. James threw both a backside big spin and a HUGE front shuv, and landed both but had issues when backside switch, falling away from the wake and on the back big he stuffed the nose in the water when trying to recover switch. Was that 3% enough to change the timing or maybe the feel of the board compared to fresh water? Who knows! It certainly could be. We know that 3% number is tangible and, at least for the pro level riders, was evident. As the skill level decreased so did the ability to notice any difference.  The take away though is 3% is a definitive measurement for pro level riders, but not so much for amateurs and salt water, is a doable wakesurf medium for venue planning like at the Loreto Stop!

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Thanks so much for following along, we really appreciate it.

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May 15

Loreto Stop and Flyboy Wakesurf Boards

We wanted to talk a little about the number of Flyboy Wakesurf boards on the podium at the Loreto Stop. Men’s Masters, Men’s Pro Surf both first place winners were on Flyboy designs. Men’s Outlaw Surf and Men’s Masters had second place finishes on Flyboy Wakesurf Boards and Women’s Masters and Women’s Outlaw Surf had a third place finish on a Flyboy Wakesurf board.

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That’s 6 podiums for the Flyboy Wakesurf James Walker Pro model. How does that compare to the other manufacturers?

Inland Surfer Non-Flyboy models  4
Phase 5                                              4
ASC                                                      3
Soulcraft                                              3
Evercarve                                            2
Roush customs                                 2
Triple x                                                 2
Mendonesia                                       1
Victoria                                                1

So Flyboy Wakesurf boards had more podium spots than Trple X, Mendonesia and Victoria combined!! Twice as many as Soulcraft and ASC. And 50% more than all the other Inland boards and Phase 5 boards. When you compare the global sales of a brand like Phase 5 to Flyboy, we don’t compare at ALL. There must be 10,000 more Phase 5 units easily than there are Flyboy’s.

What does that mean to you? Well at this contest a higher number of Flyboy wakesurf riders podiumed than any other brand and there are significantly less Flyboy Wakesurf Boards floating around than all the other Inland Boards or the Phase 5′s probably even Solucrafts. You do the math. If we aren’t mistaken, 100% of the Flyboy Wakesurf riders made a podium spot, that wasn’t true for many other brands.

So obviously you will too! No, we can’t say that, but there are lots of folks that podiumed at this contest that choose to ride a Flyboy Wakesurf board. Certainly, James Walker wakesurfing his Flyboy Wakesurf board has won more pro men’s surf style contests than any other brand or model in the last few years.  That is, of course a testatment, to James’ skill and hard work, but also to the design and board he’s riding.

We wanted to talk a little about bouyancy and salt water when we come back tomorrow. It was kind of interesting and we wanted to share with everyone our observations from the Supreme Mexico Wake Surf Championship. One major difference between surfing and wakesurfing is that surfing is done in salt water and, for the most part, wakesurfing is done in fresh water.

We hope you’ll come back tomorrow for that discussion! Thanks so much for following along!

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May 14

Supreme Mexico Wake Surf Championship recap

If we had to sum the Supreme Mexico Wake Surf Championship up in one word we’d call it: FUN! All caps with an exclamation point. We set out to make the event enjoyable and fun for all, which meant making it a little more grass-roots-like than some of the bigger competitions. Nationals and Worlds are BIG TIME competitions and you can feel the tension in the air at those events. They are also boring as all hell for folks that aren’t riding in the pros. When the pros ride it’s great fun and we all love them, but there is the remaining 14 hours of the day that just suck the life right out of you!

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Let’s all be honest here, if we wanted to go wakesurf with all of our buddies, we do it at home on our own boats and lake, not travel 1,500 miles to wakesurf with them for 2 minutes and then spend the rest of the day on shore.

So we tried really hard to offer alternatives at the Supreme Mexico Wake Surf Championship. Golf, a spa, lots of concrete for the skateboarders to skate on. Pools, hot tubs, fishing, sight see-ing and we catered all-you-can-eat buffet style dinners both nights. We had the resort staff bring lunch down to the beach where folks could watch the event and sit in the shade.

Plus: showers, daily maid service, mini bar in your room, air conditioning and the most amazing views you can imagine all from the comfort of your room.

So we’re really pleased with how this event turned out and we’ll definately be building on that in the future. Broadcast and video are already slated for the 2014 Supreme Mexico Wake Surf Championship!

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So are a functioning jet ski!!!!! and we’ll change the date to get rid of the wind. The locals tell us the on-shore wind we had was abnormal, but we really want NON-existent!

From the persepctive of fun, alternatives to JUST wakesurfing and a relaxed, fun environment we think we nailed that. Huge shout outs to all the folks involved. Todd Gaughan for getting those fine Supreme V226′s down there and managing the budget to get us such a great venue and really a good time. Scott Culp for all of his thankless, miserably hard duties as Chief Judge. It’s hard work and brutal and only one person in each division thinks you aren’t a complete idiot. Appreciate it! Lance from Inland Surfer, driver extrodinairre. Lance was on it the whole time and gave riders the best pulls possible. Rick Lee, Bryan Holland and Brett Potts from Fineline Industries. Thanks so much for funding the event and allowing the use of the boats, plus taking the risk with this event. Everyone loved the venue! Indmar for supporting the event, the Supreme’s ran great. Not to forget Jason from Faction Board shop and James and Jeff Walker from Flyboy Wakesurf and the Flyboy Store.

For those that have been to a wakesurfing event, you know they are just the most boring thing ever. Even adding some demo component or whatever doesn’t relieve the boredom for the remain gazillion hours. Be honest here folks, if you had your options of going to some mudhole in backwoods Nebraska for your vacation or a seaside resort, you know you’d opt for the beach! If you competing at anything above the am level, you already know what board you want and most likely have it and others. So we wanted to break that mold, and do something really different from the remaining 99.9% of wakesurf events.

We’ll finish off the event overview tomorrow talking about James Walker and his big win at the Loreto Stop and the number of Flyboy’s on the podiums.

Huge experiement and it worked! We also appreciate all who made the trek down to Loreto and we look forward to seeing everyone again next year!

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May 13

James Walker and Flyboy win!

Starting off the North American Continent wakesurf season with a hard fought victory, James Walker wins his first win of the season, followed closely with his Inland Surfer teammate Kenan Flegel. Jimmi Sparling riding for Soulcraft brings home his first podium of the year.

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We here at Flyboy couldn’t be more proud. James is a full-time student in college, owns his own online store, works part-time delivering pizza, pays all his own bills and does all the mundane chores like doing his laundry and cooking his meals and trains in what little time he has left, which isn’t much. Hard work, dedication and focused energy are the hallmarks of James’ wakesurfing efforts and they paid off here in Loreto as James Walker wins the pro male surf division of the Supreme Mexico Wake Surf Championship!

In other pro division podiums:

Pro Women’s Surf

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Raliegh Hager showed up with a bag full of tricks including a reverse! She’s the most advanced women’s pro surfer today on her ASC board. Ashley Kidd in Second on her Mendonesia Surf board and Jac Fort  in Third on her Evercarve board.

In pro women’s skim

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Jac Fort took home the gold on her custom board, Caro riding her signature Inland Surfer took second and Jackie Costa on her Victoria in third in her first pro event.

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Wrapping up the Pro Division podiums

Kenan Flegel took first, with his Inland Surfer prototype, Second went to Jaime Lovett and third to fellow Supreme teammate Aaron Witherell!

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Congratulations to all the winners here in Loreto Mexico at the Supreme Mexico Wake Surf Championship. See everyone again next year as we go bigger, better and more bad! If you didn’t attend this year, kick yourself now because you missed out the most fun that will be had at any wakesurf event this year. Don’t be stupid next year!

Thanks so much for following along, we appreciate it.

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May 12

Supreme Mexico Wake Surf Championship day 2

Happy Mothers day to all the mom’s out there. Day two of the Supreme Mexico Wake Surf Championship is now over and we are waiting for the podium results. Hopefully we’ll have those for you before the end of the day when you read this. We have a plan for getting the podium pictures, so we’ll get those quickly and post them online ASAP

We started the day here in Loreto with just another glorious sunrise. You can see the islands way off in the distance and they are miles and miles away.

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We’ll miss the palm trees, and those amazing sunrises.

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Aren’t those colors amazing? Gold, red and orange.

The running order stayed the same both days. We decided that this was just so new for folks, the boat, salt water and dealing with a very different sort of cross-flow. So the prelim’s didn’t affect the second day seeding and the scores weren’t cumulative.

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The wind held off for most of the day! Yes!

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We wound up using a pontoon to get folks back and forth to the staging boat, here are some of the amateurs heading out for their finals runs.

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We saw some really close divisions, so we’ll see how they turn out. James was pleased with his Men’s Pro Surf run, we’ll see if it was enough to hold off Keenan and his new pro model and Jaime Lovett on his new Mendonesian and that surf style board transfer!

Come back for the podium results, we’ll get the pictures and results up ASAP.

Thanks so much for following along and we sure hope we’ll see you all at the Loreto Stop Supreme Mexico Wakesurf Championship next year in 2014! It’ll be even bigger and better and more fun than this year!

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