Wakesurfing News

SWELL - Keenan Flegel Wakesurfing by Centurion Boats

Keenan Flegel has asserted himself as one of the best wakesurfers in the world, dominating the surf style division at the 2012 World Wakesurfing Championships. …

We wanted to talk about some of the considerations when adding shaping features to wakesurf boards. We’ll have some amazing artwork again, so be prepared!

We’ve all bent a popscicle stick to the point of breaking. It’s a pretty uniform shape in terms of thickness and width. So when we bend it to the point of failure (breaking) that point is normally at the point of the greatest curvature. That is to say the ends of the stick are the furthest away from the normal plane or the flat area of the stick, but those ends are really bent much are they? They are still pretty flat, but some point in the middle of the stick is really curved and THAT is where the failure occurs. The only exception being if there is a weak spot on the stick. It could be the wood is weak and not uniform or possibly there is a notch. All things being equal, the failure will occur at the point of greatest curvature from the normal or resting plane.

So the next thing up is, are wakesurf boards uniform in shape? No, obviously we have curved outlines and typically skinny or thinner noses. If we were to change the shape of the outline our popsicle stick to look like the picture below, and then did the same bending test, where do you think it would break?

It would break at the notches, if we applied equal bending forces at both ends and we’ve intentionally placed the notches off center so that we would know that by changing the shape of the popscile stick we can also change the point of failure.

Now in automotive design, this sort of thing is used to create crumple zones that absorb impact and keep drives and passengers safe in a crash. How does that impact us when we are adding or changing the shape of our wakesurf boards. Exactly the same. In the picture where we notched the imaginary popscicle stick, the notched area will be considerably weaker than surrounding areas and quess what happens when we go to bend it? The weaker area gets the brunt of those forces. The surrounding areas transfer most all of the forces over to the weaker area, which being weaker bends much easier but then also reaches failure quicker.

So uniform shapes and sizes do a couple of things. One is that they help spread the loads being applied uniformly across the entire structure. We also know that we can create thicker and wider structures between the points where we introduce bending forces to help resist those forces. BUT anytime there is a sudden change in the shape, that is it’s not uniform, we create a point of stress. The areas that are thicker or wider are stiffer and so resist those forces. Now that may be what we want, in terms of things like crumple zones in cars and most after market fins are designed to break off rather than destroy a fin box and the board. But is that what we want in the middle of our wakesurf board? No obviously not, the area between our feet is much like the popsicle stick example we used above. Out feet are creating the forces where the bending starts and the point of greatest curvature will be between those two extremes.

So…students of wakesurf board design and composite sandwich structures, see any problem with this?

Oh yeah! Ok, we’ll talk more about that in tomorrows post! Thanks so much for following along, we really appreciate it!

Technorati Tags: composite sandwich, Wakesurf boards

More news to come!

Centurion Boats Pro Team Riders: Noah & Keenan Featured in the Atlantic Current, South Florida's Culture & Lifestyle Magazine.

DFW Surf's Grom Pro

8 year old Perry Morrison talks about the feeling of riding on his custom board called the "Grom Pro."

Did your team win the super bowl? Ours didn’t but it was a great game. The second half was wild and riveting! We wanted to take a minute and revisit the series of photos of James Walker winching the production Flyboy. Just as a refresher and for folks just joining us, here is that picture we are talking about.

James was able to grab the winch and Flyboy Wakesurf board back from the site. He had left it there over a weekend, as he originally planned to winch a second day with all manner of other folks, but he was called away with other obligations. Rather than spoil that fun, he left the winch with friends. You can see the winch, James’ wakeskate and our production Flyboy. Plus all the mud and gravel stuck on the back of the Flyboy!

So it’s scratched up, as we’d expect after sliding over a wooden rail, but no breakage. It’s still intact and is ridable.

The deckside is fine also, save for the mud and gravel on the kicktail!

Sliding a rail is ridiculously abusive for a wakesurf board, they just aren’t built for that sort of thing, but as you can see the Flyboy Wakesurf board’s composite sandwich construction is tough enough to withstand a least a limited amount of that abuse.

The composite sandwich that we use has a tough outer shell of high density foam, wrapped in fiberglass and outlined with carbon fiber. That foam has a density of 5 pounds per cubic foot. Most high performance wakesurf boards that are currently available use a 1.5 pound density EPS foam. EPS is an open cell foam, but also is 1/3 the density of the skin we use on the Flyboy wakesurf board. Not only does the lower density eps dent much easier, it’s compressive strength, compared to the high density foam we use is 2/3 weaker. Hitting a rail with that foam would create dents, very possibly breakage upon the first impact. Not so with the higher density and stronger 5 pound density foam skin we use on the Flyboy Wakesurf boards.

Now higher density foams could be used throughout, but that increases weight over all and the interior or core of the wakesurf board is heavier than it needs to be. Often times creating a wakesurf board that feels dead or lifeless.

So again, we do NOT recommend that you hit rails with your Flyboy Wakesurf board, but it’s good to know that you can and that the Flyboy Wakesurf board can handle pretty much anything you can throw at it wakesurfing. Also, we like the out-of-the-box demonstration of the rugged composite sandwich construction.

Thanks so much for following along! We really appreciate it.

Technorati Tags: composite sandwich, compressive strength, flyboy wakesurf, Wakesurfing

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