Short and Fat- a review

Over my break I had a good time to test out some new designs.  Thanks to Ryan Rolla and Shawn Hayes, who kinda pushed me in the right direction and gave me some ideas.  I put out some pictures of my short and fat model about a month ago.  It was around 11" long and 7.5" wide.  I took it out on a low tide dredging reef day, about head high, with a few bigger sneekers coming through.  I wasn't expecting too much, but was floored with the performance of this handplane.  For starters, obviously swimming was much easier than with a larger plane.  More importantly was the hold and speed I was getting.  Luckily nobody was ever in position for the sneakers.  The guys surfing would make it out, but wouldn't have time to spin and go.  This is wear the handplane makes good sense.  I was easily able to spin and take off late.  The thing that really blew me away was on many barrels, I had already given up, accepting my old fate where the foamball or lip would engulf me.  Not this time.  I kept finding myself blasting through the curtain and coming out.  So, what did I learn about the design.  I think the deeper spine gives far more hold, but, more importantly leaving the sides flat and creating a planing area that the water could plane on created speed.  Whereas my old design would start with a deep concave from side to side, and the spine would be inset into the concave, this new design is more on creating a larger flat area and putting the spine inside of that.  This also allows the spine to have more depth.  This new change has now been incorporated in all of the handplanes that I offer that have a spine.  It is more work, but, in the end, they are better performing designs, and hey, they look way cooler too!  The first pic is of the original Short and Fat Prototype.   Then we have a look at an the old Pinliner design vs. the new.  The New Pinliner is the checkerboard patterned one.  Notice at the tails, how deep the W is and how tall the spine is.  Also, when you look at the sides, how much flatter it is.  Like I said before, this has been incorporated into all of my handplane models that have spines.  The original Brownfish and El Gigante are still the same.  I hope you all like em.     G