Just wondering why our boards are built the way they are? To me it seems like our boards are heavier than they should be. Why are the boards we ride that are under 8ft long around 6kgs, when they are building production moths that are 11ft long weighing 8kgs? Would it not be better to be building hollow boards if they were reinforced properly?
Obviously I'm no board builder

You could build a board with the same proportional weight as a moth. It would cost a bit more than your average board though.
Moths and sailboards have to do pretty different things. Sailboards get jumped and slammed around in chop a lot more than a moth.
I think the extra glass and reinforcements you need to build a strong enough hollow sailboard end up weighing more than a styrene core. The styrene core also spreads loads a lot better than having stringers in hollow boards.
Do you have an idea of the volume of a moth hull? It would be interesting to know so we could have something to compare weights with.

Price is a bit iffy your probably right, though a moth hull is around $5000 which isnt a great deal more than $3000 that you can pay for a brand new board considering size etc. One positive which got me thinking about this in the first place would be the ability to drain water. I spose this would have already been thought of, does anyone know of it being done? Maybe a wave board's out the question but what about a slalom or speed board? Sorry dont know the volume

Hollow boards have been done a few times. AHD did one a few years back. Air Inside was another earlier go at it. I don't know the pros and cons. I think they were pretty much the same weight as conventional construction. I know they were noisy. The ability to drain them is an obvious plus. Possibly they were more difficult to construct?

Actually 6kg is pretty efing light for the major part of your kit.
Are you that fussy about your booms and extensions and foot straps etc?

However if its light weight that you crave maybe aerogel is worth a look.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_smoke

hey big zacd you coming to inverloch tomorrow, son? you should down, son. should be a good day. come and meet the Ka boys. there a good bunch of dudes.

dan berry said...

All in all IDE say the designers are doing a pretty good job taking into account strength/weight/price ratio.

Durability and strength yes... sustainability NO!

This has been one of my pet peeves with the windsurf industry for many years. For a sport that is so closely related to nature there seems to be zero effort on trying to figure out how to reduce the environmental impact.

The average wave board these days will last less than 3 years when under heavy use. Some sails will give you as little as one year under heavy use (at least that's better than what it used to be). Given that 100% of products end up in land fill that's pretty bad performance in regards to keeping your impact low.

And 6 kg of landfill is minor compared to the kgs of CO2 we let go in getting that 6 kg to and from the beach over 3 years.

If every one that whinges about it stops windsurfing that should make a difference.
It's all good to have a rant about sustainability on a public forum, but if you're still buying and using the products you're just as bad as everyone else.
Now what was the subject again?

hoop said...

If every one that whinges about it stops windsurfing that should make a difference.
It's all good to have a rant about sustainability on a public forum, but if you're still buying and using the products you're just as bad as everyone else.
Now what was the subject again?

The point I was trying to make was that these companies need to become more responsible and aware of the impact they are having on the environment.

The big issue we have today is that our incompetent politicians are running around telling everybody that carbon emissions is what we need to worry about... well guess what, carbon emissions trading is all about money and polies trying to grand stand.

To really fix our environmental dilemmas the issue needs to be addressed in more holistic way on may fronts... not just carbon emissions.

BTW, while infighting between labour and liberals and the industry is still going on a number of countries in Europe have already exceeded their carbon emission targets set for 2020.

So coming back to the original question, why are boards build the way they are? Because that's currently the cheapest way of doing it. Trust me... these companies would think very differently about their environmental impact would they be forced to take back their products customers need to dispose off.

Ian K said...

windtechno said...

Well i wish my board was heavier, not lighter, son. most the time when i am windsurfing the bay. i end up in the air, while trying to do speed runs. I even had a idea of putting some weights in the middle of my board. just to keep the girl down on the water.

Good idea, but maybe put the weights right at the nose, like an arrow. Keep the tail light to skip lightly over the chop. Half a kg maybe.

That's something I've wondered about. I would have put the weight either at the mast foot or between the mast foot and front footstraps. The idea is that the c of g continues more or less undisturbed while the nose and tail follow the terrain. It wouldn't stop you flying into the air though.

I probably should have said could be lighter than they are, I seriously doubt i would have the skills to actually notice 2kg lighter but if we just said yeah our boards are great so dont change them everyone would still be lugging around 10kg boards down beach, which I'm sure people thought they really light comparing them to the 13kg boards they had before them. Swoosh, I know you could buy a hull from Fastacraft in WA for just over 5000 but they've taken there price list off there website the only price I could find for a hull was 2600 pounds from aardvark in England so $4730 which is including labour and materials.

WindySimon said...
in the scheme of things windsurfing is one of the least environmental effecting sports. Considered motorsport waste and consumption?

Agreed, the fact that the NSW government is lobbying for Carbon emissions trading while at the same time promoting a new V8 super car event is beyond irony. It's just said...

One more thought... without tips we wouldnt have soccer fields and rugby fields... so tips are the way of the future because everyone loves football! hahaha well the fields are commonly built on old rubbish dump sites...

Well, actually quiet often you will find that new housing projects are being build on top of landfills... this has had it's own share of problems like the unexplained high number of children dying in certain neighbourhoods through out Europe. Only to find out years later that the Dioxin which had been dumped into the landfill leaked back out into the surrounding evironment.

Do you ride a pushbike to work or walk to work? or do you drive to work?

Nope... work from home... otherwise use public transport

Do you smoke and drop your butts on the pavement?

Don't smoke... have never smoked and never will smoke... and yes always through my rubbish into recycling bins... if I can't find I'll take it home and dispose of it there.

you can give your old sails to the girl on here who has offered to make them into bags... Giving them even more life!

Sadly they don't usually take mono film sails... this technique requires older style mylar sails... although most of the time I replace sails because I wrecked them or if they are older and still working I try and give them away for free.

nice find... didn't know that. Given the strength of Bamboo I wonder how this compares to wood veneer.

Also, remembered that Fanatic at some stage used a honey comb structure inside their boards. It did result in ultra stiff boards... I do remember the main problem being the out skin construction having issues. At that stage boards were not made in an Expoy/ Carbon composite like today... instead the boards consisted of "two shells that were essentially glued together" (of course this is a highly simplified way of describing it).

The problem with this construction was that the boards had a tendency to fold between the foot straps and mast track. They never really broke all the through they just kind a crumbled between around the edges and messing up Scoop/ Rocker line in the process.

dan berry said...

jUst for the record I've been going to tips (both landfill and recycling) once or twice a week for 18yrs aprox and you know how many board I've seen in there....... Zero. Things like boards have a habit of recycling themselves.

come on mate... it's like saying I can't see radiation therefore i can't be a problem. Given that there are at least 50,000 boards sold world wide every year not every board ends up under someones house or attic one day... a large portion of that stuff must go into landfill...

... the point I am trying to make is that currently not a single manufacturer is addressing the issue or recycling! I don't care if the rest of world is "more evil". Eventually those boards will end up in a trash compactor and landfill near you.

I think if they make boards much lighter we'll have to worry about them blowing away when we're not standing on them.