The holy grail of surfski design - ultimately ...

Boyan,

This is the little fellow that passed the photo on to me. I asked no questions and he gave me no answers.

Thanks for posting Boyan, always great to have an expert in the house. Your videos are amazing, been a big fan forever.

If I hit the lottery I'll be on a flight for lessons in Tarifa. Dale was just here and his lessons were exceptionally helpful. Really amazing how good you instructors are, so valuable for ski.

More vids please!

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"But then, I guess, folks can keep their 560s and V14s for flat water racing ...?"

That's a crucial point. The videos of the waveskis show that it is well possible to be fast as hell with a short planing hull on a downwind course with sufficiently high/fast waves. But these short, flat boats literally suck on any other course. That can only be improved by reducing the wetted surface to very small values => you arrive at foils. The foil kayak, as Rasmussen demoed a couple of years ago, easily beats ordinary ICF K4s, but only on short distances. Keeping up a cruising speed of, say, 5 min/km is way harder with them as with an ordinary fast kayak, simply because that speed is insufficient to lift the hull out of the water.

So I have strong doubts that this boat can possibly be versatile enough. Under conditions as those we had recently at a race on the Baltics (light, quartering wind from land resulting in small, messy waves), a short, broad design just kills you (as happened to me), as you get insufficient support for gliding and planing.

Hi Impala,
foils are definitely very fast but they also have some disadvantages:
- very hard to control (so stability will be an issue for most people)
- probably limited to moderate wind conditions (as the exposure to 35-50 knots gusts with the full surface of the boat would be very challenging)

Anyway I would really like to have a test a surfski on well designed foils.

About "short fat boats suck in any other conditions", Did you have a chance to look at my GPS data yesterday in the surfski 600 Facebook page? I wasn't racing and I was cruising at 3:30 - 3:35 min / km and top speed went in the range of 24-25 km. I am not sure if this is slow or fast by your standards?

The conditions I experienced were 25-50 knots, short waves, max height 1 m and mean height about 1/2 meter. Cross chop with multiple layers of intensively moving water...the boat allowed me to stay in full control.

Just because a boat is shorter than others that doesn't mean it is 2 m short. For example 650 cm is shorter than 700 cm and 600 cm is shorter than 650 cm. This is the logic.

Thanks a lot for you comments I think the 600 is one of the most versatile surfski I have even paddled. It is good for flat, surf break, various downwind conditions. Accessible to a very wide range of paddlers. Easy to remount etc.

Thanks for the kind words LaPerouseBay!
Yes, making video is good fun and I have no intention to stop. Have been filming every day for the last few days of testing and an idea is floating in my head ... lets see if it is going to work out. I am thinking to try something educational and fun.
Best Regards from Tarifa!
Boyan

So it was this little guy!
hmm...I will let him off the hook this time!

Thanks Uffilation,
wave skis are really too short and lack volume. I think another surfski also used the word "planing hull" recently and their boat is 6+ m long.
Just saying
Best Regards
Boyan

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Boyan Zlatarev wrote: Hi Impala,

About "short fat boats suck in any other conditions", Did you have a chance to look at my GPS data yesterday in the surfski 600 Facebook page? I wasn't racing and I was cruising at 3:30 - 3:35 min / km and top speed went in the range of 24-25 km. I am not sure if this is slow or fast by your standards?

Boyan, you busily and purposefully stoke speculation and discussion by making spectacular claims and leaking (largely useless) infobits, and then lecture people time and again how wrong their speculations are. You seem to get a lot of fun from this, but be careful not to let your potential customers look foolish.

I find it incredible that some folks automatically hit the negative botton when creative entusiasts like Boyan make an effort to develop a new surfski.

The marketing of surfskis has always been that the new ski is faster and more stable.
Nelo 560 is super stable, and Epic even tells you that all skis in their skis pretty much are just as fast, and only "seconds" apart.

According to Greg he estimates that he could paddle a V6 and a V7 over 10K with an average speed of 12.9 km/hr and 13.0 km/hr. I would love to see a video of him doing that. Marketing is marketing.

Hi Impala,
i am sorry if you feel that I have negative intentions.

I am not sure how my real GPS data is a speculation but I apologize if this offended you.

About sparking conversation, I think that too many people sit in the wrong unstable boat chasing fictional improvements of speed while exposing themselves to the real danger of diverse ocean conditions. I think this is a topic that is worth speaking about.

I have done a lot of research on how most surfski brands advertise their products and I see nothing but speculation with very little real data.

I also believe that Surfski 600 is something unique that delivers on the claims it makes but that by no means should imply that people should not paddle other boats.

Best regards
Boyan

I just saw that Impala is a surfski designer himself. and he doesn´t like flat bottom surfskis like Nelo 550

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Boyan,

your intention to make Surfski more accessible by designing a fast and stable boat is highly laudable. It would be great to have a fast boat that allows me to surf big conditions without shitting my trousers. But you stoke speculation by making claims about the performance of your boat without telling your audience how you achieved. You do not understand that many do not just want to know how fast you paddled yesterday. This is not the news. We want to understand how you achieved that. I have no clue why you feed us this information while keeping us intentionally from understanding it. You can do this for some days, but then the joke gets old and sour, and the strategy annoying, not funny. Do you want to continue this for the coming weeks? Not advisable, it rather turns people off if they are kept guessing unnecessarily.

Fredrik, yes, I design kayaks, but just for hobby. But it may explain my desire to understand boat performance. I generally admire people like Boyan who try to overcome barriers in thinking and come up with something great as a result. But such breakthroughs can only be appreciated if you can understand how they come about.

Hi Impala,
I truly appreciate your comment and I don't think anyone should get upset about the way a surfski brand reveals their product.
Best Regards
Boyan

Remember how the Segway was advertised to the public? How it was going to change the world? Yet, no one had any idea what is was.

www.businessinsider.com/10-years-later-t...segways-flop-2011-12

One has to be careful when releasing a new product. The marketing needs to create a desire for it, not just a curiosity.

In the times of facebook bubbles ... might be mentiond that some know Boyan from Tarifa and others not.

Lighten up guys. Boyan is a smart dude. Pretty sure he knows that over-promising and then under-delivering is not a good long term business strategy.

If these marketing teasers are really upsetting you, then stop looking at them. Go for paddle instead. Wait for the new ski to be released and tested by others before you make a decision about it.

Personally I think this marketing strategy is fun and entertaining.

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