pavedwave longboarding

gldsndz · Joined: 19 Apr 2008 Posts: 44

Thought you all would enjoy this:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/art...?f=/c/a/2009/06/19/DDBS185221.DTL

RiPPer · Joined: 13 Feb 2009 Posts: 53

Wow...wonder if he's seen a Mermaid or came up with that shape himself.
Cool story!

peppermint rhino · Joined: 02 Feb 2009 Posts: 57

that's awesome. I also have to wonder if he had come up with shape on his own or if he had some inspiration from roe's boards. I seriously wish I lived in CA so I could surf, especially on something like that. I loved the longboard I rented out on Oahu but I think I could really fall in love with something that offers the manuverability of a shortboard.

pavedwave · Joined: 22 Oct 2007 Posts: 1120 Location: seattle wa usa

News stories that talk up revolutions and reinventions are always a bit of a target due to the fact they play up innovation and uniqueness. Guys in the establishment of surfing (or skateboarding) might go on the defensive when they hear something touted as being "reinvented", I see some of this familiar banter in the reader's comments for this story. It reminds me of the critiques of the Mermaid over on the Silverfish forum where it was first posted, and on a forum overseas as well-- things like "It's ugly, what's the point, this isn't anything new", yadda yadda... But the positives have always outweighed the negatives by about 10 to 1. Besides the fact that taking the advice of noob SF teens to heart is kind of like having a crack addict as your estate planner. And in the end, it helped that I didn't give a damn about the critique and barged ahead with board designs that followed soon after -- the Pulse and Walkabout.

I thoroughly enjoyed the process of designing and developing the original Mermaid back in '05/06, then having the sheer dumb luck of living in the same city as Gareth Roe who pulled off the execution flawlessly. John Stryker worked with us at the time shaping Roe's boards, and came up with the name.

The Mermaid LDP was a quiet and untapped revolution in terms of taking a slalom board and sizing it up several notches, doing something that some in the slalom community thought (and even told me quite bluntly) was kooky. Sometimes, just sometimes... it's best not to listen to your elders Laughing

Appreciate this catch, interesting story. If the Mermaid inspired Thomas in any way, it would be cool to hear from him. I'm curious how the sidecuts work in the water... I know they revolutionized carving and traction in snowboarding, which is why that sport went from straight cuts to a huge sidecut revolution over the 90's. Gareth actually had done some sidecut snowboard shapes (and metal rails!) years before Burton exploded on the scene with it.

pavedwave · Joined: 22 Oct 2007 Posts: 1120 Location: seattle wa usa

Indeed, parabolic side shaping in surfboards has been around a while. I've heard Greg Noll was working with "waists" long ago, but haven't found specific shots of his boards.

And there's the Morey Swizzle Stix

Also more recently the "Platypus"

http://www.beachbeatsurfboards.co.uk/boards/theplatypussurfboard.html

http://surferspath.com/news/parabolic-rails-update