The Surfers Journal
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Bottom rocker is the most elusive characteristic of surfboard design. At what point does an exaggerated rocker, meant to allow a board to fit into the tightest corners of a wave, begin to limit a surfer’s performance by impacting the ability to paddle efficiently, or simply ride an “average” (that is to say, not powerful nor well-groomed) wave?
Can a shaper find the magic gradient of a curve for a particular wave rider? Much has been made of Kelly Slater’s experiments with shortboard minimalism and the hoards of regular Joes and Josephines that butt waggled in his wake through most of the 1990s, hoping to somehow gain something of his speed and flow on “elf shoes” of their own. But perhaps the decade of 18-inch wide by 1 7/8-inch thick surfboards does not represent mass stagnation after all. Perhaps, as Matt Kechele suggests, the flip-tip wafers of the 90s were but steps toward the realization of fully integrated aerial and power-flow surfing.
It was a long period to be sure, but anyone checking the gouges and boosts of today’s elite competitors will concede that the contemporary high performance surfboard allows for unprecedented shredding. Unfortunately, just as it was in ’96, the sight of a man grown thickened and stiff with middle-age, yet trying for the moves of youth, is as cringe-worthy as ever, and no amount of rocker—pronounced or subdued—will help that situation.
Still, the present day shortboard, with its computer generated foils and volume measured in liters, represents a coalescing of nearly 40 years of design knowledge and understanding, even if comprehensive explanations for what makes a “good” rocker (or a good rail, set of fins, plan shape, etcetera) are hard to come by. The shapers assembled here—Ryan Lovelace, Bob Pearson, Bob Mitsven, Keone Downing, Neal Purchase Jr., and Matt Kechele—are well-aware of what’s at work with the rockers they put in their respective boards. But the application of rocker comes down to a matter of “feel” and the “look” of things. Yes, rockers are measured and catalogued, but when it comes to hand shaping (or, for that matter, assessing the contours on a machine-milled blank) a craftsman relies on muscle memory and a well developed eye—skills that go way, way back to when bottom curve and sail plans set the course of history.
In the nanosecond that represents modern surfboard design (say, since the days when Fran Heath and John Kelly experimented with bottom contours on the Hot Curl) the extremes of rocker have been well and truly explored. From the Malibu Chip to the aforementioned Potato Chip, surfboards have evolved to encompass the multitude of wave riding experiences. Even as contemporary high-performance boards begin to reincorporate characteristics from their first iterations in the late 70s and early 80s (more “relaxed” or “natural” rockers and shorter, fuller plan shapes), many “retro” boards now sport multiple fin boxes and seemingly futuristic foils.
Yet the question of optimal rocker remains a working mystery. Surfers of the 21st century have access to a wider variety of surfboards and surfing possibilities than ever before—an embarrassment of riches on the one hand, a paralyzing overabundance of options on the other. The best thing a wave sliding guy or gal can do (besides leaving the question of rocker entirely and simply grabbing a board, any board, and going surfing) is to start with a model from a surfboard builder of good repute, then try subtle adjustments to their rocker over time. It may feel like groping in the dark, but at least you won’t be alone.
—Christian Beamish
A study in vision and perseverance, young Master Lovelace has built a surfboard brand in little more than a decade, which branches in multiple directions while having a focus in a particular mid-length design based on the point surf in and around Santa Barbara County. With his own downtown S.B. boutique to showcase his boards and a burgeoning business relationship with Gerry Lopez and Rich Pavel respectively, Lovelace has attained his position through hard work—shaping surfboards everyday for years on end, still, today, as you read this.
Everyone talks about these Fibonacci sequences and all this stuff, and the “golden ratio” for their curves. I think my curves—just eyeball-wise—would probably nail those numbers because I think there’s multiple ways to get to that good curve. I think artists can see it and feel it, and mathematicians can create it on paper. I think they’re equally valid. I just come at it from my way, if that makes sense. I don’t think any one is better than the other, but I think that whole “equation” bases itself around pleasing curves, “natural curves,” and I think that’s the whole thing.
The rocker itself is important, but the way it relates to the wide point and where the apex is in that rocker… You know, when someone measures rocker they never say where the apex of that bend is—they just say the numbers on the nose and tail. Well, what the hell does that tell you? Unless you give numbers every 6 inches, or every 3 inches, you’re not going to get an exact idea of what’s going on. Or maybe I just expect too much, because I want to know the whole picture. But if you said it was 5 inches of nose rocker and 3 inches of tail rocker, dude, that thing could have a 45-degree angle 3 inches from the tail to get to that “3 inches.” It gives you nothing.
I use the 8’3″ H [designed by Roger Hinds for U.S. Blanks] for the V Bowls [Lovelace’s popular mid-length design]. It’s neutral. Having this traveling shaping thing going, all of my boards are based on natural rockers. I take a little off the nose and about a foot off the tail so I’m left with a lot of thickness and I can bring that dome deck in. I’ll start with three sets of [planer] passes, going subsequently farther up the tail with each set of passes for a little bit of kick in the tail, and then I blend those cuts out. After that I flatten out the area behind the nose and toward the middle of the board, and that’s the V Bowls’ rocker. I’ll add a little more nose rocker at the end to foil it out, but that’s it. It’s very simple. I always look at rocker from nose to tail as one continuous thing. If it’s too jarring in any one place, I take it out until it’s where I like it. I never measure my nose or tail—it’s all by eye and just what I like and experimenting. But it’s all feel, it’s all eyeballing.
Pearson Arrow Surfboards are synonymous with Santa Cruz surfing. All the boys ride them it seems, and most of the girls too. The whole gamut of designs: high performance wiz-bangers at The Slot, calf-leash sporting cheater-fivers at 38th Avenue, joyful crazies at that big wave spot up the highway. And this has been going on for quite a while. Kevin Reed brought that sunburst arrow logo to prominence by hovering over kelp green waves years before the surfing public was ready to comprehend the validity of taking to the air, circa ’77, give or take. After 50 years of shaping it becomes more and more apparent to me how important rocker is—how subtle adjustments will have significant cause-and-effect in the final product. A 1/16-inch adjustment in tail-release can determine the success of the design. The shaper’s task is to communicate with the rider to understand what performance characteristics he or she wants. As a generalization, the difference between a singe-fin, twin or tri, has no relative significance in application to rocker. Every little thing you do to your surfboard design has significance, but the overriding fact is the rocker must be designed to a surfer’s personal preference and style. To make the perfect board, the rocker needs to be incorporated with correct template, bottom contours, rails, thickness, foils, etcetera. Most people don’t want to think so hard about the boards they get. For example, most people have the opinion that a twin-fin is for small waves and slides out. In fact, it’s the area of the fin relative to the area of the tail of the board, relative to the placement, that determines hold. I have guys riding twin-fins in 60-foot-plus waves. Built correctly, the twin-fin can yield more drive, power, hold, and speed than most other setups.
Kevin Reed was one of the best surfers of all time. He was the first to do an air—four years before anyone else. I remember one day at a Huntington pro event, Rusty Preisendorfer, who’d just picked up Occy as his team rider, came up to me and said, “I’ve heard about Kevin and now I’ve seen him. Unbelievable—he was doing 360 airs, jumping over people…” I made twin-fins for Kevin with a variety of bottom concaves releasing out the tail. He always cut my twin-fin templates down to make the boards faster and looser. He would still ride the boards in big waves, and with incredible finesse, still holding in and powering off the bottom. Kevin had more confidence than any surfer I ever met. He was optimistic that he could pull anything off and so he did.
Flea, Barney, Kevin Reed, [along with other notable surfers from Santa Cruz] all had their own special design and resulting model. Although they all ripped and did similar maneuvers, their boards were radically different. The “80 percent” of custom orders ride normal boards, average. Flea and Barney were extremists and rode completely different rockers on each end of the spectrum. Flea rode more tail kick than 99 percent of other surfers and Barney rode flatter tail rockers than 99 percent of other surfers. This was due to their particular styles. Flea’s boards turned tighter, and Barney’s had more drive. If you watched them surf, they both were doing the same basic thing—ripping. However, if you paid close attention you could see a difference in speed, drive, and turn flow.
Bob Mitsven may or may not be most well know for the “eggs” he shapes—those uniquely rounded surfboards of San Diego provenance, perfected by the likes of Skip Frye and Donald Takayama. But to call the trio of beautifully outlined and foiled boards that Mitsven recently did for a surf shop in Los Angeles “eggs” is to perhaps misperceive the drive aspects of his plan shapes in the fullness of their curves. Crafting surfboards since 1973 and keeping company with Skip, Hank Warner, and Bill Caster, Mitsven has lived the great majority of his life shaping for San Diego’s doctrinaire-yet-exploratory surfing culture.
I shape everything from eggs to fishes to standard shortboards. Eggs are one kind of rocker. Shortboards are another. Fishes have their own thing. There are different rockers for the different things I do. Basically the egg, the “San Diego Egg,” is inspired by Skip. It’s just a real user-friendly outline. It has a little bit of surface area and the rocker is pretty relaxed in the nose and goes into a concave where the rocker starts to bend and straighten out—just a nice, clean bend back into the tail, so that everything is real smooth. Not straight, either, because they have to have a good bend to them so they fit into the wave. Not real accelerated, but just a nice clean bend in the last 18 inches of the tail. I kind of tweak the dimensions right in the center [on the plan shape] just so they’re not too parallel but have that nice, clean, “eggy” outline.
I’ll start and put in the rocker and the vee. I measure every board with a straight edge and I’ll mark the nose and tail. And I’ll start at the tail, and I’ll pitch the nose just a little bit, and I’ll do the tail and blend it all together from the nose to the tail so there are no straight spots—it’s just clean from nose to tail. It’s “straighter” through the middle. I have marks, and I have all kinds of layout lines on the board for the full shape. So I’m not guessing, you know? There’s a different layout for the egg, or for the shortboard—they’re all different. I’m just going through steps and meeting dimensions so they’re all consistent.
I use the SP series of blanks [designed by Smith-Parrish] from U.S. Blanks for the eggs, just the natural rocker. They’re tight. Those things work pretty well—not too flippy. They have just enough bend to them. They go down to about 7’4″ but if I have to make a 6’8″ I have to go to a 6’10” A [designed by Pat Rawson] and that’s a whole different thickness-flow in the blank. But at the end I want it to look like they all came out of the same family of blanks. That’s where all that marking comes into play. The Rawson blanks are solid but they’re pretty thick in the middle and they thin out at the ends, so you have to come at them a little bit differently. The shortboard is harder to make than any of those eggs, because the short thing needs to be able to get its speed going and not be dead, you know? The Egg has a little bit of surface area to compensate, but the shortboard has to be spot on [with entry rocker and single-to-double concave through the tail] so all that stuff can work, together. For fish it’s a little bit straighter rocker, and on ours there’s no vee in them, just a concave starting about 20 inches back from the nose and running all the way through the tail. I still like that rail rocker to have no straight spots, but a pleasing arc. I keep going back to that, but it’s important.
Keone Downing relates a funny story that illustrates not only the tendency of surfers to over-analyze, but also the esteem that his venerable father, George Downing, has for him: “When I won the Eddie in 1990, everyone was calling about the board, asking about the design. My dad said, ‘Surfboards have a nose, they have a tail, they have one fin on the bottom, they have rails… [Laughs.] There’s more than just the board for why Keone did what he did.’ But as far as my Waimea board, the template is the same one we’ve been using since the 50s: the rocker curves, the bottom curves, the rail curve.”
Our rockers have not changed too much over the years—the waves are still the same. What we have done is intertwine different bow curves with different stern curves. We have basic rocker curves we have compiled for over 60 years and they are still relevant. As you apply curves to a board there still could be a little adjustment required and your eyes do see when it’s right. My dad’s concept was you wanted rocker when you were standing up on the board, but when you got on the rail you wanted acceleration. Talking about bow curve—where the curve is in the bow that allows you to paddle fast, or paddle smoothly, through the water. There are guys that build boards that have a real abrupt bow curve, and paddling-wise they can’t paddle to save their lives. But once you get them on a wave and [the bow curve] releases, the board comes alive. My father understood bow curves because he paddled, and did all the other things. So he knew where the blend of the curve had to be—under your chest—so it wouldn’t push water.
Woody Brown taught my Dad and Wally Froiseth, John Kelly, Fran Heath, and probably four or five other guys about calculated drag [from Woody’s experiences with flying gliders]. Without Woody Brown, who knows how long it would’ve taken them to understand everything? They were open to listen. Then they got a hold of balsa and fiberglass. It was half the weight [of the redwood and varnish boards they had been riding]. And they couldn’t build the displacement hull [“Hot Curl” boards] the same way, because they went from 80 pounds to 35. What happened? The fin came about. When they put the fin on the displacement hull it was a dog. Then they had to shift to planing hulls that would get up to speed fast because they had this fin to guide them.
In Kapiolani Park these guys pounded a nail in the ground and took a piece of string. And they knew that if this board was 19 ½-inces wide, they wanted a curve off of a circle that was going to be a half-inch high. They walked out into the park and they kept walking and walking with this piece of string, so that when they laid it down and scribed a circle they could get those dimensions. The circle was the fastest shape through the water, it had the least drag, so they took segments of the circle. My dad would say, “Sometimes we walked out 300 yards [to get the curve they wanted]. We want a half-inch roll in the bow, 18-inches wide—keep going, keep walking!” All the curves [George Downing and his friends made] are all really pleasing. I am so glad to have known my father’s friends. That era makes it really special, the knowledge that they had, the pushing of the envelope to do other things. They weren’t stuck. They were dreamers. They weren’t satisfied with what was already given to them. They wanted to ride bigger waves, try different things. Imagine taking your prized board and taking an axe to it to make it ride better?
Son of accomplished and longtime Gold Coast shaper Neal Purchase, Neal Purchase Jr. has made his own place in the surfing world by crafting clean boards and sitting deep in the barrel, whether surfing sand-bottom points or well groomed reef waves in Indonesia—just as his dad does and has done for nigh on six decades The concept behind Purchase’s “Duo” design—a twin-fin with high aspect ratio fins rather than the stubby, wider-based fins found on fish and more “traditional” twin-fins—is “finding that grey area between a twin-fin and a single-fin.”
For each blank I’ve got different rockers—it’s more of a flatter rocker than the one the standard guys use. Burford [Australian blank manufacturer] has been around since 1970 [1966, to be exact], and they still have the molds of the blanks they’ve been using since then. I guess I’ve gone through about every rocker there is without going to the banana, and I’ve ended up finding blanks that work well. A single-fin has a longer, cleaner rocker than a two-plus-one. I had a foiled single-fin rocker, so the apex would be forward—just a long, even curve running out through the tail. Whereas thrusters have that accentuated curve that runs out of the tail from just after the front fins, these rockers are just continuous with no kick or anything. [The boards] lend themselves to a fast, traditional way of surfing.
I had seen two-plus-ones from the high performance longboard guys and looked at it like a single-fin with training wheels. But these Parmenter boards looked nice, so I gave them a bit of a shot at Kirra around 2000 or 2001. His were more based off a single-fin with small sides that felt good when the points were on. Then I took down the back fin and started to cluster the fins up more, and that gets you a little more rail-to-rail, other then the single fin glide, point-and-shoot sort of thing.
When I’m putting my rocker in, a lot of the time I’m cutting 3 or 4 inches off the blank and positioning the rocker in the blank where I want it, and then blending the nose rocker into that. And then the tail rocker as well. I’ve always been taught from my dad that on a two-stage rocker, like on single-fins (or even thrusters), the engine room is between your feet. So for the mid-section I try to flatten that out quite a bit, because you want to plane [when surfing]. And then good entry rocker runs into it. And if you want tail-lift you do that last. That’s the way I’m looking at it, in three parts. But I don’t really measure—I measure the width. I skin the blank first then cut the outline and put in my concaves or spiral vee.
Things have changed so much in the past two years. Joel and Mick, five years ago, they were surfing really highly rockered boards. But a few years ago, everyone started going really flat—kind of similar to what I’ve been riding—and reducing the size of the board. I think a lot of tail rocker can be a bit of a stall, really. It’s just finding that balance. Personally, I like a nice long, even tail that starts running from behind the front foot.
When one thinks about the soaring acrobatics of contemporary surfing and the superior skill involved in performing airs on waves over any of the other “board sport” permutations, a line of influence stretches back to surfers like Matt Kechele of Cocoa Beach, Florida, who began experimenting with the possibilities of an air game in the early 80s. With the exception of Kevin Reed in Santa Cruz, and the occasional Bert fin blast, or the sheer exuberance from Buttons pushing his turns skyward, aerials were nascent developments in the “early” days. So “Kech” must get some satisfaction in seeing the effort of his surfing youth built upon and developed to the point where entire sections of waves are now routinely navigated by simply taking to the air. Shaping in the early 80s was just so different from what it is today. The blanks we had were so limited. There were some Brewers and Reno blanks, but they were thick. There was a lot of learning to be done back then. When Clark started looking at close tolerance blanks and started bringing on some good shapers—Rusty and Eric Arakawa—the idea was to minimize waste, therefore Clark really had to nail it with the rockers. But those are a couple of shapers, that to my mind, got us going in the right direction with rockers—focusing in on the high performance realm.
Greg Loehr was working really closely with Bill Hartley, who was one of my team riders, and doing some real crazy tail rockers on these big single-fins, these kind of banana single-fins, these really big single-fins. He was doing real deep concaves and really a hyper-kick on the tail rockers. From what I gather, while Hartley was in Australia, Greg Webber saw some of his funky boards and was pretty inspired by some of the exaggerated rockers. That was another extreme we were looking at—that was a lot of rocker, a lot of tail flip. But just to look at it and learn from it: if a lot of guys were going too extreme, maybe pull back the reins, and look at what someone else is doing. Pull back the reins and change it a little bit. They were all influences in a great direction, you know? Greg Webber started making some boards for Shane Herring, and a few others. Tommy Curren got kind of interested in that super-exaggerated rocker. Kelly, back in the early 90s when he was riding that 17 ¾ inch, really narrow board with a lot of tail rocker—there wasn’t a lot of thickness, either.
I generally look to the boards of Gabriel Medina and Filipe Toledo. I noticed that Gabriel is going with a really straight rocker between the stance, and I think he’s found the gas pedal by flattening that rocker between his stance. It’s really fun to watch those guys and what they’re doing, the places they’re putting their boards. Now it’s lower nose entry so the board paddles well, a real subtle rocker through the middle—pretty straight—with a little bit, just a touch, of exaggerated rocker through the foot area. That combination of elements works really well for high performance beachbreaks. Because when you’re really getting on your front foot, the board is really speedy. But when you’re going up into the lip, you’ve got a little bit of curve in the back-foot area to help you rock up into the lip. The pros, in pretty small, gutless waves can ride a high performance board. It’s a pretty subtle thing, but when you start looking at those guys on the top level—there’s a reason they get so much projection, and are able to fly such gnarly airs. They’ve got that real speedy rocker between their stances.
[Feature image: Stringer patterns await placement into blanks at the U.S. Blanks factory. A repository of modern surfboard knowledge on par with the great libraries of the world, the U.S. Blanks catalog has been compiled over more than 50 years (carrying on from Clark Foam) and continually refined. It offers a baseline of tried-and-true rockers developed by the world’s best shapers, providing contemporary shapers with a reliable starting point for their own experimentations. The fact that these essential rockers are available to anyone who wants them is testament to the idea that the best things in life are, in fact, free. (Or at least don’t cost much more than two-hundred bucks on the high end for a custom 11-foot blank.) Photo by Jeff Divine.]
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