FUTURE FORM
A REVOLUTION IN SURFBOARD DESIGN
WHAT IS THE FUTURE FORM ?
The Future Form has been a revolutionary breakthrough in surfboard design for us. A finely tuned vee that rises up out of the middle of the concave that merges the smooth glide and rail to rail transition of a vee bottom with the drive, acceleration and spark of a concave.
Our experience with the Future Form bottom contour has led us to believe that it's the highest performing bottom contour. One that leaves other bottom contours in the dust.
Future Form
VEE
PROS
Smoother rail to rail transition
Board sits up on rail better
Wider turn response
CONS
Lack of drive
Less grip on the wave face
Slower acceleration
CONCAVE
PROS
More aggressive
More drive
More acceleration
CONS
Sticky response / fights the wave
Tends to make boards sit flat in turns
Limited turning response
FASTER
The more dynamic water flow of the future form has substantially improved the overall speed and glide of the boards, even in smaller, softer waves
FUTURE FORM
Usually with surfboard design it's a trade off. A design change that gives more manoeuvrability will lose speed, or gain more glide but lose tighter turn ability etc.
And this is what has been so amazing with the Future Form contour, combining the vee with the concave has been a plus in every direction...
"The most surprising and fascinating aspect of the Future Form is that it retains the positive aspects of both the concave and the vee, while at the same time losing the negative aspects of the two contours." Jim Banks
A BIT MORE INFO...
The Future Form is not a double concave…nor is it a concave vee. As you can see very clearly here, a classic, slightly rolled vee rises up out of the concave so that the stringer sits higher than rails.
If for example it was a double concave, the stringer would still be sitting below the rail line. Even though this difference might appear to be insignificant, the difference in feel, response and performance of having the rolled vee rising up out of the concave is completely different to a double concave or concave vee.
And so far, everyone that has surfed it, has noticed the greatly improved speed, feel and response of the boards with the Future Form contour.
The Leaf Explanation
HIGHER SPEED THRU TURNS
We've found is that it's substantially faster and has more drive through turns than a concave, especially turns under the lip, resulting in the ability to pull off more critical manoeuvres.
WIDER RESPONSE
Unlike the concave which locks you into a very specific turning arc, the Future Form allows a much wider range of turning response.
TURNS EASIER
The Future Form contour has less resistance to direction changes and hence allows turns to be both initiated and completed much easier
SMOOTHER & MORE DYNAMIC
The Future Form allows much smoother rail to rail transitions and for the board to sit up on a rail more comfortably, becoming more dynamic through turns.
The Story Behind It...
Initially the Future Form started as a concept to allow my big wave boards to get over on the rail easier. I knew a vee would do this, but I was also very aware of the limitations of the vee and so I tried combining the vee with the concave. My initial concern was that the vee would still push water and that I would be trading off some speed to gain manoeuvrability.
I still remember my very first wave on the Future Form bottom, a desperate closeout in the dark at Uluwatu that I clawed my way into, and how shocked I was, when I laid the board over on it's rail and the board accelerated faster than any previous bottom contour that I've ever played with.
Subsequent testing of both longer and shorter boards with single, twin, tri and quad fin set ups revealed that this contour out performed both vee and concave bottom contours from the tiniest, softest knee high waves all the way up to solid triple overhead days and beyond.
It just did everything better... more glide, more acceleration, more drive, better response through both short and long arc turns, and just an overall friendlier and smoother feel and response under the feet.
I've been working on it for about 4 years now, experimenting with the depth and placement of the vee and the concave panels, and have found that there are definitely optimum placement and configurations of the concave and vee as they transition through the bottom of the board.
All our team riders are now riding the Future Form in all their boards and we've noticed a substantial jump in the level of their surfing since getting on them. While our customers, like ourselves, are finding that after surfing this type of bottom contour, that standard concave boards feel slow and clunky in comparison.
It's clearly obvious that the superior performance of a hybrid vee concave, will eventually replace the standard concaves that most current boards feature, and make them obsolete. We're just wondering how long it will take for the rest of the industry to catch on...
