So... I'm on call for work this weekend so this project was started somewhat out of boredom and the fact I am kinda stuck at the house all weekend. I'll toot my own horn alittle bit and say that I am a fairly athletic person so I've been able to ride some boards that are too small for me but only stay in the pocket for a short period of time. As a fairly new boat surfer I have also struggled with staying in the pocket because of lack of experience but also being a bigger rider I've consistently rode boards that are too small for me. So, I thought I would do some research on rider lbs vs. board length. I also thought it would be cool to have some empirical data to the question of what size board should I get.
I started with board length setting up a grid from 0 to 72 inches. I used an arbitrary ceiling weight of 300 pounds. I took 300 and divided it by 72 to get an inch per pound scale just to get a baseline to see what it would be. This gave me a 4.16 pound per inch ratio. I then made the calculations to assign a weight to every inch from 0 to 72. I found that for the longer lengths near 72 the weights appeared pretty solid but the weights for the small length boards were way off (too high)
I next got the idea to take as many board manufacturers as I could and research recommended MAXIMUM weights for board lengths. I found 10 wakesurf board companies that gave weight recommendations for all the sizes of their quivers and 3 companies that gave recommendations on only some of their boards. There were 8 companies that did not list any weight recommendations what so ever, basically saying (one size fits all) or did not list it at all. So those companies didn't help with the research data. The data consists of companies that are purely productions boards and companies that are special order. There was no consideration taken on board construction.... ie surf vs. skim.... foam vs. compression. I solely looked at length vs. weight.
After I had compiled all of the data from the manufacturer websites I added and averaged every length category to give myself a general MAXIMUM weight number. The shortest board with recommended weight data was 3.5 and the longest was 5.8. When I looked at the averaged data it provided good insight to general ranges but I thought I could make it better by making an increasing range. The lowest posted weight range was 90 lbs at 3.5 length and the highest was 309 for a 5.6. I used the range from 90 lbs to 309 lbs which gave a total weight range of 219 lbs. I used 28 different length points, starting with 3.5 and ending with 5.8. This gave me 7.82 lbs per inch of board starting at 3.5 and 90 lbs. This gave me a MAXIMUM weight range for each inch board length. In the spread sheet I highlighted the length and recommended weights in yellow.
I then started looking at the data and was pretty satisfied with how it came out. My family owns a broadcast in 4.8 and a Ronix Koal in 5.1. The weights for these lengths were 207 and 246 receptively. I had to take my own experience into mind when analyzing the data and I will focus on he Ronix Koal 5.1. I rode the broadcast last year at 260 lbs and fell out of the pocket consistantly after 20 to 30 seconds or so. I moved to the 5.1 Koal this year and I am able to free ride it but a couple minutes or riding before I fall out the back is all I can manage. If I was to drop weight to 245 I am absolutely certain that I would be able to rip on the 5.1. I was overall happy with the calculated ranges. I think its fair to say there's a 5 pound deviation either way for each range.
I have attached the spreadsheet for your review. Let me know if there are any problems viewing it. I can also look at doing weights for skim vs. surf but I am pretty happy with how the ranges turned out. I think they are probably 90% accurate. Any ideas on improving it would be welcome as well. I could not figure out how to imbed the excel worksheet so the link is below.
http://1drv.ms/1t9D3LZ
I started with board length setting up a grid from 0 to 72 inches. I used an arbitrary ceiling weight of 300 pounds. I took 300 and divided it by 72 to get an inch per pound scale just to get a baseline to see what it would be. This gave me a 4.16 pound per inch ratio. I then made the calculations to assign a weight to every inch from 0 to 72. I found that for the longer lengths near 72 the weights appeared pretty solid but the weights for the small length boards were way off (too high)
I next got the idea to take as many board manufacturers as I could and research recommended MAXIMUM weights for board lengths. I found 10 wakesurf board companies that gave weight recommendations for all the sizes of their quivers and 3 companies that gave recommendations on only some of their boards. There were 8 companies that did not list any weight recommendations what so ever, basically saying (one size fits all) or did not list it at all. So those companies didn't help with the research data. The data consists of companies that are purely productions boards and companies that are special order. There was no consideration taken on board construction.... ie surf vs. skim.... foam vs. compression. I solely looked at length vs. weight.
After I had compiled all of the data from the manufacturer websites I added and averaged every length category to give myself a general MAXIMUM weight number. The shortest board with recommended weight data was 3.5 and the longest was 5.8. When I looked at the averaged data it provided good insight to general ranges but I thought I could make it better by making an increasing range. The lowest posted weight range was 90 lbs at 3.5 length and the highest was 309 for a 5.6. I used the range from 90 lbs to 309 lbs which gave a total weight range of 219 lbs. I used 28 different length points, starting with 3.5 and ending with 5.8. This gave me 7.82 lbs per inch of board starting at 3.5 and 90 lbs. This gave me a MAXIMUM weight range for each inch board length. In the spread sheet I highlighted the length and recommended weights in yellow.
I then started looking at the data and was pretty satisfied with how it came out. My family owns a broadcast in 4.8 and a Ronix Koal in 5.1. The weights for these lengths were 207 and 246 receptively. I had to take my own experience into mind when analyzing the data and I will focus on he Ronix Koal 5.1. I rode the broadcast last year at 260 lbs and fell out of the pocket consistantly after 20 to 30 seconds or so. I moved to the 5.1 Koal this year and I am able to free ride it but a couple minutes or riding before I fall out the back is all I can manage. If I was to drop weight to 245 I am absolutely certain that I would be able to rip on the 5.1. I was overall happy with the calculated ranges. I think its fair to say there's a 5 pound deviation either way for each range.
I have attached the spreadsheet for your review. Let me know if there are any problems viewing it. I can also look at doing weights for skim vs. surf but I am pretty happy with how the ranges turned out. I think they are probably 90% accurate. Any ideas on improving it would be welcome as well. I could not figure out how to imbed the excel worksheet so the link is below.
http://1drv.ms/1t9D3LZ
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