I just realized I forgot to answer NCBA on this one.
The short answer, I’m not qualified.
Sure I could shape up something that looked like a surfboard, but that doesn’t mean it would satisfy me. More than likely it would do one thing well, and three things not so great. This would send me on a quest to shape more. It would never end. Look at me now with downwind boards!
At least with downwind boards I have a knowledge base that is applicable. Downwind planing hulls are not surfboards. They are more like windsurfers you power with a paddle. I’ve been measuring windsurf rockers for 30 years. Being an engineer, I always had to know what the bottom details of every board I owned were. Just so I understood why they performed like they did.
At the top levels of the sport, the shapers with the windsurf backgrounds are leading the way for “downwind planing shapes”. Foote a windsurf guy, Richard Greene, a legendary windsurf raceboard guy (SIC), and Harold Iggy (Naish). And now Peter Thommen (shaper to 8 or 9x world champion Dunkerbeck) has joined the SUP chase. We’ve got all the best of the best windsurf guys doing it now.
It’s this windsurf connection that provides the roots of my love for planing and down-winding.
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