A few more riding pictures and unedited video from the first session on the ’13 Flyboy Wakesurf Prototype. This is James Walker wakesurfing and he lands a backside big spin on the ’13 prototype. We are looking to develop a wakesurf board that will still work well in the reduced areas of effectiveness in over-weighted contest boats. So that is requiring the boards be able to work in extremely small pockets and with minimal amounts of lifting forces. As the rider moves back and away from he boat the lifting forces from the boat plowing through the water diminish.
Here are a few select sequence shots of James Walker landing the backside big spin. We are switching our picture hosting from Webshots to Flickr and aren’t quite ready for primetime. It seems Flickr places the pictures in reverse order, so the sequence shots in that album are all reversed! They start at the end and go through the start!
Loading up for the backside big spin
Starting the 3 shuv part
Mid varial and 3 shuv
Hitting the lip in the re-entry
…and bringing it home.
Here is a quick unedited video of the same trick, James Walker throwing a back big on his ’13 prototype Flyboy Wakesurf board.
It’s probably a little hard to see from those pictures, but this prototype is a tad faster rail-to-rail. That in-and-of itself doesn’t make a big spin easier or harder, but it can affect the timing of landing the trick. Our plan for ’13 is to be able to develop a wakesurf board that can allow James to throw those high level tricks in a much tighter area, or in other words a much reduced effective pocket length.
Let’s take a brief moment and talk about developing adequate speed on a shorter wakesurf board. We all know that MORE wetted surface area, tends to equate with more down-the-line speed. One of the issues with more down-the-line speed is that it has a negative correlation with manuverability. That is to say, fast is fast, but not so turny. Sort of like a dragster, goes fast straight, but doesn’t do a road course very well. We shape a board differently for speed than for turning. Blending those elements is not an easy task, and most likely will require changing fins, or possibly molding our own. Fins work by creating drag, which doesn’t help with down-the-line speed. Fins developed for an ocen environment, where the waves are so much more powerful isn’t an effecient design for wakesurfing.
So, as you can see there is lots to consider in wakesurf board shaping for a smaller effective pocket present in MOWs! Thanks so much for following along, we really appreciate it.
2 comments
1 ping
Michael Haseck
October 11, 2012 at 5:58 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
So you starting a flyboy fin devlopment line?
Author
October 11, 2012 at 6:12 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
Probably nothing that significant, but most likely we’ll take some existing fins to the grinder
Thanks for following along Michael!
Concave deck without losing volume
October 12, 2012 at 4:31 am (UTC -7) Link to this comment
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