I owe this post to my friend William of the Atlanda Boardsailing Club.
Although I was aware since 2014 of MB as a fin company, I had not followed their introduction to the windsurf boards. Last week William woke me up.
MB boards – windsurfing 2018
Their boards look weird, adopting the snowboard/shaped ski approach. Much shorter, waisted instead of straight sides and wide on both tips.
My experience leads me to believe, that I will not enjoy a ride on them. Maybe they will perform well in freestyle, wave riding and foiling as well, but it’s hard to imagine they will deal well going fast through the serious chop of New Golden beach in Paros.
If it wasn’t Hugues de Turckheim acting as a consultant to the company, I wouldn’t have second thoughts…Now I will start following, to see how it proves.
New brand. New shapes. MB Boards from Switzerland attacks the established brands with a parabolic shape concept. Four lines are already on the market, three more are in preparation.
In 2016, we asked “Is the Shape Revolution coming?” And reported on the patented parabolic shapes of Eduardo Cenzano. Now there is a new board brand from Switzerland, which takes up the concept.
Back then, Cenzano was sure that his concept of parabolic shapes would not only benefit surfers. He was convinced that the shapes in windsurfing sail with less sail pressure. Eduardo: “Windsurfing boards have more lift with this shape, they are faster and so they slide faster. Due to the improved buoyancy and the greater stability of the shape, the boards can be used for a larger wind range. ”
Since Cenzano does not produce its own boards, but only sells its knowledge, a group of Swiss around Mathias Bavaud and Benoît Clément licensed the calculations of Cenzano and founded a new board brand that produces windsurf and kite boards. From 2016, the Swiss worked on their project MB Boards. The name is composed of the first letters of the founders.
And when you think you have seen all possible windsurf tail shapes, there comes Peter Ross of OES Australia,
with his winger, single to double tail concave married to a Bat tail shape and double tail channels, on his new Dark Knight board!
The short, chopped nose & tail, board trend
Now that the chopped nose & tail wave boards are included to the range of many brands – Fanatic Stubby, JP Wave Slate, Naish Global, Taboo 3s & Twister, I think I should point out who I think, was the one who first introduced this kind of board and proved the advantageous characteristics of the concept.
It was the Australian Mark Stone, who shaped an SSD custom board for his great wave rider son Jaeger , back in 2013. See the relative interview & sailing video in Continentseven.
As foldable boards & rigs become serious options thanks to RRD (I only wish they change this terrible patchwork design they use…), the idea is applied to larger sailing crafts as well.
Tiwal 3, inflatable/foldable dinghy
MY BEAUTIFUL BOAT
Tiwal is the story of a girl who wasn’t shy, Marion Excoffon.
Before making her name in design, Marion started out by hearing a “No”. Her father was refusing to lend her the family boat. That might have been the end of it had it not been for Marion’s feisty character – she dreamt up her own folding boat!
Then she decided to fill it with air, and the first Tiwal inflatable dinghy was born. 5 prototypes later, Tiwal pulled up in December 2012. It was a huge success. Following numerous awards and over 800 boats sold, Tiwal is continuing on its way, with boats in more than 45 country worldwide. Fair winds!
INNOVATION
& DESIGN
FUN AND QUITE A
BIT OF TECHNOLOGY
Tiwal wins with its concept of easy assembly. At least that’s true on the beach, but there were quite a few steps to get there.
Tiwal is the result of a whole lot of know-how and quite a bit of talent.
Firstly, designing a folding boat that combines inflatable parts and a aluminum framework subject to high stress requires a little (or a lot) of imagination.
Tiwal brings people together on the water, but it does so in the factory too. Tiwal calls on specialists in inflation, plastics, aluminum and textiles. Quite a feat!
Ultimately, over 50 suppliers put their know-how into Tiwal. Like a game of industrial Meccano® which all comes together in our in-house factory for testing, assembly and delivery.
Amazing article – you’ve done a lot of work and it’s a great read. Thanks for the shout out. One unintended result of these new designs is that it’s now much easier doing a nose job on an older board. We used to fuss over getting a pretty outline with the new nose. Now, you only need to get the saw out, make a few cuts, sand off the corners and your board looks thoroughly modern. I’ve just done an old wave board based on roughly the Tabou nose shape. Next, comes a Mistral Flow. Again, I enjoyed reading everything.
Thanks William, I know I maybe included many topics in one post, but I don’t want my friends to receive a post notification every other day…Of course, this way I run out of subjects fast.
If you are happy with the nose job you did, send some photos and a brief review on the sailing result 🙂