THE BOOT MODELS
8th Jan 2010
In the good old USA- the land where anything goes; there has been an underground movement professing the virtues of miniature fish boards. While obviously not everyone’s cup of tea (extreme smallness) they seemed to have hit a chord with a market yet to be really identified. A mix of retro heads, or hot young surfers inspired by Kelly’s venture in to miniaturization and mindful of upcoming tiny waves this summer; maybe ? Whatever, it does seem now days when extremes are thrown out there, a readymade market grows around them. Information technology placing the idea square in front of their faces may be the reason why acceptance happens quicker, combined with the fact that we are in a time of change and the market is more open to new ideas extreme or otherwise.
They call them Trunk models simply because they can fit them in the trunk of their bloody big gas guzzlers, but here in OZ we gonna call e’m Boot Models although I think in OZ you may be hard pressed fitting them in the boot of your little Hyundai Getz. Nevertheless it’s only a name, the most important theme here is that these boards much shorter, are wider and flatter and as a result paddle way beyond their length. Most are quads or twin fins that can handle the intense widths and flatter rockers needed to run and paddle in almost zero power. The real trick is to add face freedom since flat rockers tend to run away rather than up the face and even though these models are short they still need some tail rocker relief in order to do that up the face thing, particularly on impulse. So without going to ridiculous lengths I have basically just miniaturized my Mini Mini model and my Sumo fish model. When shrinking a file one has to flatten rocker and narrow the plan shape in order to keep to scale but for these little bandits I have certainly flattened the nose rockers but have not flattened the tail rocker near as much. This as I have explained necessary to differentiate them from the mini ironing boards we have seen in the past. So as they don’t become too dizzy with this lift, I have only clustered up the fin positions slightly in order to keep the drive facility in place which would normally be sadly lacking in boards this length. Also the width of the planshape I have actually increased rather than decreased, which you would normally do to keep to scale.
Also to keep them light and flighty in comparison to the earlier polished up retro bricks that were on the market; I have employed our highly successful High Performance Lightweight glassing system being the 4x4 Diagonal with carbon tail support.
Currently the Bourton Boot models are:
SUMO FISH
5.4 X 21 ¼ X 2 3/8
5.6 X 21 ½ X 2 7/16
5.8 X 21 ¾ X 2 ½
MINI MINI
5.4 X 20 ¾ X 2 5/16
5.6 X 21 X 2 7/16
5.8 X 21 ¼ X 2 9/16
MINI SIMMONS
5.4 X 22 1/8 X 2 7/8
5.6 X 22 3/8 X 3
5.8 X 22 5/8 X 3
