Yesterday Jonathan received his new 14' Penetrator and it's the first of its kind being 14' long, having a sunken deck and side drainage vent holes.

It was a crappy, cold and windy Melbourne day but that wasn't going to stop Jonathan testing his new board.

Stuey did a fantastic job shaping and making this little beauty.. Here's a few pictures from todays test paddle of the new 14' Pene.

DJ







The board feels fast.. real fast.. I guess I better get used to this view of Jonathan when I go paddling with him..

Hi DJ,

That is one awesome looking paddling machine!

Session and I could have uesd that baby yesterday lol!

If we say PLEASE PRETTY PLEASE could Jonothan bring it along on the 13th to OG ?

Just for display would be great, I promise to supply some towels to wipe the drool off!

Phill

Yep I'm the proud owner! Thanks Stuey, she's a beaut. Its not too bad on the roof racks, nose hangs over the windscreen and the sections on each side of the grip are quite flat and sit fine on the racks. You can see in the first photo the Landcruiser with its new "pimped" roof rack pads in honour of the new board. It's pretty light, I'll weigh it at some stage but I'm guessing about 12 or 13kg.

Getting it into the shed isn't much fun though.

LSD as far as the fin theory goes I really don't know, maybe Stuey can come in here. All I know is that all the boards of this length seem to have the fin way forward of the end of the board. Maybe it's a centre of effort thing relating to your weight on the board and where the power goes in, in yachting terms it seems to be more like a keel than a rudder. Could be a trade off between turnability and yaw when paddling. I'm going to try it one (warm!) day without the fin in. or maybe go a really tiny fin and see what happens.

The beauty of it is that the board is actually very manoeuvrable and quite easy to turn. It is very sensitive to how flat you keep it when you are paddling - depress the right rail as you paddle, it goes left and visa versa. In terms of turning the board without stepping back it's actually much easier than my 12'6 Starboard to turn.

The volume in the rail really stops the thing rocking over beyond a certain point very effectively so you can actually roll it for steering with far more confidence than you would on a flat board. I'm sure that the trick in going fast is to keep it as flat as possible all the time to keep the rails out of the water and keep it on the curvy part of the hull. There is certainly a rolly polly feeling at first and once you realise that it won't easily tip you off it's actually not a problem. It does feel much more stable than the 14' non-sunken deck version that I tried in Noosa, but actually not as stable as Woogies 12'6 sunken-deck which is wider (not sure by how much). The 12'6 really impressed me when I tried it, it would be interesting to have them side by side to compare. I'm sure the 14' is faster but just has a steeper learning curve.

12'6" Penetrator x3 below










Seems to be very weight dependent on how high it floats in the water, there is a beautiful blue pin stripe between the white bottom and the orange and that seems to be pretty much on the water line for me but was well under for DJ and Lobes. So at my weight, 67kg it seems to be completely on the curved section of the hull. Have to chuck it in the pool for some underwater hull shots a la KeNalu...in summer!

Had a chance to try it into some headwind yesterday, the bloody thing actually glides into the wind javascript:insertsmilie(''). I remember that from trying the 14' at Noosa, there were guys paddling back from surfing at the river entrance on their knees because of the headwind and until I saw them I actually hadn't really noticed the headwind.

It was only a quick paddle yesterday, actually more of a photo shoot!! If DJ didn't take 150 photos I'll eat my paddle. So hang on to your hard drives I'm sure they're coming soon..

I'll report back once I have some more time on it.

Wow ,sweet looking board Jonathon,
what conditions suit it best?
will it still go good in a strong downwinder and handle the bigger swell?
Cheers,
Camo.

I have heaps more pics that show off this amazing board.

DJ

Not sure about the width, I'll measure it and the weight tomorrow. Did a 20k run today, just cruising and really enjoyed it - averaged 6.9km/hour according to the gps and that included chats with people along the way. That's about 1k/hour faster than I used to average on the 12'6 Starboard for a similar cruise, I'm sure as I get more used to it it will be even better. It's still feels a bit tippy but really only had two whoopsie moments today on boat chop and even then the thing just stops tipping so I don't even really know how close I was to actually falling.

Notice how much lower in the water it is with DJ and Lobes compared to me, would be interesting to know what the actual volume is, suspect it's well under 200 litres.

Camo, don't know how it will be on the big down-winders in really rough conditions. You can just feel it wanting to catch any little ripple though, so if I can stay on most of the time I'm sure it will be awesome.

I know it's still a new toy but it really makes a foggy winter paddle feel pretty special!

Jeese, just as well it's orange then! Tail pad came with the C4 pad that I bought and Stuey just fitted it into the pad layout, it actually looks great because it breaks up the pad. Will I use it? Hope so!! You do get into surfing stance on a runner so it will be interesting to see. Cost - 3 ish.

DJ how does it compare to AA's penetrator that we paddled at last yr's Mambo?


Boylos

Great looking craft Jonathan. This is such an interesting stage of this sport. With the boat-like noses, rudders, and who knows what comes next, I wonder if in a couple of years time we will still be calling them 'boards'.

Stuey that is your best work yet. Keep the stoke and inovative designs coming.

Aloha

Byron

Dean here's my thoughts on the fin position thing (btw I'm no expert).

The fin is there to keep the board going straight and we know that moving it forward makes the board more maneuverable and moving it back stiffens it up so imo you need it as far forward as you can get it while keeping the board going straight.. Some boards may need the fin placed further back to stop them yawing.

Maybe that deep vee nose of Stueys boards and vee down from the nose and also the vee in the tail area helps keep the board from yawing so there is less need for the fin to be placed too far back.

Also.. we know that most tail pads are positioned so the your rear foot is placed just in front of the leading edge of the fin so you can push off the fin without spinning it out.. A board with thin sharp rails can be turned from further up the board by using the rail as a fin but with a rounded or thicker rail or displacement type hull you can not turn an board as well this way.. I think you may need to push on the fin more.

It is very important to be able to foot steer these boards because once on a runner you need to be able to keep the board going straight.. and sometimes steer left or right to stay on the runner.. Stueys board seems to foot steer quite well even at low non planing speeds but having the fin further back may stop this.

Also with these long boards the tail lift is increased because of the longer distance so it is more possible to lift the fin out of the water either with a light paddler of when the tail is lifted when dropping off the back of a runner.

I think a board that is made to just paddle on flat smooth water could have the fin right on the tail and should work well but once you start catching runners and foot steering you need it further forward...... Just my thoughts.

DJ

Very, very cool looking ride, congrats to Jonathan and Stuey. It's making me "boardsick" seeing this thing--I miss my Penetrator. I should have shipped it to Portland.

it wont ever matter how fast one can paddle,getting a planing hull up on the plane is never going to happen just by paddle power,displacement hulls are faster thru the water ala clubbie race ski.on a runner a board can only go as fast as the wave runs,therefore displacement hulls are used by the best paddlers in the world,aussie clubbie ironmen,

lacey said...

firstpoint said...

it wont ever matter how fast one can paddle,getting a planing hull up on the plane is never going to happen just by paddle power,displacement hulls are faster thru the water ala clubbie race ski.on a runner a board can only go as fast as the wave runs,therefore displacement hulls are used by the best paddlers in the world,aussie clubbie ironmen,

ok, i realize that. i wasn't talking about speed.what about the paddle boarders(the guys on their knees),are they using displacement hulls (genuine question). i was just making a point, there in not too much BOARD about these designs

What defines a board? We have skateboards, snowboards, wakeboards, surfboards, paddleboards, stand-up paddle boards, ironing boards, billboards, washboards and distance sup boards all of which are shaped to best perform their given function. Should we build something that doesn't best perform it's purpose just to keep it looking like a surfboard when it's not one anyway?

firstpoint said...

however if a downwind race occurs,not side wind,sup downwinders,unlimited, will win hands down just due to the sail factor.

Can't agree with that a prone board is only 20" wide and will always be faster.

Not much has been said about the stand up board Billie won on which was basically 28" wide prone board and it worked really well , it had a really flat bottom with hardly any rocker , boxy rails and battle ship style ends , nothing surfboard about it.Very basic shape and nothing like the DC or the Penetrator.

Mmmmmmmmm.

lacey said...

firstpoint said...

so what do we call them down wind standup race craftdont know about jamie mitchells race machine,whether its displacement or planing,they look displacement,but it sure as ** is fast,however if a downwind race occurs,not side wind,sup downwinders,unlimited, will win hands down just due to the sail factor.

actually i was seeing dc so i asked him about a board ready to be glassed. he said this is a displacement nose through to planing centre to displaced tail - bit of every thing. however he said one they are going to do is basically a ski
cheers
ps i'm not anti, thinking about getting into it

without the innovators in aus there wont be any advancement,power to stuey and dc for going in slightly different direction,i reckon this side of the sport is so good,i would like to see the top five on one design boards,how about a one design challenge for charity.