convex vs concave

[surfinsmiley]

ok ..... has anyone tried riding a convex board?
i ride mccoy surfboards that have a convex shape to the bottom and i now reliaze that the instability introduced from a concave only serves to make the board reactive. a highly reactive surfboard is only good if you have a bad rocker or rail shape.

does this hold true for kiteboards?

[not annonymous]

I made one once by accident back when I was building foam-core "tortured" plywood boards. If you don't make the rocker mold super strong and also clamp the board to the table when you laminate the wood skin, you end up with a convex-bottomed board. I think the boad I made had around 2-4mm convex, I never bothered to measure it.

Anyway the board rode like a total piece of shit, It had a pretty sharp rails on it but I couldn't seem to put/hold the edge in the water. I think the convex was pushing the rail up and out of the water, The board would tend to loose edge and slide out.

Difference with surfboards it that they ride flat except for when you want them to turn, a convex might put the board on edge easier but take longer for the rail to grab. Kiteboards edge most/all the time, the convex board did not seem to want to stay on edge. Flat-bottom boards I made with pretty much the same design (outline, rail shape) rode OK so I blame the convex. Maybe a bunch of extra fins near the rail would have helped but I think this shape is fundamentaly flawed so I gave up on it. I put concave in all my kite boards now.

Trent

[surfinsmiley]

hmmmmmm.....
good line of thought!

thanks for the input.