(This is a pile of prototypes for a 4GF model that never made the cut...)
4th Gear Flyer passed a milestone of sorts over Easter Weekend…we sold our 4000th mat since 1984. (Gloria’s a fastidious record keeper.) Add to that the 800+ prototypes and personal mats I’ve made since 1983, and we’re approaching the 5000 mark!
In spite of the fact that mats are made up of curved tubes when inflated, the “build parts” are all straight, square, and thus easily calibrated. And while it’s virtually impossible to handshape two identical surfboards, it’s relatively easy to build two identical mats. All the parts can be marked out in the style of a draftsman, then assembled and welded with great consistency. This means that it’s easy to replicate a good mat over and over again. Having the capacity to make surfing vehicles accurately was, and is, a great boon to mat design progress.
Of course, the down side of having complete control over the construction of a mat is that “happy mistakes” generally don’t happen. With hand shaped, hand glassed surfboards, there are so many natural variations from board to board that magic boards often appear without intention...and something new is learned from them. But when building a mat? That just doesn’t happen. You have to deliberately make changes from mat-to-mat to create variations. That’s why a methodical approach is natural.
When I was working out the final details of the Tracker Roundtail in the summer of 2010, I had the general design in place after about a dozen prototypes…but the height of the two small I-Beams hadn’t been fully sorted. So I built six more prototypes with an I-Beam height variation of 1/8” from mat to mat…starting with what I thought would be too tall to what I thought would be too small. After sitting in dry dock for a week or so, the surf came up and I rode all 6 prototypes on the same afternoon…making mental notes after every few waves. One I-Beam height emerged as being distinctly better. I ran the same test with those 6 mats early the next morning, and drew the same conclusion. Since the best I-Beam height for the Tracker was in the middle of the range I tested, I knew I’d found the right one.
Maybe the oddest thing about design is that a "magic mat" invariably comes from a tedious process of tinkering. There’s no artistic inspiration -- as there often is with board shaping -- since mats tend to look the same even when they perform differently. So it comes down to taking the time (and spending the money) to build and test all the options to figure out what it takes to birth a magic mat. Not fun. Not pretty. But a good result.
With so many mats under the 4th Gear Flyer belt,
I thought this might be a good time to go through some of the specific design variations that have been tested
over the years. I'll post something on the subject once or twice a week for the next month or so!
No, "The Dimension Paradox" isn't an episode of Dr. Who! But Sci-Fi television frequently bases a story around some kind of threat from a parallel universe, where nothing is what it seems.
I often rely on the well-worn platitude that “nothing is
what it seems” to deflect questions about the dimensions of surfmats.
And for good reason. Mats are virtually impossible to measure in a manner we
are accustomed to here on earth.
I know, I know...this flies in the face of the praise I heaped on mat
building earlier:
“In spite of the fact that mats are made up of curved tubes when
inflated, the “build parts” are all straight, square, and thus easily
calibrated. And while it’s virtually impossible to handshape two identical
surfboards, it’s relatively easy to build two identical mats. All the parts can
be marked out in the style of a draftsman, then assembled and welded with great
consistency.”
Every word of that is true…but the twist is this: the instant a new
mat gets welded up, those “precise” dimensions shrink a bit as the welds
cure. Then, after that mat is surfed and goes through a few wet-dry-wet-dry
cycles, those numbers shrink once again. Conversely, and paradoxically, when the mat gets re-wetted out in the water, the dimensions loosen up, but not as far as the original build layout. They land somewhere in the middle. By the time a mat is used 3 or 4 times, none of the length/width/thickness numbers match up to what they were when the mat was originally built! But they are indeed proper, because when a prototype is built that works well, I can easily replicate it in future mats. What the exact numbers are on a finished mat don't matter. What matters is what numbers I use when I build the mat, and how that mat subsequently works in the water.
All this is fine from my perspective, as a builder. But from your perspective as a mat rider, it can be frustrating. Surfers often ask me how long or wide or thick a certain model is, and I can’t/won’t answer because the dimensions I go by – the numbers used in the initial construction – don’t exist in terms of the finished mat. At no point in its life will a mat calibrate, dimension-wise, with the original build numbers.
The most common dustup resulting from this confusion is when someone
gets a backup mat for a model that they’ve been riding. They lay the new one
over the old one, and say, “My new mat is longer than my old mat!” Well, both
mats were made from the same material, and laid out with the identical set of build
templates. The difference is the result of the older mat’s aging process. The well-used,
broken in mat is “correct.” And the new one will be there after a week or two of
use.
Another dimension-related dilemma is when an experienced prone surfer,
who hasn’t ridden modern mats, asks for a mat of a specific length and width. They usually have a favorite paipo or alaia or bellyboard with those numbers. Seasoned
mat riders know that there is no correlation between the dimensions of a good
belly board and a good mat. This is in part because mats are so thick/light/buoyant,
in part because they are so flexible, in part because they have no fins, in part
because mats are parallel and have no outline shape, and in part
because mats aren’t ridden fully inflated…so who’s to say how wide or long they
really are when in use? I hate pulling out the “I know more about this than you do” line with new mat surfers, but I have to now and then.
It’s worth pointing out that a big part of the charm of mat
surfing – that mats are pliable both literally as well as figuratively – contradicts
the dimension-based wisdom of conventional surf craft design. In effect,
mats are in conflict with the natural desire for surfers to understand the equipment
they ride on a numerical level. It reminds me of the classic real estate anecdote
about the man who asks the square footage of a property, while the woman just walks and around
the place and takes it all in. When it comes to mats, just take it all in!
The take-away here is simple: the smallest increase or
decrease in dimension between two mats yields a huge difference in feel and
performance…more so than any other surf craft. Nothing I've learned from decades of surfing and
surfboard experience prepared me for assessing surfmat design in terms of numbers. It’s in a different design
universe.
No one was more surprised as I was when I first realized
that bumping the width, length or thickness of a mat design was so touchy. By the
early 80’s, when 4GF got going, I had worked in the surfing industry over 10
years, build and ridden a bazillion boards, been generously tutored by the likes of George
Greenough and Greg Liddle, and thought I had a good handle on the whole “hull”
surf design deal. But none of those experiences prepared me for the hair-splitting
horrors of mat design.
I realized several things early on in my mat building
experience: Because mats sport both parallel outlines and a parallel thickness
flow, the slightest change in dimension expresses itself equally along the
entire mat. (Conventional boards taper at each end, so added width or thickness
is concentrated more in the middle.) And because mats are so incredibly light
relatively to their volume, any increase in volume generates a lot more buoyancy...which can be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on how it's used.
The third element in play is harder to verbalize. When you
add a small bit of width to the template of a mat, say ¼”, it expresses itself
on both the top and bottom sheets of fabric. So there is really ½” of material added to the
overall mat…¼” on the top, and ¼” on the bottom. And that’s a noticeable amount of extra fabric
to control when you're riding a surfcraft with no fin!
Fourth, the interior structure between models varies, and you can't see them on a finished mat.
The result of these design realities is that there are really small variations, dimension wise, between
the 4GF models. Anyone who has two different 4GF models can attest to how similar they appear -- even when laid on top of one another in a deflated state -- yet how distinctly different they feel in the water.
Fourth, the interior structure between models varies, and you can't see them on a finished mat.
Engineering professors love to say, with cynical glee, “If something can go wrong, it will.”
“Murphy’s Law” is the generally accepted name for this assumption.
But, in fact, the above quote is properly referred to as “Finagle’s Law of
Dynamic Negatives.” (Google it!)
So what does Finagle’s Law have to do with us, the elite mat
surfing community?
Well, nothing…because there are a good number of random
events in the history of surfmat engineering that fall into the category
of, “If anything can go right, it will.”
Mat design, as it turns out, is “right” most of the time.
While it’s hard to build a really great mat, making a serviceable one is pretty
darn easy. And that's why mat surfing was able to flourish as smashing good
fun for the first half-century of its existence….say from the mid 1930’s to mid 1980’s.
Like most delightful things in life, the reason behind this is simple.
The
ideal configuration to move through the water is a parallel-shaped object with an
approximate length-to-width aspect ratio of 2:1. And, lo and behold, inflated
tubes lashed together tend to be parallel. Further,
the original mat dimensions were designed to fit the length and width of the
average kid's torso…roughly a 2:1 aspect ratio. So, without even knowing why, mat
design was on the right track from Day One. The first mats ever made, way back
in the 30’s, would be perfectly fun to ride today.
Bondi Beach, Mid 1930's
The downside of all this cosmic bliss is that, because other
forms of surf craft have evolved so dramatically over the years, it’s natural for
surfers to imagine how those same “advancements” might be applied to surfmats. And
so, about twice a week, someone sends me an email and asks about trying a surf
mat with an outline shape. Some think they should be curved like a surfboard…with
a narrower nose and tail. Others go the opposite way, and want to use a concave
outline shape, with the outline template generating a wider nose and tail, with
a skinnier mid-section.
Please don’t misunderstand me, these are perfectly reasonable ideas.
George and I have tried them all…or enough of them to realize that tweaking the
outline shape of a surfmat not only doesn’t improve the performance, but actually degrades it.
But why?
There are two main reasons, from I’ve observed. One is that
when you cut into the straight outer perimeter weld with either a concave or
convex curve, not only is the outline changed, but the thickness flow changes
as well. Pull the tail in with an outline curve, and the thickness flow of the outer pontoon
in the tail thins out at the same time. So you lose the “hold” of the thick rail line. And that’s a serious drawback.
The “undercut”
mats (narrower in the middle) work much better than the surfboard-shaped mats…but a
mid-section that’s narrower is also thinner, so the noses tend to
catch a lot. And the thinner middle drifts around at odd times.
Example of a severely undercut mat.
The other downside of a surfboard shape on mats is that the
outline curve tends to kick the mat out of its track. Mats need a straight outline and
straight thickness flow to keep them moving in a straight line. Essentially, outline curves want to destabilize the mat. And since mats have no fin to rely on, straightness wins the prize when it comes to forward projection.
Here’s a surfboard design anecdote from the 90’s that relates
…
Back in the 90’s, Spencer Kellogg and I started shaping full length
Simmons boards (9’ plus). We both assumed that the original
Simmons boards, with their enormous tail width, were woefully underfinned. So we
dropped a fin box into the first one and stuffed a longboard fin into it,
confident we knew what we were doing. Well, that first Simmons board, with a big
fin, tracked in a straight line so badly we even couldn't paddle it without
falling off the side of the board! It turned out that a small fin was the right
call after all…which was what Simmons had figured out by the late 40s.
One of our Simmons boards -- a 10'4'' x 24" for Roger Kelly -- with a fin box allowing for experimentation. A relatively small Greenough Stage 4 fin worked best, even in Island surf!
The conclusion Spence and I drew was that outline curve, not tail width, determined
how much fin a conventional surfboard needs. A straight outlined board, like a
Simmons, needs less fin area, even though it has a wide tail. A curvy outlined
board, like a thruster, needs a lot of fin area, even though it has a
relatively narrow tail.
To further make that point, here's a quick evolution of outline shapes, relative to fin area...
30's era plank. Very wide tail, dead straight tail outline, surfs OK with no fin.
Restored early 50's Simmons board. Wide tail, slight outline curve, works best with a small fin.
Mid-50's era Velzy Pig. Narrower tail with lots of outline curve, much bigger fin.
To review:
- The ideal surf craft, in terms of moving efficiently through the water, is a parallel shape with an aspect ratio of around 2:1.
- A surf craft with a perfectly straight, parallel outline needs little or no fin area to surf well.
- Mats naturally fit both criteria.
What makes this favorable outcome so cool is that it came about by engineering circumstance, not design intention!
Maybe we should call that phenomenon, "Mat Surfing's Law of Dynamic Positives."
This is a continuation of last week’s rant about why so much
of mat design -- mostly by dumb luck -- is well suited to riding waves. And not
just suited to riding up to the shore on a foot high bit of white water...but also riding
quality waves in a fast, “effective” manner.
Of the many "natural" elements of mat design, the round
rail is the most misunderstood in the eyes of the average board rider. The
fat, round rail shape is one of the reasons that even older, heavier, stiffer mats can attain such amazing speed. Yet that flies in the face
of “conventional rail design wisdom.” Most surfers today believe that low, edgy rails
hold in better and are faster…while round rails are sluggish and slide out.
This is a pure round rail, with no fin, holding in and flying. Not on a small wave, either...
...and a hard bottom turn with only the fat part of the inside/lower rail in the water. Flippers completely free of contact as well. Pure rail hold.
Misconceptions about round rails came about in
the late 60’s, when stand up surfboards suddenly dropped in width from over 22”
wide to under 19” wide…a huge difference. Experimental low rails accompanied that shift in thinking, and because the new narrow miniguns
held in better, most people concluded that low rails were
the reason why. In truth, it was the severe reduction in width that was
providing the added hold that was so exciting to everyone at the time...but the myth that low rails were the deciding factor in this improvement persists to this day.
Flat bottoms and low
rails shear the water away from the board...which isn't a bad thing! Boards with low rails can skate
and pivot around ‘at will’ because the board isn’t glued to the wall of the
wave. Back in the 70’s, that lack of rail grip was compensated for by narrow boards
with narrow tails. These days, tails have widened back up, proportionately. And, in the case of the ubiquitous thruster design, three fins are needed to
give the rider command over the board without spinning out. It’s a combination
of extremes – flat bottom, low rails, and a lot of fin area -- that obviously
works well. But low rails DO NOT do the work of holding in. The fins do.
The finless boards prior to 1950 had round bottoms and rails,
because "round" generates a severe low pressure area when water passes over
it (or it passes over the water). And that low pressure area draws the rail
into the wall of the wave. 
To observe this suction effect, try holding a soup spoon under a stream of running tap water, and feel the round side quickly draw into the moving water, while the concave side kicks away from the water.
An interesting historical side-note is that the fin was first used by Tom Blake in the 1930’s to control the forward motion of his hollow wooden paddle boards...the same paddle boards that had box rails with an edge going around the entire bottom due to their construction. Fins and low rails were a copasetic pairing from day-one...because Blake's early "low rails" didn't hold in.
In the case of our surf mats, we have a round rail
shape that's naturally generated by an inflated sheet of fabric.
And, on top of
that, we have a nifty little flange running around the perimeter – again, due
to construction technique rather than the intent of the original designers. That flange
shears water away from the top half of the rail in lower speed situations…a nice addition
to an already good design package.
But wait, there’s more !!!
Mats also sport a flat rocker scheme, which is extremely fast, even on flat faced waves...
And yet mats are also flexible enough, longitudinally, to allow the rocker to conform to the face of the wave...with a little help from the rider. These two shots, taken just a second or two apart, show how even an old heavy canvas mat can change rocker shape at will…
In either case, the classic "too big to fail" longboard labels like Webber, Hobie, Greg Noll, and Gordon & Smith were upended to the degree that they were never able to fully recovered their former glory. The emergence of the shortboard era -- in the form of smaller surfboards and a fresh attitude -- was that powerful.
Nat Young kicked off the whole mess, winning the World Surfing Contest in the fall of 1966 on a blade-thin 9'4'' he named Magic Sam...
Sam was short by the standards of the day (10' plus noseriders were commonplace), and it featured a narrow, flexible fin designed and constructed by George Greenough. That fin was a key to Sam's performance...perhaps even more so than its shorter length and lean thickness profile.
Nat Young's convincing win in the World Contest jump-started a mega-shift in surfing. Attitudes changed, and boards began dropping in length. From 10 foot long beach party props in the early 60's...
...to sub-7 foot mind machines by the early 1970's.
Shorter-than-usual surf crafts have been ridden throughout surfing's history...
...but Nat Young's dominance in the mainstream arena of contest surfing...
...combined with Greenough's outside-the-box boards and surfing, resonated with surfers of every social perspective.
Calling the shortboard transition era a "revolution" sounds cheeky today, but if anything, it's an understatement. For those who weren't around back then, we went from seeing nothing in the water under 9'6'' long to seeing nothing over 8' long in 18 months. The change was so radical, surfers who were inclined to keep riding longboards were actually intimidated to do so. By the Woodstock summer of 1969, only San-O and Waikiki continued to embrace longboard surfing. Even First Point Malibu -- longboard heaven by any measure -- was filled with nothing but shortboards...aside from the occasional appearance by Lance Carson.
The mythology of the shortboard revolution has been expressed for years, but historians invariably assume that stand up surfing was, and is, a pinnacle of the surfing experience. The fact that the seminal character in the transformation from longboards to shortboards -- George Greenough -- was both a kneerider and surf matter is generally downplayed.
With all that in mind...
Mat surfing's own transition era -- from heavy cotton canvas rafts to new-age nylon rocket ships -- was also inspired by George Greenough. But we experienced a much slower change. George refers to it as "the slow leak revolution." That's a double entendre of sorts...referring to how long it took for the changes to take place, as well as how leaky mats (ridden softer by default) were one of his first clues that more pliable mats performed better.
As covered in posting #6, the emergence of the Morey Boogie broke the lineage of mat surfing by 1974, because Boogies provided a more practical alternative for the recreational beach goer. The reliable Converse Hodgman surf mats of the 60's and early 70's ceased production, and we were left riding our dwindling stash of Hodgmans...later followed by whatever else we could find in the market place.
During the post-Hodgman era (roughly 1978 onward) we had a choice between the ubiquitous dime store cheapy mats -- which tended to be too small in dimension and too short on durability -- or slightly better surf mats imported from Taiwan with an Australian surf corporation logo stenciled on the deck. Some of those imports had skegs and handles bonded onto them. Some even had crudely pointed noses as well.
Rip Curl and Merrin were the primary distributors of these mid-range quality mats, and by the fall of 1978, George started bringing suitcases filled with Merrins back to California when he returned from his annual stint in Australia.
We would carefully peel the handles and skeg off the mats....
...and transform them into "serious mats for serious mat surfers."
George's long-held belief that softer mats (either loosened up through repeated use, or ridden with low inflation, or both) were faster had been proven time and again. Without us knowing it, going all the way back to the 60's, that had been 'Phase 1' of the slow leak mat revolution.
'Phase 2' began to coalesce in 1978, when we would alternate between old, fully broken in Hodgmans and crisp new Merrins the same day in the water...and the Merrin would be faster because they were flimsier. Merrins turned out to be fun to ride, in many ways better than the more durable Hodgmans.
At that point, we had no idea what the limit was for a soft, pliable mat. All we knew was that Merrins had opened our eyes to the advantages of mat which was even more compliant than a broken-in Hodgman. But again, we had no idea how far we could take it.
Here's George running across a wall on a Merrin in Greg Huglin's classic film, Fantasea...
...and shooting footage off his back on that same yellow mat...
After a year or two of use, our first-gen Merrins became worn to the point of being threadbare...and, like a broken-in Hodgman, they went even faster! So broken-in Merrins became 'Phase 3' of the slow leak revolution.
One afternoon in the upper parking lot at Rincon, probably around 1980 or '81, Greenough floated the idea that maybe we should peel the fabric off the bottom of our tired Merrins, leaving just the thin rubber inner lining. Paul Masiel and I scoffed at the notion, assuring George that the bottom would explode before he even made it out through the shorebreak. And even if he did make it, there's no way something that radical would work on a wave.
George being George, he took that as a challenge. The three of us paddled out, and after we'd made it to calm water, George rolled off his mat and started tearing the fabric off the bottom. Paul and I looked at each other, rolling our eyes. George sensed our disapproval and said something like, "I don't care if my mat pops...all I need is one wave to tell us if this is a good idea!"
A little set rolled in (like, shoulder high) and George spun around and took the first wave. I caught a later wave in the set, and as I rode towards George, who was paddling back out, he had that steely-eyed stare that he gets when he's right about something, and wants you to know it. I pulled out of my wave, and he paddled up to me, slipped off his mat, shoved it towards me and barked, "Try this."
By dark that evening, all three of our Merrins had the bottom fabric peeled off.
The rubber bottomed mats were so pliable, they jumped gears without any input from the rider. We could set them in trim, the bottom would conform the wave face, and the mat would just keep accelerating. George started calling them "Peelers."
While the Peelers didn't pop after 5 minutes as we feared, they were extremely fragile because of their thin rubber bottoms...so it didn't take much to ruin one. If they touched the bottom when you were paddling out, it was over. If you rode too far up onto the sand coming into the beach, it was over. They weren't practical, but as George pointed out, "If we have to break out a new Merrin every other week, the performance is worth it!"
For all the shortcomings of the Peelers, they became 'Phase 4' of the slow leak revolution.
Our observation at that point was that every time we rode a thinner skinned mat, it worked better. We still didn't know what the lower limit would be...but thus far, the more flexible a mat's skin was, the more performance a rider could wring out of it.
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Epilog: If you look at this mat riding sequence in Fantasea, there's a bit of mat-transition history lurking in there...
The opening shot is of George and I carrying Merrins up the point. The wave I'm riding, right at the start, was the first wave I ever rode on a Merrin. You can see I'm a little tentative with the small size of the mat, and the slippery deck (compared to the coarser Hodgmans.) George had been riding his yellow Merrin for some time, and was totally tuned in.
All but one of the shots in this clip are of us riding Merrins. The POV/backpack shot George took, at the 1:45 mark, is of me on a "Stripes Across" Hodgman. That shot was taken the day before the other shots were taken, and that was the last time I ever rode a Converse Hodgman in earnest. After I surfed my Merrin a few times and got the hang of it, I liked it better.
FWIW, the Merrins in this sequence weren't Peelers. George didn't come up with that idea for another couple of years.
It's hard to believe that the mat surfing shown in Fantasea is 35 years old...
“Progress” in the field of mat design had been moving at a snail’s pace since the first surf mats appeared on beaches in the 1930’s...
The reasons were simple. Even the earliest mat worked pretty good, and there weren’t that many “serious” mat surfers in the world. Plus, mats were mass produced, so
unlike the burgeoning custom surfboard industry of the 50’s and the 60’s, the needs
of individuals were lost to the restrictions of the manufacturing process. Mats were sadly lacking...stuck in a 'one size fits all' mode.
By the early 60’s, George Greenough started riding stock
Converse Hodgman mats softer and softer, to wring more performance out of ’em. A combination
well-broken in fabric and low inflation levels added a 2nd, 3rd
and sometimes even a 4th gear to his straight line speed. His enormous surfing talent
combined with the quality point and reef surf in the Santa Barbara area netted an
effective approach.
In the early 70’s, Woody Woodworth, down in Corona Del Mar, started customizing Hodgmans by laminating a second layer of canvas for supreme toughness, and adding small twin fins to the tail. While these rafts were the polar opposite of Greenough’s finless, softer-is-better design paradigm, ‘Woody Rafts’ were well-suited to the dangerous, jetty-adjacent surf in his area. It was probably the first instance of mats being built (or in this case, heavily modified) for one particular need.
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By 1978, the Morey Boogie had killed off the high end surf
mats like the Hodgman Converse, and the cheaper, Taiwan-built Rip
Curls and Merrins replaced them by default. Unintentionally, these flimsy mats gave us insight into what
could be achieved with more pliable fabric. Then George broke the scene wide open
when he started riding Merrins with the bottom canvas torn off, leaving only
the raw rubber liner material as the bottoms skin. “The Peelers” were the first
mats to really exploit the idea that a mat built with thin fabric could excel. They were very fast by that era’s barometer. Whenever
we’d drag out a Hodgman for old time’s sake, it was a shock how heavy, stiff
and slow they were by comparison to the Peelers.
In response to that upgrade, Merrin modified their mat design with a nylon-over-rubber bottom, which added slickness, but was actually stiffer than the canvas and rubber bottom. So not a real improvement, but a good attempt.
In response to that upgrade, Merrin modified their mat design with a nylon-over-rubber bottom, which added slickness, but was actually stiffer than the canvas and rubber bottom. So not a real improvement, but a good attempt.
For a couple of years, roughly 1980 through 1982, the Merrin Peelers were the gold standard of mat surfing, at least among the Greenough-cognoscenti. But they were fragile, and didn’t inspire confidence in larger surf. You always had to travel with a couple of spares in the trunk to make sure you got through a session.
Somewhere in the mix of his early mats, Dale built a mat out of naugahyde vinyl. It was the first attempt to build a mat from scratch based on George’s belief that softer was better. The report filtered back to us that the naugahyde mat went well in the beginning, but quickly lost its structural integrity with use…vinyl being vinyl and all. Still, it was a step into the future.
At that point, we started talking about making our own mats, since
the commercial supply was quixotic at best, and Dale had proven that building
them was a viable option.
Here’s where it started to get tricky…
Greenough's spoon kneeboards were the most demanding surf
craft on the planet to build. They took over 100 hours of work, spread over a month, to build.
Here's an example of a spoon I made for Spencer Kellogg back in 2001. You can plainly see how many glass layups there were to provide the right combination of stiffness, flex and strength...
The fin alone took days to craft. A 75 layer, hand laid glass panel to start with...
Adding to their massive build time, spoons demanded both size and quality surf to get them rolling. Big, hollow, offshore, and empty...good luck finding that combination more than a few times a year!
So...mats had always been George’s “no-brainer” fall-back for everyday surf. There was purity to the pursuit that resonated with George.
“Just buy one, blow it up, and go surfing!” was his mantra.
Here's an example of a spoon I made for Spencer Kellogg back in 2001. You can plainly see how many glass layups there were to provide the right combination of stiffness, flex and strength...
Followed by endless hours of itchy grinding...
Adding to their massive build time, spoons demanded both size and quality surf to get them rolling. Big, hollow, offshore, and empty...good luck finding that combination more than a few times a year!
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All these factors made George -- in spite of his status as the seminal creative force in the surfing world -- reticent to start building mats himself. It contradicted everything he believed in, mat-wise. Plus, he was now stuck into designing sailboards that were even more complex and time consuming to build than his spoon kneeboards...
But mat surfing’s hoi-polloi (that would be the rest of us) started to look around and wonder…is there a better path to inflatable Valhalla, beyond George’s simple 'buy-it-and-surf' approach?
In late 1982, Dale began talking about welding up a mat with some light, heat sealable nylon fabric
he had sourced. My immediate response was, “Copy the old Stripes-Down Converse Hodgman
shape!” In spite of its weight and out-of-date stiffness, that particular Hodgman had been the
most potent design in the long history of mat surfing. The newer, lighter,
softer mats like the Merrin ‘Peelers’ had taken mat surfing to a new level…but because of their pliable material, not necessarily because of their shape. The long, lean Hodgman
that George rode in the footage in Rubber Duck Riders (later seen in Crystal
Voyager) was still the most desirable mat when the surf was clean and hollow.
I drove over to George’s home one afternoon, let him know what was brewing, and pulled out one his old Hodgmans for some reverse engineering. I was surprised how much variation there was from one pontoon dimension to the next. That mat was nowhere near being symmetrical. I mentioned this to George as I was measuring it, and he broke out laughing. “It’s a surf mat, not an F-14! They aren’t supposed to be perfect!”
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Yes, F-14's are more complex than surf mats!
I averaged out the wild variations of the Hodgman’s interior dimensions, and forwarded the numbers to Dale.
February 1983 saw a string of big, sloppy, rainy El Nino
swells hit the West Coast. The day the first nylon mat arrived at our door, the
surf was pumping. There was no non-skid on
the deck of the Dale's new mat, and it was obvious that it would be too slick and slippery
to ride. I had a case of Slipcheck in my garage left over from the 60’s, so George and I cracked open a can, hit the deck with a quick coat of the stuff, and headed out to find some
waves to ride.
The surf was sloppy, but head higher or better. It was threatening rain. The sea was brownish but not chocolate water. No one was out. It seemed like the end of the world. In retrospect, there couldn’t have been a better scenario for the mat riding world to take a giant leap forward.
George snagged the first wave on the new mat, and disappeared down into the
cove of the off-the-beaten-path point we were riding. I could see his track coming over the
back of the wave, and it was like a white slit in the water...as opposed to the snowplow
wake a conventional surf mat carves. And the track was really long and straight. He was flying! George came paddling
back a few minutes later and was speechless…which, if you know George, is a
momentous occasion.
He finally blurted out, “This thing isn’t a little bit
faster, it’s a lot faster!”
Over the course of that afternoon, George and I rode dozens of waves,
head high or bigger, with the new nylon mat. The uncured Slipcheck on the deck wore
off quickly, and that made it hard to ride. But the mat never hit terminal
velocity. Every looming section, however distant, got eaten up. The other mat we had
out, a 'cutting edge' Merrin Peeler, suddenly seemed crude and slow.
So George’s belief that a more pliable mat would go faster
was now proven beyond any doubt. The nylon fabric was light and flexible, but had
enough integrity so it didn’t get saggy or mushy. The combination of “soft but
crisp” material was obviously going to be the ticket. Phase 5 of The Slow Leak Revolution had begun!
As we got more water time in on the nylon version of the old Hodgman shape, it became obvious that the superb handling of the old Hodgman had been, at least in part, due to its weight and roughly-textured canvas fabric. Dale’s slicker and lighter version had problems holding into steep sections, even when it was inflated to a nearly full level.
So our take-away was this: The new material was a resounding success...but future nylon mats would have to break new ground, design-wise, to exploit the speed of next-gen fabric without any loss of handling.
No one could have imagined how much time and money -- and fun -- it would take
to sort it all out!
