Will it make a board faster through the water? I think so, given the water repelling properties of the product. What do you think?
3 kits ordered in the mail today. Gonna get a really good idea on flat/stagnate water where I paddle. I wonder if flatwater paddling is more about friction (which Never Wet could address) or overall water drag which maybe no coating could ever address?..Wondering about the life of the coating, it’s not UV stable.
Texture on the fins but super-gloss on the hull? It seems like the two would be incongruous.
I never gloss a hull’s underside unless the stick is not a big deal or the inlay supercedes the texture. I hand finish at 400-600
edit: that’s basically what other pros and masters at the game have told me how to approach it anyway…I think about the overall drag and displacement of the hull when pulling water everyday I’m out there. Doesn’t feel like a friction thing, more about how much a of a pain in the ass it is to pull a vessel through the water. Water acting like this giant slug where it doesn’t care what coating you have on…
I’m not sure it’s super gloss, but it is water repelling. It should greatly reduce over the water friction. I think lots of folks are going to be testing it.
specs say it’s not a clear finish. I’m assuming a translucent white texture over your glass job?
EDIT: wait a second: frosted blue is the finish on dark surfaces, maybe similar finish on white. A review popped up on the site: “I noticed that while they bead excellently, they had turned my once black boots a frosted blueish color”
Where is Bob Simmons when you need him? The definitive test would be using his brothers strain gauge, to test an uncoated hull, and then the same hull coated. Towed at a constant speed, the strain gauge would reveal which one had less resistance to movement over the water.
Just bought some at Home Depot to test on lined neoprene for a boot/glove project I’m working on. Dark colors dry with a whitish haze, lighter colors less noticable. Also seems to have a chalky feel (dried for only 1 hour right now). Will update on hydrophobic properties after 24 hours (full cure).
[img_assist|nid=1075114|title=Never Wet Test|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=302|height=227][img_assist|nid=1075115|title=Never Wet Fleece|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=340|height=256][img_assist|nid=1075116|title=Never Wet Nylon and Kanoko|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=431|height=325]
Just my 0.2 pesos here
but the perplexing question thats been rattling around in my brain looking at the footage is how does surface texture create such a super hydrophobic reaction?
if you look at the demo’s the claim is that the water droplet actually pulls back into themselves to form perfect round beads because they seem to not want to have anything to do with the coated surface.
There’s only two “scientific” explanations I can fathom and that is either it’s a chemical or an electrical/magnetic reaction between water and the coating.
The only examples I’ve seem of liquids or things actually trying repel each other is when you mix two chemicals or something of vastly different densities like a lava lamp or an electrical magnetic reaction between two substances.
I don’t think a super smooth surface can cause water to pull away from it versus just not adhere as efficiently.
On the other hand when you are dealing with turbulent flow it seems you want to convert as much of the turbulence into laminar flow to achieve the highest efficiency possible. In otherwords you would want to redirect the water flow to follow the most efficent path over a surface to achieve the highest level of speed and comtrol.
This being said I think the best test is not to just coat the bottom of the board with a coating to make water stay away but to apply the coating as to direct the flow to areas that utlize the flow of the water to create thrust.
Hence I would really think about how the water will flow over the bottom of the board and where you want to direct that flow to make use of it.
For example the Campbells, Jeff Alexander and Maurice Cole utilize huge bottom concaves to to direct the flow to the tail where the fins are. Griffin creates a sharp rail nose to tail with a flat bottom to get the water off the bottom and then runs his fins deep into the wall of the wave to harness the energy while keeping the fin drag down using reduced size and perfect foils. Morey is using his 50 degree heater rail in last 18"-25" to get the water off the tail deck surface and bottom as quickly as possible. Bill is making the water stick to the outside of the fins with his rough finish to create a surface layer of turbulence(air injection) that keeps the majority of the flow off the major suface areas of the fin to reduce drag and increase grip. Mark Spindler, Herb Spitzer did the same with their add on micro fins. Morey and Brewer did the same with their air injected boards in the early 70’s…
So I would think you would apply the coating to force the water flow towards the tail and fins as quickly as possible maybe a mimic of shaping a concave down the middle leaving the rail area free and arcing itno the tail area which also be free of the coating sort of like how a concave would flow into a flat right at and after the fins like brewer does with his double concaves or McCoy does with his loaded dome.
I wish I could get my hands on some to test but they won’t ship this stuff to hawaii.
I think you really need to think how and where to apply it on the bottom beforehand versus just slathering it on like all the rest of these nano sprays I’ve seem demoed to really find out what super hydrophic reactions can do
I’d leave the rails clean up to the perhaps an inch or so past the bevel and then coat from the nose into the tail area fading like a giant vee approaching the tail. In this case your engine (fins) would give you the maximum thrust to push the board forward. I’d even create just lateral streaks of the coating angling from rail to tail to force the water to the back of the board instead of just having it shoot off from one rail to the other like a side slip. you want all the action coming off the last 18"-24" of the board which some feel is the most important part of a board when riding.
But for flat water paddling I’d coat the whole bottom, rails and fins.But riding on a bubble of air offers you no control.
Next couple of weeks is gonna be interesting to say the least
Thought we went thru this subject every couple of months, since the advent of WD-40.
About 3 months ago, while watching the news on TV, I saw the guys wet sanding the bottoms of one of the America’s Cup catamarans. The news article was nothing technical, just showing some prep work before water trials, but the maintainance guys were hard at work diamond pattern sanding the below waterline, with a pretty fine sandpaper, crosshatching around 30 degrees to the direction of water flow.
Now this was something done in April, so it might not be the newest secret to going fast.
Dont’ think a SUP is any use as a test vehicle, it goes too slow. Nor does hydroplane technology directly transfer to surfing.
We need to concentrate on speeds 0-27 mph. Not only low drag at speed, but low drag for acceleration from a dead start.
simple test… just need a swimming pool.
push an untreated board on a pool and measure distance the board will travel, do the same with the board after treating. would work for sanding the bottom before and after. if there is a difference it should be noticeable.
Water repellent isn’t directly about speed. As has been discussed before repeatedly, the idea is that laminar flow requires the board to “drag along” the layers of laminar flow (thinning rapidly as a function of distance from the bottom). Getting turbulent flow initiated sooner than later allows the turbulent water not to be dragged along with the board.
Sanded bottoms as a means of adding speed to a sailboat hull has been around since the 80’s or longer. The grit is a function of hull speed, bla, bla, bla, with finer grits used the faster you go.
BUT REMEMBER, sail races are miles long, so a fraction of a percent could add up to a considerable margin. Surfboard rides much shorter and the results of a board a fraction of a percent faster are likely negligible.
THIS HAS ALL BEEN BEAT TO DEATH BEFORE. USE THE SEARCH FUNCTION.
awesome.
Kinda awesome: I spend most of my time paddling when I’m in the ocean, all those close calls getting the f#@k out the way, duck-diving, hours and hours of paddling. Maybe those split seconds gained are more about getting out too. Shit, maybe there’s a placebo affect. I like my placebo hydrophobic. For flatwater standup, I’m gonna apply it to my board, paddle, spray my paddling shorts. Damn right I’m gonna try it. This is new tech. I just came from a thread where no one believes this stryo I’m using is fused cell. Things are getting better. It’s not grandpa surfboard polish so why would I go back and search for failures. MOVE FORWARD UNTIL SOMETHING LIVES.
“I spend most of my time paddling when I’m in the ocean, all those close
calls getting the f#@k out the way, duck-diving, hours and hours of
paddling.”
A-men, brother. I don’t know how many times, when surfing big SF OB over the decades, I ended up one friggin stroke short on a long dash ( and with 35" long arms have got fast oars) making it over an incoming set, and getting it handed to me.
If this stuff can make even a small % of increase in paddling speed, much less max hull speed, it’s a winner.
On the other hand, spraying a chemical onto your surfboard that may at some point leach off into the H2O ain’t exactly a good thing, so hopefully it stays stuck on…
My point of view about surfing bigger waves at OBSF.....
Ride a thicker board. More volume via thickness, whether it's on the rails, the deck, but NOT in the template. More float gives you a quicker start paddling, and allows the board to ride more "flat" while sprint paddling than a thinner board gives you.
You don't duckdive OBSF when it's big successfully anyways, so why not get some paddle power? You get out by snaking around the rows of whitewater, staying in an outgoing current, then sprinting either paddling or swimming thru the 1 yard line to hopefully, green water between the sets, mostly at higher tides.
You play the angles starting from arriving at the parking lot, seeking rips and direction tendencies. Getting out on bigger days can be the biggest challenge you face those days, as dropping in and riding is easy in comparison.
Of course, getting caught inside after your first wave is a big turn off, especially if all your buds are safely outside awaiting your arrival.
yep The MSDS will be an interesting read. -They were spraying metal stair treads in the video, I do wonder about life cycle on a product. Until we learn to ride on dolphins I guess…
the best thing about something like this other than this illusion of speed we house in our wet dreams is the idea of finally preventing water seepage into the core from all those litlle cracks and shatters that develop over time on any surfboard especially a water sucking 1lb EPS board. Everyboard’s core sucks water so it would be nice to find something to help prevent it. I’ve never seen an external skin on a surfboard epoxy or PU last forever or at least as long as the owner wanted.
Can you imagine not having to worry aboit the effect of pin holes in your epoxy/eps laminations from now on with a finish seal coat of this stuff? I’d spray it in and on my fin boxes and where ever shatters or stress cracks could develop.
Having your water sucking foam core board last a little longer without having to worry of water intrusion would be a significant achievment.
The hollow wood guys could coat their their pieces with the stuff and not work about water getting inside their hollow wood frames and ruin their boards
personally I just want to spray it on all the tent tarps and things i don’t want to get wet and rot out here in hawaii but too bad about the UV issue. Most of our popups and tent tarps don’t last a year Spraying this on the inside of our vinyl guitters would help keep them clean too.
i suspect that there could be a difference in speed that could be measured in the same scale as pissing in the ocean to make it warmer. a far better way to travel faster on waves is to utilise the power source more efficiently.
age old question wet rub or pollish ive had fast boards that have been pollished ive also had fast boards that have been wet rubbed and visa versa nobody realy knows i dont think we ever will, boards will allways be pollised boards will allways be wet rubbed, how can you ever have a race on a surfboard to find out when every waves different any way thats my rant for the day thank you ra
Looking at the product made me think about skis and snowboards. In Snow sports you have to have a very good hard wax on your skis in spring condition. Wet snow sticks to the bottom of the ski or snowboard causing a lot of drag. Maybe this Never Wet could solve this problem for snow sports.
I also think it would be an interesting experiment to apply Never Wet to only the channels on the back 1/3 of the board. Decreasing the drag on that part of the board. It would also aid in directing water in channels