Musing Hot Buttered Surfboard Design

Musing Hot Buttered Surfboard Design

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Friday, October 1, 2010

Surfboard Design | Classic Drifta

Classic Drifta

The whole Drifta thing was a design divergence in the hunt for a combination of speed and points per turn. At the time (1980), rounding off noses, made a lot of design sense, when 3, 4, 5 inches were lopped off…..voilá, you have a shorter board with no nose weight, that can be stood up, vertical with less effort….but, still hold longer board lines on the rail…strike 1.

By taking the old double wing swallow tail templates and widening the front wing the boards had impressive planning area, speeding over flat spots and skating down the line. In stepping down real tail width with two wings, the narrowed tail held in when it mattered, biting deep into the wall….strike 2.

Ten years of concave work had provided the engine…single concave under the front foot – lean forward and accelerate, double under the back - lean back and turn, a wide based single fin and two smaller trailer fins focused on the front wing release points….strike 3.


Terry Fitzgerald



1 comment:

The Union said...

Board looks amazing.