Bodysurfing and such

Dave Hahn from California Surfcraft was the core of a small gathering at Baker Beach yesterday. OB was a big mess, but around the corner and in view of the Golden Gate, Baker was giving 6' hollows with light offshore. Baker breaks close to shore and there isn't much ride beyond the drop and pull into the barrel, so it's a place for bodysurfing, hand planes, and bodyboards. We had a group of 6 of us and more "shrapnel" than we could have possibly ridden in a day.

I started by bodysurfing a bunch to get a feel for the conditions. I got inside several large closeout barrels and got comfortable with things. I even found some corners and relatively long rides for what should just be closeouts. I headed back to the pile of devices on the beach and picked out Dave's latest bodyboard creation. It's a 5 layer sandwich of two kinds of cork and fiberglass. From the bottom is goes: double 8oz glass, cork, double 8oz, ultralight cork, then cork on the deck. It flexes a bit under load, duckdives easily, and fits in the larger barrels. I was trying to adjust my approach to the different vehicle and I think it's something I could really get to like. It's not as fast as the surf mat, but it's much easier to ride than the HPD.

I didn't use the arm leash and was able to hold onto it in all but one wave. That one wave was pretty heavy for the day and after the board got pulled from my hands I popped up in a rush to swim after it. As is true with the spoon, HPD, and other low float items, it surfaced right next to me. Two good kicks and it was back in my grip before the next wave exploded.

The group of guys included Dave and I, another guy from SF, and three guys from Oakland. They live close to me, and carpool seems an obvious choice. The leader of the Oakland contingent got everyone's email and will contact me soon I hope.

There were some cameras out yesterday, so if I get any photos sent to me, I'll post them.

Spoon Ride Report

Saw a window of light winds mid-week, mid-afternoon. Raced out and caught some 3-4' waves. The rides were a bit longer than the other go out, but they were a bit softer too. Some observations:
1) Stalling on turns. It felt to me that turns would rob me of speed. Sometimes that's a good thing, sometimes not. I remember a similar sensation when I put the plastic, super flex fin on the GeeBee. It worked out one session when the waves were slower. Cutbacks stalled me right to the pocket and I would drop in again, cool! Then stalling felt awful the next session when I needed to go fast down the line and hard bottom turns stalled at the bottom. I think the spoon's fin might be too flexible for what I'm comfortable with, so I'll keep an eye on that.
2) Down the line speed is not as fast as a surfboard. At least this is true for softer waves. I couldn't pump or drive to make it through a crumbing section. The wave behind a shortboard thruster pumped and flew past me and rode on for 20 more yards.
3) I need to avoid sideways take offs. This is something I do often on smaller days at OB when I need to get down the line faster. The spoon will not go, instead it stalls sideways and I go over the falls. I need to go down the face at first to get some speed up before trying to head down the line.
4) More kneepad is needed, and further back. I often landed just right on the kneepad, but after a session I got the sense that that is too far forward. I can add a few inches worth just behind what's there, but I also need some for my ankle area. My feet slid off the board on more than one wave, leaving my knees in place but my body sideways to the board.
4b) I need to surf it from further back.
5) The paint job is temporary. It had little sharp spots that I picked off with my finger nail. It came off anywhere it was bumped hard. The tip of the fin hit sand and the paint pealed right off. It is more slippery than the sanded glass surface.
6) I need to surf it more.
I shouldn't worry too much about running out of deck pad. There's plenty out there on the internets.
http://www.seadek.com/p-25-small-sheet-18-x-38.aspx

Flex Spoon

I got advice from someone who knows to go slow on tuning the flex spoon. As a clarification, "tuning" the spoon is the process of sanding away material (resin and fiberglass) in a smooth feathering with the goal of allowing the spoon to flex under load. How much flex? How much load? These questions are more by feel than by rule. At the moment my spoon has little flex to it in the basic rocker plane, which I can test by putting the tail on something soft and pulling the nose. Torsional flex is as important, but I can't figure out how to load the board when dry, so it remains unknown. Bob McTavish recently made some spoons and tuned them with much more flex than where I'm at.

The classic image of a flex spoon is with a translucent deck highlighting the opaque foam rails. My spoon doesn't have any translucence because it has a layer of carbon fiber in it. According to George Greenough, a spoon should flex and rebound sharply, like a bow firing an arrow. Carbon fiber has more rebound than fiberglass, and that is the reason Stretch put the layer in.

I was in the yard admiring the spoon and wishing I could pretty it up a little.

 

The yellow and red color is pigment we added to the resin while layering additional fiberglass. The black background is the core layer of carbon. I thought that I am happy with the fin, so I could paint it if I wanted, which I do. As I was inspecting my work, I realized that the carbon layer was much closer to the deck than the bottom. I decided any further tuning/sanding would be on the bottom. This allowed my to also paint the deck and add the kneepad. I didn't take any process photos, and the work I did is clearly not sharp, but I think the spoon looks much better overall. (The bottom looks the same as above, except the fin is painted.)

 

 

I should add more knee pad, but I wanted to see if it even sticks. It's pretty old, like 15 years sitting in the garage old, and some of the adhesive stuck better to the paper than to the foam. I added some where I think my knees sit most often, but in the photo it looks too far forward to me.

One thing I really appreciate about the bright red color on the nose and fin is that it will stand out better in the ocean. Last week when I lost the board it took longer than I like to find it, partially because the colors didn't stand out. The flex spoon ended upside down most times, so only the fin stuck out of the water. It was soft blue, now it's Apple Red!

 

This was fun. I should photograph more of my boards and put them up. I found my GoPho, but can't find the charging cable. It's out there somewhere, and when I run across it I'll charge up the camera and get some more shots. Last time I had hours of footage but no good way to deal with it. This little netbook I use can barely handle blogging, and my desktop isn't much faster. Once I get a job I'll upgrade my computer? Does anyone have any suggestions on cheap and easier video editing software?

 

 

Stoked Up

The box works. I loaded it up with three boards and headed to the beach. I also put the mats and the paipo up in the cab, and the flex spoon in the bed, knowing it fits in the cab if I want to lock it up. When I got to the beach I opted for the flex spoon. Update time:
I bought the spoon years back. The first session on it I got an in-out barrel, but also broke the rail when I grabbed and pulled it doing an Island pull out. I over reacted on the repair by adding several layers of glass to the whole board, wanting it to never break like that again. By the time I was done there was no flex left in the board. It was time to start sanding it, but I was scared of ruining a rare piece of surf equipment. It didn't ride well stiff, and I didn't want to sand it, so it didn't get ridden. Recently I've been surfing the HPD a bit and there are parallels to the spoon. They are both near neutral buoyancy so they duck dive well, and have no way to sit on them to get out of the water. The result is an intimacy with the water that comes from being up to your chin the whole time. It's like bodysurfing and feeling connected to the waves, but the planning surface of the paipo and spoon allow for more speed. I feel like the paipo would work better if it had ANY flex, and I considered sanding it down to get some flex, just like I should for the spoon... This renewed my interest in the spoon and I convinced myself to got for it and start sanding the spoon.
I went at it with 36-grit paper on the angle sander. After an hour of sanding the board had a tiny bit of flex. I was hot, tired, and out of paper. (Paper sanding disks fall apart if wet or too much force is applied while sanding.) I decided that was a good start and would continue after surfing it.
Back to me at the beach, a box full of three surfboards, paipo and surf mats in the cab, and me flippering out to 4-6' OB on a flex spoon. The spoon duck dives like a dream once I figure out the angles. The large UDeeTs fins modified for flex, a new 5/4/3 hooded wetsuit, and 60deg water all combined to make surfing the spoon downright pleasant. The waves weren't right to feel the board flex because they were either very soft shoulders, or the occasional hollow but short bowl. The flex is most obvious on cutbacks and other hard turns, which I wasn't doing that day. I got behind the bowl a few times and one time made it through for an in-out barrel. This is rare for me, so the stoke of it revitalized me to keep working on sanding the spoon. I got more sanding disks on the way home (cloth backed disks, last much longer) and sanded for another 90 min this morning.
But back to the box. That first day it was nice to have the box, but I didn't take a board out of it to surf. The next day I went to a job interview, and had left the boards in the box overnight. From the job interview I went strait to the beach and DID pull a board out of the box to surf. I was watching the waves and was happy I had the option of a few boards because the waves were not too big for the Pacheco, but not too small for the Moraga. I ended up having a shite session but the air was hot, the sun was out, and the water is still warm.
I wrote similar emails to two other spoon guys just before I wrote this up. It's difficult riding these unusual surf craft because I don't have anyone else to learn from or talk about things with. I hope one of them responds, but I also know that the kind of people who like to ride spoons might be off on a new surf tangent developing the next surf craft that I'll be wanting to try!