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Fastest animals in the ocean are...

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scottnorby
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Fastest animals in the ocean are...

Postby scottnorby » Tue Jan 22, 2019 11:33 pm

....soft skinned.

Why has it taken us 50 years to figure out that a hard shell over foam is not ideal?

In fact the fastest animal in the water has soft skin.....and is appropriately named.
The sailfish

It's 2019 and even football helmets are getting a soft outer shell makeover.

It has been a 10 year journey from the soft shell patent, made on the North Shore of Oahu, to manufacturing them near Seattle Washington.

Link
https://spacesticklab.myshopify.com/col ... urf-boards

-----SS is also looking for regional team riders
Last edited by scottnorby on Wed Jan 23, 2019 7:41 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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NYKiter
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Re: Fastest animals in the ocean are......

Postby NYKiter » Wed Jan 23, 2019 12:43 am

Rigidity is the foiler's best friend....

These seem a little expensive...good looking though.

scottnorby
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Re: Fastest animals in the ocean are......

Postby scottnorby » Wed Jan 23, 2019 5:55 pm

Extremely rigid.
Soft shell is on the outside not the inside

2 layers of 6oz basalt on the bottom
2 layers 6 oz on top...plus some carbon fiber strips.....and epoxy.
Dual balsa parabolic stringers
Then
The skin is vacuum wrapped around the board
An aerospace vinyl/foam that is ultra durable and stops dings and shatters

Initially developed and ridden by big wave riders on the North shore like Pato Teixeira, Ross Williams (momentum generation) --and Mark Occhilupo
For kiting it stops the many harness hook cracks and dings
Currently working on boards for three new wave parks

Definitely not for someone shopping for an average production board
Way beyond what anyone is doing right now

Far too labor intensive for the pop out corporations
Only making limited runs and customs -by hand

Perfect for a traveler or anyone tired of dealing with dings
Not perfect for the board companies who want us to beat our boards ugly (or fill an landfill) and go get another

Ive owned and surfed over 100 boards
----still no dings on a soft shell board after 2 years of use.
Does show some subtle pressure dents and a coulple skin cuts that patch up with an over the counter fix-it.
Last edited by scottnorby on Wed Jan 23, 2019 7:45 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: Fastest animals in the ocean are......

Postby james » Wed Jan 23, 2019 7:17 pm

You have “owned” 100 boards in two years? At 600-700 a pop that’s pretty heavy expenditure for a regular punter....

scottnorby
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Re: Fastest animals in the ocean are......

Postby scottnorby » Wed Jan 23, 2019 7:33 pm

Ha yeah true

Over 100 surfboards in my life
Surfed over 30 years

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tkaraszewski
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Re: Fastest animals in the ocean are......

Postby tkaraszewski » Wed Jan 23, 2019 8:10 pm

Do you think maybe the sailfish is faster than a crab because it's shaped like a missile with giant fins to propel it, rather than like a spiky football? Or do you think it's all down to the sailfish being softer? If you wrapped a crab in felt, do you think it's be as fast as a sailfish?

If you put a crab and a sailfish in a wind tunnel, which do you think would show a lower drag coefficient? Do you think it's because one is softer than the other?

scottnorby
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Re: Fastest animals in the ocean are......

Postby scottnorby » Wed Jan 23, 2019 11:52 pm

Haha
— I’m hoping you get the point ha

—-we look to nature for ideas and solutions.
And having skin over the hard shell simply makes sense and doesnt need to change the discipline in any way.
Im surprised why anyone argues. There is no clear disadvantage to a soft shell.

Every sport / artform has its followers who never question anything. Thats not our gig.
The front lines of any discipline are usually on proto and experimental gear

Watched the first inflatable bridle kite testing in 2000 and decided at that time to look deeper into soft shell tech

Curios if anyone in other countries is experimenting?
No foamies. No eva.
Eva Soft tops (hard bottoms) , wavestorms and foamies galore these days — so soft shell is generally misunderstood.

All those foamies shred and fall apart. Cush skin is smooth and waxable like epoxy or glass. Insane durabilty overall. Yet still only 6 lbs or less.

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edt
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Re: Fastest animals in the ocean are......

Postby edt » Thu Jan 24, 2019 12:10 am

if you ever pet a fish you might understand it's not very soft. If you look at underwater footage in the difference between the skin of a human and the skin of a dolphin the most immediate thing you notice is the human's skin is incredibly loose and constantly vibrating, and not aerodynamic at all while under water, while a dolphin's skin is incredibly hard and doesn't move at all under the pressure of water. If human's had the same relatively hard skin that dolphin's and fish have, we could go about twice as fast while swimming.

that said this spacestick hydrofoil looks interesting, I'd love to demo it sometime.

scottnorby
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Posts: 192
Joined: Sun Sep 18, 2005 6:33 pm
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Local Beach: WASHINGTON
HOOD RIVER
OREGON COAST
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Favorite Beaches: Northern Oregon coast downwinders
Gear: SPACESTICK - Foilsurfer - Wingsurfer
SPACESTICK- 5’3 MICRO convertible surf foil
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Re: Fastest animals in the ocean are......

Postby scottnorby » Thu Jan 24, 2019 12:23 am

Stoked you made that point.
Cush skin is like a dolphin. A rigid rubbery exterior but just under that epidermis layer is a soft foam.

Its only 1/8” thick.
Feels very much like a porpoise.

As a young boy i worked at an aquarium.
Again, part of the creation process. Learned a lot from the biologist surfers who tended to Keiko.

Cush skin is like an orca.

Thanks for bringing that up.
Send us an email and Ill look into a demo.
Include where you live and ride or if youre still learning etc? Alls good.

Spacestickboards@gmail.com

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Re: Fastest animals in the ocean are......

Postby BWD » Thu Jan 24, 2019 4:01 am

I still think this is a good idea.
You know what would be funny?
If people insisted on the stiffest most fragile boards,
And then covered them with a big deckpad that had a soft surface and got dinged up, dirty, and eventually started to peel off.
Who would ever do that?


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