Hydrosurf said..
I think it means you don't have to pump to get on a plane.

yeah, agree. and maybe that's the essential issue here.

Mr Hooper said..
What is passive planing ?
Is this another term magazines have made up ?

I've agreed with all your comments so far but I'll talk about this one.

Passive planing is where a lazy or newby sailor waits for things to happen, and they wait for the board to do the work but the wind strength means he/she planes anyway.
The opposite is 'active planing' where the driver is more energetic and works the board more, quickly getting up to speed. That works, because we sail in apparent wind, with a component of wind we create with our board speed, so the active sailor planes earlier and goes faster with a higher 'created wind' component in the apparent wind.
The active sailor then has a different drive through the bottom turn and maintains better speed on the wave face. This is so true in onshore conditions where the active sailor remains sheeted in longer in the bottom turn before needing to go clew first. The speed and slope of the wave will also have a say in this.

I will add here, as a former test editor for Windsurf magazine (a long time ago) and as a wave sailor, I still don't know what a backfoot or frontfoot board actually is. In the bottom turn you drive the rail by leaning forwards, with weight very much on the front foot, and at the top turn you then reverse the direction with backfoot weight on the tail and windward rail. But that's true of all waveboards.

Maybe we can talk about backfoot boards if we have over finned them? (So you are needing to control excessive fin lift?) Or is it when we push against the fins more than we load the board rail?
But it's not at all helpful to describe a board as a backfoot or frontfoot one.

So it's just a complicated way of explaining a faster rockered board with more volume ?

Basher said..

Mr Hooper said..
What is passive planing ?
Is this another term magazines have made up ?

I've agreed with all your comments so far but I'll talk about this one.

Passive planing is where a lazy or newby sailor waits for things to happen, and they wait for the board to do the work but the wind strength means he/she planes anyway.
The opposite is 'active planing' where the driver is more energetic and works the board more, quickly getting up to speed. That works, because we sail in apparent wind, with a component of wind we create with our board speed, so the active sailor planes earlier and goes faster with a higher 'created wind' component in the apparent wind.
The active sailor then has a different drive through the bottom turn and maintains better speed on the wave face. This is so true in onshore conditions where the active sailor remains sheeted in longer in the bottom turn before needing to go clew first. The speed and slope of the wave will also have a say in this.

I will add here, as a former test editor for Windsurf magazine (a long time ago) and as a wave sailor, I still don't know what a backfoot or frontfoot board actually is. In the bottom turn you drive the rail by leaning forwards, with weight very much on the front foot, and at the top turn you then reverse the direction with backfoot weight on the tail and windward rail. But that's true of all waveboards.

Maybe we can talk about backfoot boards if we have over finned them? (So you are needing to control excessive fin lift?) Or is it when we push against the fins more than we load the board rail?
But it's not at all helpful to describe a board as a backfoot or frontfoot one.

I agree with this.

^^^Nah

I disagree. As a bigger guy I always read them to look for the boards that were a little earlier planing and they were correct. And a group concensus on 'feel' was helpful.

My issue is how everything was the best thing ever as they don't want to lose their advertisers. Some boards were clearly hated by almost everyone who bought them later, and 12mths on you could not give them away.... but looking back the mag reviews were amazing.

Look - it just not that hard to figure out.Quite a a bit of Front foot pressure for bottom turn to get speed and drive - a bit more back foot pressure bias in the bottom turn if you want to tighten it up

a bit of backfoot pressure for top turn / slide

or a blend of both to control what you want the board to do
Its basic trim and physics - there are no mysterious other dynamics going on here that i am aware of.

Any board you ride will follow these principles universally.

There might be a little bit of variation based on boom height / style (boom heights have trended lower in the last 10 years and i have joined the party ( - albeit a bit late) and also how the sail is rigged. I am seeing a trend away from flat rigged sails and towards more shapely grunty set ups.

Very well explained Reflex.
Each board can be described in it's own terms. Describing a board as front foot or back foot is a load of crap.
As a designer, it's a bit harsh to hear from some magazine guy that rides your board for 5 minutes and then all he's got to say is "yeah that's a front foot board"
It's just a shortcut to thinking.

No, it's not defined in surfing like that at all. Not even a little bit.
I'm not sure how you came up with that.
Why are you trying to drive a long arc through your back foot ? That doesn't work.

Mr Hooper said..
No, it's not defined in surfing like that at all. Not even a little bit.
I'm not sure how you came up with that.
Why are you trying to drive a long arc through your back foot ? That doesn't work.

Can't say i came up with it. have seen it mentioned many times by shapers, shops over the years. it always made sense to me.

as an example.
www.hawaiiansouthshore.com/blogs/hawaiian-south-shore-surfing-blog/back-footed-vs-front-footed-surfing
www.jarven.com.au/surfboard-design-aspects
prosurfriding.com/surfboard/surfboard-lean-design.html
www.surfline.com/surf-news/know-youre-front-back-footed-surfer/87632

other than that i don;t really know. think i may be back footed.

Manuel7 said..
From reading boards, French and German mags, I have yet to disagree with any of their tests.

Back foot vs front foot:

I will agree that some of those KS turns are more both feet then front foot.

Look at KP videos for sick front foot riding.
KP and JA boards are completely different.

Don't know if it has anything to do with the boards that they are riding but Kauli's style is far more forward driving whereas Josh seems to be more on his back foot.

Mr Hooper said..
Well, if you want to base your whole design philosophy off a cute little article like that with a few pretty pictures as opposed to experience and knowledge then good luck to you.
Enjoy your wide arc, back footed bottom turns !

i dont base my designs off cute articles. my boards are functional. i do invest a lot of thought around tail width. still i listen to all ideas including the cute articles because you never know what can be taken away to influence the next idea.

as an example i measure as many boards as i can access from friends. At the beach ill take a close look at others. like if i see one of your boards im very interested to look at rail and bottom contours. your designs are always interesting

i found bernd rodrigers bonzer board super intetesting too.

love experimenting with fins too because of the noticable difference they make. i wonder if Manuel7's reviews are heavily influenced by his fin preferences. on occasion thats my take away.

Front foot ,back foot religion you have to believe it.

Elements of the past and elements of the future combining together to make something not quite as good as either.

while we're doing quotes

The naval architecture definition of planing is when a hull/board travels faster than a wave of it's own length it overtakes it's own bow wave and the surface tension is released allowing it to skim across the water rather than displacing. ( I think I said that right. Feel free to correct me naval architects)
I don't know of any wave boards that don't plane. Some will plane earlier than others and some will have a higher top end speed.
There are a lot of factors in board design that will effect planing. Rocker is only 1 part of it.