The Journal
Human Body Mechanics and Performance
What we haven’t covered in previous posts is how we, as riders, influence performance. Riders affect the performance of a wakesurf board in two major ways: skill level and body mechanics. These factors, along with Agility, Speed, and Air, all play a crucial role in your board's performance. Unfortunately, at Smith Board Co., we can’t engineer your skill or body mechanics (though we’re still holding out hope for cyborgs!). That's why we focus on the three aspects we can control.
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Understanding The Rocker
Understanding the rocker of your wakesurf board is one of the keys to optimizing your riding experience. Whether you're looking to enhance speed, improve control, or prevent nosediving, finding the right balance in your board's rocker will allow you to ride more confidently and effectively on the water.
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Not All Carbon Fiber is the Same: Why Quality Matters in Wakesurfing
When you hear the term "carbon fiber," it might be easy to think of it as a one-size-fits-all material. After all, carbon fiber is just carbon fiber, right? But in reality, not all carbon fiber is created equal. Just like any other material, the quality, manufacturing process, and design application can make a world of difference. At Smith Board Co, we believe that understanding these differences is crucial, not just for those of us in the engineering and design worlds, but for every rider looking to push the limits on the water.
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Agility: The Unsung Hero of Wakesurf Board Performance
In our ongoing series, we’ve been breaking down what makes up the elusive concept of "performance" in wakesurf boards. We’ve already explored how Speed and Air contribute to your ride, and now it’s time to shine a spotlight on Agility. This is the final piece of our performance trifecta, and it’s the one that truly defines how responsive and versatile your board can be.
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The Rise of Carbon Fiber in Wakesurf Boards
At Smith Board Co, carbon fiber is more than just a buzzword; it is an integral piece of our path to a higher performing board. Carbon fiber is an unlock to a whole new level of board performance. We’re currently engineering carbon fiber into our full board lineup and will look to transition every one of our boards over from the industry standard glass fiber to the higher performing carbon fiber.
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Wakesurf board width and how it affects your ride
At Smith Board Co., our mission is to delve deeper into these nuanced aspects of wakesurf board design, providing the industry with comprehensive insights and data-driven understanding. By continually testing, simulating, and sharing our findings, we aim to empower riders with the knowledge needed to choose the perfect board for their style and skill level. Stay tuned for more detailed explorations of other critical board features in our ongoing blog series.
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What Makes a Good Beginner Wakesurf Board?
Ultimately, the ideal beginner wakesurf board combines buoyancy, appropriate size, sharp rail profiles, a suitable fin setup, and sufficient speed. By optimizing these features, we can make wakesurfing significantly more accessible for newcomers, helping them enjoy the sport right from the start.
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The Role of Air in Wakesurf Board Performance
In one of our first posts, we started to unpack what it is we mean when we are talking about wakesurf board performance (link here). In it we defined performance as being a function of the combination of wakesurf board speed, agility, and air. By defining what exactly is meant by performance we could then start to optimize for performance and make measurable gains in that direction. In our most recent article we took this a step further and started to unpack Speed in particular (link here). In this follow up, we’ll take a deeper look into Air and what makes up Air as a performance metric.
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The Speed Factor: How It Shapes Wakesurf Board Performance
By now you may be asking yourself why it matters that we’ve separated out speed into two separate pieces. For that matter, you may be asking yourself why do we even care to measure speed in the first place? We all know a fast board when it’s under our feet. Aren’t boards out there fast enough? NO. By defining speed and truly understanding what makes up speed allows us to test and measure different changes we make to boards. It allows us to carry forward those changes that increase speed so that every year our boards get faster and faster. Ultimately, faster boards mean that you can ride a smaller board which will increase it’s agility and allow you to do more on the water. Designing a faster board means that you have more forgiveness when you are learning a new trick to fall farther back on the wave because you can recover faster. Faster boards are an unlock to bringing out the best wakesurfer in all of us.
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Why does board size matter?
The big takeaway here is that there’s a sweet spot when it comes to finding the right size board for your body. If you go too small, you’re going to sink too far into the water, and you’ll find it hard to build up speed. But if you go too big, you’ll have to work much harder to maneuver the board in any way. Currently there’s no definitive guide on what size board you should get based on your weight, height or any other factors. There's no where to find that if you’re 180 pounds you should get a 50” board, if you’re 150 pounds you should get a 48” board. That doesn’t exist yet, and it’s not quite as simple as that anyway, but here at SBC we’re working to build and pass along an understanding of these things so that everyone can choose the best board for them. Hopefully by reading this article and understanding the physics behind these choices, you can get an idea of what to consider and why it’s important.
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