Boardline® App, A New Tool For Finding Your ‘Magic board’

Boardline® Developers Philippe and Louis-Romain

OCTOBER 16, 2014

One of the most difficult dilemmas we as surfers face is finding the ‘magic board’. The majority of us lack personal relationships with top shapers willing to work with us to perfect a surfboard that best fits how we surf and the conditions we are surfing in. However, what if there was formula that helped us everyday surfers find the right board for us?

A new App called BoardLine® claims to do just that using science and empirical data to back it up. It also exploits the thousand of man hours and surfing time many of the worlds best surfers have spent perfecting their boards with their shapers. BoardLine attempts to connect the right board with the rider much like a wetsuit can easily be fitted to any surfers range in size. Those of us who surf everyday know this is no easy feat. So, we asked the developers Philippe and Louis-Romain at BoardLine a few questions on how it works.

What is the basic premise behind BoardLine® and how it works?

Well, choosing the right board dimensions have been a question the surf industry has struggled to answer for years. We have reached the conclusion that one thing is certain: the interaction between pro surfers and shapers must be taken as a reference. Indeed, surfers have tested more boards and combinations of dimensions than any normal surfer could hope to. And they have the skills to evaluate the boards and work with their shaper to improve the models. Advanced surfers can feel very small variations in the volume, dimensions or shape of their boards. From their experience, they have gained a great level of equipment performance. There is therefore nowhere better to start than from the pros’ experience!

The way it works is quite simple. We start with a given pro model surfboard and we scale it, conserving all its proportions and shapes. As a result, your weight and the board’s volume come in at the same ratio as for the pro surfers. Dimensions obtained using your weight are then tweaked depending on your BoardLine® Factor, which includes your surfing frequency and technical ability. That way, you have the best possible equipment geared towards optimizing your progression!

The app takes into account the correlation between a surfers weight and board volume. How do you take into account other influencing factors such as a surfers height, style or ability?

Your style of surfing (back or front footer, wide or narrow stance, on-rail or flat surfing, etc.) is intrinsically accounted for within the board model you choose. So you have to choose a board model that is developed by a pro whose style you identify with. For example, if you have a wide stance, you could target Julian Wilson’s boards or Alejo Muniz’s.

Your ability is taken into account when carefully selecting your BoardLine® Factor, which includes your surfing frequency and technical ability. The BoardLine® factor includes a very precise technique scale based on the Academy of Surfing Instructors’ scale as well as your frequency.

Regarding height, we assume that a man that is fit will have its height and weight very much correlated. This means that if you know his weight you can deduce quite precisely his height. So they are not two separated parameters, but just one in face. The same goes for women. One could argue: what if the guy is really not fit? We think that generally, if you surf a bit regularly you get really close to a standard weight given your height.

Drawing from your background as a science professional (Phd in Fluid Dynamics) Why do you think the volume-to weight ratio is almost constant?

It’s only based on observations, not on what we think! That’s the funny thing, and the reason why we can consider that our approach is scientific.

We realized that, for any given type of performance or small-wave board, if we combine the weights and volumes of a large number of pros, then the volume-to-weight ratio is found to be very close to constant. It’s as if all pro surfers “tend” to a universal truth, just with their own experience of surfing! We were really amazed by this “empirical evidence”, but that’s how it is!

How do you plan to improve BoardLine® overtime?

BoardLine® will be updated regularly with new models, surfers and brands. The design will evolve in the future and some developments are already in the pipeline. For example, we added recently a new functionality that allows you to share the calculation’s results on social networks! Your friends can receive via Facebook the dimensions you calculated for one board. That’s really nice and fun! Beyond this app, we would like to provide the whole surf community with science-based tools and expertise to improve the surfing level across the world and the progression of surfing as a Sport.

Is the app available on all devices?

Yes, BoardLine® is a mobile app, available on all Android and iOS devices. By the way, let me remind your readers that BoardLine® is 100% free! So feel free to download it and play with it as much as you want!

website: www.boardlineapp.com