1935\u00a0could be called \u2018The Year of The Fin\u2019.\u00a0It was when one of the\u00a0most enduring contributions to\u00a0surfboard\u00a0design\u00a0allowed\u00a0a quantum shift in riding\u00a0styles.\u00a0American,\u00a0Tom Blake,\u00a0tore a fixed keel off a washed-up speedboat and reattached it onto the bottom of a surfboard.\u00a0It was transformative: the fin allowed Blake to ride on a tighter angle across the wave. Although not readily adopted by most surfers until a decade later, the skeg\u00a0of course became an\u00a0integral part of surfboard design.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Blake\u00a0used his original fin\u00a0at Waikiki\u00a0in Hawaii.\u00a0\u201cWhen I first went to the Islands, they used wide-tailed boards and they used to spinout on a steep,\u00a0critical slide,\u201d said Blake.\u00a0\u201cI figured it would be easy to correct that problem, just add something – a keel. Finally, I got around to it. You didn’t hurry things up over there. You were having too much fun surfing every day. Finally, I put a fin on the board and it worked fine. It was a shallow fin, about 4\u00a0inches\u00a0deep and a foot long. It took ten years for that thing to catch on and then the boards kept getting lighter and smaller and (then)\u00a0the fin became more effective for steering.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In late 1940s\u00a0California a combination of post WWII fiberglass materials and an eccentric engineer and mathematician called\u00a0Bob Simmons generated huge advancements in\u00a0surfboard design.\u00a0Boards were heavy and cumbersome, and Simmons wanted to make them\u00a0lighter, easily handled and more readily transported. This would promote inclusion. Post-war California was seen as a spearhead of liberation in terms of social values. Simmons\u00a0was interested in\u00a0the scientific\u00a0principles of\u00a0planing\u00a0hulls,\u00a0nose-lift, foil and finely sculpted rails.\u00a0By 1949\u00a0his\u00a0boards\u00a0were\u00a0made from\u00a0balsa and resin-saturated fiberglass,\u00a0praised for its\u00a0combination of\u00a0flexibility\u00a0and\u00a0durability. Simmons also made double-finned boards, which Tom\u00a0Blake\u00a0had\u00a0experimented\u00a0with\u00a0on\u00a0a hollow timber board\u00a0in\u00a01943.\u00a0Tragically in 1954,\u00a035-year-old\u00a0Simmons was struck in the head by his own board\u00a0during a large swell and drowned.\u00a0But he had inspired a group of\u00a0Malibu-based\u00a0boardmakers\u00a0to\u00a0incorporate\u00a0his\u00a0design features into the easier-to-turn Malibu chip\u00a0single fins. These in turn influenced\u00a0the classic\u00a0\u2018hotdogging\u2019\u00a0longboard styles of the late 1950s and early 1960s\u00a0embodied by the likes of Marge Calhoun.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
1960s\u00a0single fin\u00a0designs\u00a0were generally quite crude\u00a0with \u2018D-shapes\u2019\u00a0the norm. This changed when\u00a0kneeboarder\u00a0George Greenough\u00a0started making beautifully foiled\u00a0dolphin-like fins. In 1966 Australian Nat Young won the\u00a0World\u00a0Championships using one of these\u00a0riding with an\u00a0aggressive style, carving arcs and \u2018S\u2019 turns.\u00a0Greenough, riding short and stubby kneeboards, was showcasing on his knees what could be done standing up. He thought that surfing could move from straight lines to short arcs, but the big boards\u00a0and crude fin shapes\u00a0would not allow vertical turns and the use of a low\u00a0centre\u00a0of gravity. Greenough\u00a0enthused\u00a0a handful of\u00a0trailblazing\u00a0Australians to build shorter boards. With vee-shapes on the bottom the new boards had deep, flexy single fins.\u00a0When the Australians\u00a0travelled to Hawaii with these boards in 1967,\u00a0surf communities\u00a0around the\u00a0world started\u00a0shaping\u00a0shorter\u00a0and shorter\u00a0boards, and radical riding styles emerged.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Most\u00a0champion\u00a0surfers\u00a0like Margo Oberg and\u00a0Rell\u00a0Sunn\u00a0used single fins throughout the 1970s, but there was also a core following of the twin fin.\u00a0In\u00a01967 San Diego brothers Nick and Bear\u00a0Mirandon\u00a0had\u00a0developed a split-tailed, two-finned\u00a0board. This lead to the Steve Lis \u2018fish\u2019, loved by kneeboarders. A thick, squat, square-backed version of the twin-fin, developed by Californian Mike Eaton and refined by Australian Geoff McCoy,\u00a0also\u00a0came and went in the early ’70s.\u00a0Then in 1976\u00a0Hawaiian\u00a0Reno\u00a0Abellira\u00a0travelled\u00a0to Australia with a wide, blunt-nosed 5’3″ board with two fins. A\u00a0young\u00a0Mark\u00a0\u2018MR\u2019\u00a0Richards\u00a0was immediately inspired to make a longer and more streamlined version of the twin-fin to improve his small wave\u00a0surfing, explaining that the boards were\u00a0\u201cfast and maneuverable\u201d\u00a0and that he\u00a0\u201cfelt like\u00a0he could do anything on them.\u201d\u00a0In 1977 MR had a two-month-long shaping seminar with Hawaiian guru Dick Brewer, and soon developed his own 6\u20192\u2019\u2019 twin fin model, featuring a pair of six-inch-high fins set along the rails, and importantly angled at the nose (not parallel to the rails), about 11 inches from the tail. He immediately described this as\u00a0\u201cthe ultimate small-wave board.\u201d\u00a0MR was electrifying in the line up, confident throughout every slice, glide and hook, but cool, humble and easygoing on land. He\u00a0won four consecutive World Titles between 1979 and 1982 (but still used the single fin in big wave Hawaii). Dane Kealoha and Martin Potter were outstanding on their twins, but MR’s main rival, finishing runner-up to the world tour in 1979, 1981 and 1982 was Australian single fin rider Cheyne Horan, arguably the best surfer to never win a world title.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While MR was dominating on the twin fin, Australian Simon Anderson, a lanky power surfer\u00a0and shaper\u00a0who mixed driving turns with languid grace, was frustrated with the spin-outs and was seeking more grip on the wave-face for forward drive, not sideways slide.\u00a0\u201cBack in 1980 there were\u00a0two schools of thought,\u201d said Anderson,\u00a0\u201cthe\u00a0single fin\u00a0camp\u00a0and\u00a0the twin\u00a0fin camp.\u00a0The contest tour at the time was going to a lot\u00a0of new countries like Japan,\u00a0England\u00a0and\u00a0Brazil.\u00a0And we\u00a0were finding that the waves were\u00a0generally small,\u00a0and to match Mark Richards\u00a0–\u00a0who was winning on his twin fins\u00a0–\u00a0we really had to do something about our equipment.\u00a0For me being in the single fin camp firmly,\u00a0and a big guy,\u00a0I found great difficulty\u00a0on the twin fin because\u00a0it\u2019s essentially a very fast,\u00a0very loose board that\u00a0is difficult to control,\u00a0and you need to surf it a certain way.\u00a0So\u00a0I was reluctant to give up\u00a0the\u00a0single\u00a0fin. Then in\u00a0October 1980 I was back in Sydney surfing\u00a0Narrabeen\u00a0where I live,\u00a0and a friend of\u00a0mine\u00a0who works in the surfing industry\u00a0called Frank Williams came out of the surf.\u00a0He had a twin fin with him and there\u00a0was\u00a0this little stubby\u00a0fin\u00a0in the back of his twin fin board,\u00a0right on the swallow tail about an inch high.\u00a0So\u00a0I\u00a0asked what that was for,\u00a0and he said it helps make the twin feel a bit more stable.\u00a0I immediately thought\u00a0I’m going to make that real stable\u00a0and\u00a0I’m going to fit the whole\u00a0fin\u00a0back there.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Simon Anderson used a square-tailed board with three like-sized fins, all smaller than those used on a twin-fin. He called it the Thruster – although he never patented the design – the third fin adding thrust to the board’s turning capabilities. Other shapers had dabbled in three fins before. Back in 1970 Dick Brewer and Reno Abellira designed one. Then in 1972 Malcolm and Duncan Campbell had introduced the bonzer with a pair of toed-in, keel-like side fins, located in front of a standard centre fin, and two parallel concaves through the bottom tail end of the board. Ian Cairns, Jeff Hakman, Terry Richardson and Russ Short loved them, but the design slipped through the cracks and didn\u2019t catch on until the retro revival of the 2000s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The thruster made an immediate impact. \u201cI wanted to make my equipment really good,\u201d said Simon Anderson, \u201cso when I went out there I’d surf really well, and if I surfed really good, when I came in I’d be really happy. That was kind of the cycle, and it was a good cycle and it lasted for years.” After a stunning competition run in Australia in 1981, Anderson concluded the year with a heroic victory at the Pipeline Masters in Hawaii. \u201cSurfers are never satisfied with the status quo and they want improvement all the time. We have got imaginations and we want to surf in a different way from before. So the more we develop boards and the more sophisticated they become, the more able we are to go back over pre-existing designs and add those elements and bring them alive.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
An updated five-fin version of the bonzer was developed by the Campbell brothers in 1982 and surfers could now choose from a limitless array of fin set ups, including four fin quads, twins and classic singles. But the thruster became the standard \u2013 possibly the most influential design feature in the evolution of the surfboard, reshaping surfing styles of the future from Lisa Anderson to Carissa Moore, to Sky Brown. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Explore the history of surfboard fin development and its profound impact on riding styles, from longboards to modern shredding.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3253,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-topics"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n