From January 2011 issue of Miami Sports Magazine by Dan Barrett
A little over a year ago we decided to try our skills at custom shaping and glassing a custom SUP race board suited for 200+ riders. No one on our staff had any real experience with shaping or glassing, so we basically “got schooled” in a big way.
If you wish to give it a try most everything can be purchased from on-line “surf supply” shops or from local marine supply stores. Shell Lumber, in Miami was our “go to” shop for tools, lumber and epoxy. Before you get started there is another small bit of advice we wish to share with you – if you attempt this you are probably insane. If not then you must enjoy; spending excessive and unnecessary amounts of cash, inhaling toxic dust and fumes, pulling resin with your body hair off your body piece by painful piece, and last but not least endless sanding. Which by our definition makes you, that’s right, insane.
The primary reason we attempted such an ambitious undertaking is, that (a) we didn’t know any better, (b) we’re all a little crazy and (c) with 3 guys on staff weighing over 200lbs we wanted a board that would allow us to play with the other kids. By play we mean, racing in the 12’6” SUP stock class. We had all attempted racing on various surf style boards with frustrating results. the boards just didn’t have enough volume to “glide” over the water. With a shape designed to plane on waves combined with a heavy guy, the results resembled an elephant on a scooter or maybe an elephant on a Jet Ski is more accurate.
With the naive attitude of “how hard can it be” we set up shop in a warehouse, researched the web and started increasing our knowledge base from an absolute zero to maybe a +1. the website surfersteve.com was our primary source of “how to” knowledge, but it focuses mainly on building a surfboard from a pre-shaped blank. While there are a few surf style SUP blanks available, most are shorter than 11’ and no where near the 12” thickness we needed to shape the rocker and displacement hull. there were no, and at last check still no, blanks available that would work for a race board. this is the first wall we hit.
After an endless search for a foam blank, the conclusion was we had the make it ourselves. It should have been, “let’s stop now!” But our stupidity prevailed and we eventually found a local source in Miami called Dyplast Products. they cut us a 12” x 34” x 13’ piece of 1lb EPS foam, and using our newly purchased hotwire we found on-line for around $300.00 we got the work. Here is a condensed version of how it went.
What did we learn from this process?
While it was a frustrating, and by no means cost effective project, we all took great satisfaction of “seeing it through to the end”. the board we crafted with our very own hands was fast, very fast and very tippy. We got too aggressive with rounding out the bottom and tapering the front and back, effectively cancelling out the advantage we gained with increased buoyancy and displacement. We later lowered the center of gravity by cutting out 4” deep foot wells. That helped with stability but we still ended up with a great flat-water racer or a good board for less than 190lb paddler.
As frustrating as it was, the overall process was a great learning opportunity. We can now say we have skills. not a lot, but some. enough knowledge and skills to draw these conclusions:
If we were going to design and build another SUP race board for heavy weights, we would step up to the 14’ class. 12’6” is just too short for heavyweights. We would eliminate most of the complex curves and go with sharper corners, straighter sides and way less taper in the back (ours tapered to 5” in the rear). We would make the bottom “flatter” with a double concave. the foot wells worked very well, but on the next one, we would also scoop out the deck so paddlers could step back if catching a wave other wise it’s too difficult to make direction changes as the aggressive displacement front end maintains the direction when the wave was “caught”.
A more manageable approach is too purchase the Shape 3D software and design in what is basically a user friendly CAD design system for boards. the challenge is to find a C&C machine set up to handle the length. Most shapers at the time we made ours, were set up for current style surf boards and maxed out at 9’ or 10’. the other challenge with this is most C&C machines for boards can’t make the sharp angled cuts so foot wells and deck scoops have to be hand cut. We did find a local source capable of meeting all of these design protocols using a router based C&C machine - Dragon X-treme, located in Boynton Beach, Fl 561-737-2711. also, Jim DeSilva (Liquid Surf and Sail) has designed and produced a few nice custom SUP race boards.
The third approach, and if you really want to actually race the board, the best approach is to check out the local shops as displacement style SUPs continue to grow as a category. just buy the damn thing and spend the sanding time for paddle time. You’ll be way faster on race day! If you have any good stories to share regarding a custom project, drop us a line at feedback.com.
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