A-frame

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academia and surfing

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alaia board

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angle

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Angourie

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Bermuda

Bertlemann, Larry

Single-fin surfboard design that quietly came into its own during the early years of the shortboard revolution, in large part due to the efforts of Malibu surfer-shaper Greg Liddle. Displacement hull boards come in different sizes and variations, but common characteristics include a wide outline, blunt nose, thin edge-free rails, low rocker, a convex bottom surface, and a long, narrow, flexible fin.

Borrowing from boat design, the hydrodynamic principle behind the displacement hull is that a rounded bottom, rather than riding atop the water at higher speeds, as a planing hull does, will instead remain submerged. The displacement hull surfboard—usually just referred to as a hull, or a stubby, is notoriously difficult to ride, but cherished by a small band of devotees for its lateral-driving trim characteristics. “The board found an energy source that I was not aware existed,” Lee Vanderhurst wrote in a 2006 

 article, describing his first successful ride on a hull. “It was like taking off the parking brake.”

Displacement hull boards in one form or another—although rarely if ever referred to in those terms—were present throughout the early decades of modern surfing. During the 1967-launched shortboard revolution, however, as flat bottoms, narrow outline templates, and hard edges came into play, the displacement hull became its own design sub-genre. After seeing former world champion Nat Young on a blunt-nosed Keyo Surfboards model in the summer of 1968, Greg Liddle began working on a design that borrowed from Young’s board as well as the “spoon” design used by futuristic kneeboarder George Greenough. The displacement hulls that Liddle produced in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s were between 6’ and 8’ long, 21” and 23” inches wide, and featured an S-profile deck. The wide point was located a few inches above center. Rails were thin, round, and edge-free. The bottom was gently convex from nose to tail, and the entire board was meant to flex slightly. A specialist board from the very beginning, Liddle himself, along with friend and fellow Malibu ace Krajewski, were the hull’s the two main test pilots.

The hull offers a uniquely stripped-down riding experience. Extended lateral glide and trim, rather than aggressive up-and-down turning, is the objective. After coming out of a low-crouch bottom turn, hull rider Matt Miller noted, the idea is “to slingshot into the highline of the wave, [where] the hull and fin work together to keep the rider locked into that power zone, trimming for as fast as the wave is, for as long as the wave goes.” Miller added that “this requires minimal rider input,” but he was being disingenuous—the purebred hull design demands to be ridden from a different location on the board (just behind center, rather than the tail area), in a different stance (feet together, weight on the front foot, rather than the rear), with a limited style of turning (fully engaged rail only), on particular type of wave (long, not-too-big point surf). Deviate from any of these requisites and the hull design will often bog down, or spin out, or otherwise stop functioning.

It’s been argued otherwise, but a displacement hull does not in fact go faster than a planing hull. The ride, however, is smooth to the point of being seductive. “Be careful,” Liddel once said of the hull, “you might get addicted. And if you do, it will mess with your mind. You, and the way you surf, won’t be the same.

Updated and cross-bred hull designs over the past three decades, many of them initiated by Liddle along with fellow California shaper Marc Andreini, have expanded the hull’s range.

Steve Krajewski is often mentioned as the original master hull rider. Miki Dora, during his infrequent visits to Malibu in the early- and mid-60s, rode a Liddle hull. Jimmy Gamboa, also of Malibu, led the way when hulls made a minor comeback in the 1990s.

displacement hull surfboard

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