Poor Manufacturing makes boards weaker and greatly affects the the actual strength of the boards. Poor Manufacturing is the main problem with strength related issues on boards. Other issues are poor combinations or implementations of reinforcements in high stress areas. I might be misinterpreting what your thought was here?
I was under the impression that most of the issues regarding the approved race boards was poor manufacturing quality and continuity rather than strength of the actual boards? (fin box misalignment, delamination in fatigue prone and high strain areas, bad dimensioning etc.).
Upping the weight is most likely just going to change the design envelope for the board designers as they now have more mass to play with. Some of the things that are probably holding back the dimensions (in non restricted areas) is the weight concern, upping the minimum weight could lead to even larger and just as fragile designs.
Also adding more material to current designs might not gain any significant durability advantage and can if poorly implemented cause an even weaker design. There are also the clear cases where the durability issues arise after misuse of the board, like jumping and so on.
I am all for a good box rule, but I think this may miss the target and make boards even more expensive than they are today contrary to the intentions (I guess).
Some interesting things could be:
- Imposing use of standard components for boards like: fin boxes, strap attachments etc. (not one manufacturer, but one standard)
- Structural demands on aft part of hull where the majority of forces act (all boards must comply to a set of load tests, these are very easy to implement)
Adding minimum weight factors does not add mass in terms of width or longer boards as there is already set limits for width and length. Adding minimum weight is supposed to help manufacturers put more reinforcements like carbon, glass, PVC, Wood, or whatever to high stress areas.
Adding more poorly implemented materials usually is stronger than less poorly implemented materials in general. For instance, 2 layers of Carbon under your heels is weaker than 4 layers of Carbon even if there is a delam under the heels when manufactured. The 4 layers will hide the delam longer than 2 layers of Carbon.
As for your "standards in board building" using all the same inserts and boxes might sound like a good plan in Theory but in actuality every board builder is using different materials and is using different boxes and inserts. The big factories actually make there own inserts and boxes in many different ways and molds to save costs for the brand and end consumer. Some actually build the boxes while molding the board.
Set of stress test implemented? That sounds good but would actually add even more money. That would be a hard one to perfect also. Making a machine that repeatedly pounded on the footstrap heel area sounds very expensive.
The new weight limit is 5.5 kgs which is extremely hard to attain and keep the boards from Falling apart or denting everywhere at the current 70 x190 size. If you actually put a board on an accurate scale, very few will be 5.5 or even 5.8 and last in normal usage for a year.