RealSurf Surfers' Forum

definitely not trying to make SA's thruster seem unimportant to surfing history or surf design evolvement, but just going on the info I had heard about a borrowed idea from Frank W, like I said SA is great shaper but just thought I'd put it out there to see what others thought....Hard to imagine a thruster looking alien but I'm sure they would have...I know the looks I get when carrying a quite deifferent design down the beach sometimes....and for SA to win the 3 big comps was undeniable proof that the design was superior to what the opposition was riding ...my comment ( and curiosity ) was about Franks' 3 finned board and how much influence he had on the thruster.....
Things are so different these days because very rare for a surfer of that ability to be making his own boards and to be riding a new design in competitions, well only KS has done it for many years, but if KS was to ride a 7 finned board ( just example design ) and win say Pipe, Bells and another, would be interesting to see what would happen there.....or better yet, a surfer who wasnt doing quite as well, maybe a surfer ranked about 10th, then to hit the ratings lead whilst riding his new 7 finner...real shame more surfers wont try new designs and find something they have faith in and stick with it for a while to try and get an edge.....

Fair enough Nick. I remember surfing the pre-Zap single fin McCoys, and one of my favourite Boards of the time was a McCoy pre-Zap Zap (ie a less extreme version of the Zap), but I aren't across all the detail.

I do remember though I liked the less extreme Board I had to the more Zappy Zaps than, say, Kingsley Looker was riding in "that" era.

Nick Carroll wrote:

bradshaw wrote:Sounds like there are a few guys on here that might of really witnesed the short board revoultion .
I guess someone was always going to hack the back off one of those old mals but really a short board has got to be sub 7ft and and capable of short arcs . Ted spencers White knights qualify . i have heard that the narrabeen guys were riding really short twin fins around 68 or 69. Who are the shapers that really got behind the shortboard thing?
Don't really think simon fits in here just yet.

I heard Graeme Black and Tony Dempsey were riding 6'6"s at Snapper in 1965.

preety well bet my balls thats not so'' but there is plenty evidence of bob male tearingup 1st point on 5' little banjo 1967

platty got the ball rolling in 67 kp worked for me at noosa it was here that we developed the board
that hatched the dble ender ted spencer & butch coony who also shaped some for us are the main ones
to get this board short i am preety sure ted won a contest on a board under 5'

kevins lower centre of bouancy & thiner rails was where we went
bobs wide tails thick as v bottoms were not liked in our area?
two different animals realy. i have one of kevins here with me shaped in 67

I know Frank Williams, he's an old family friend. I will prob see him this weekend & will ask him for his version of events.

josh

huie wrote:

Nick Carroll wrote:

bradshaw wrote:Sounds like there are a few guys on here that might of really witnesed the short board revoultion .
I guess someone was always going to hack the back off one of those old mals but really a short board has got to be sub 7ft and and capable of short arcs . Ted spencers White knights qualify . i have heard that the narrabeen guys were riding really short twin fins around 68 or 69. Who are the shapers that really got behind the shortboard thing?
Don't really think simon fits in here just yet.

I heard Graeme Black and Tony Dempsey were riding 6'6"s at Snapper in 1965.

preety well bet my balls thats not so'' but there is plenty evidence of bobby male tearingup 1st point on 5' little banjo 1967

platty got the ball rolling in 67 kp worked for me at noosa it was here that we developed the board
that hatched the dble ender ted spencer & butch coony who also shaped some for us are the main ones
to get this board short i am preety sure ted won a contest on a board under 5'

kevins lower centre of bouancy & thiner rails was where we went
bobs wide tails thick as v bottoms were not liked in our area?
two different animals realy. i have one of kevins here with me shaped in 67

Nick, I grew up with Blackie. His Dad painted our house (in between catching bait to sell locally - he was a wizard with the fish head at catching worms). In 65 he was still on normal mal (ripping as always - he was such a diminutive little guy, goofy footer and, unlike many "gun" surfers, got on with everyone. I've got a photo somewhere of him and other winners at the 65 Qld Titles at Snapper.
By 66 -67, guys were experimenting with cut down boards. A guy called Vin Harris was working part time with MicK Carey at Currumbin and he was the first I saw to make a "short" board. Would really be a mini mal today but was about 6'6" in length (this was in 65 because I was still at school). We all thought he was nuts.
As you do I guess it was what the guys looking at the first thruster would have thought.

I loved surfing Kevin Platt boards. They went so good.

Most of the shrinkage happened at Keyo Surfboards in Brookie around late '66 ... and they were certainly not cutdown longboards.

There was McTavish, Platt, Spencer, the Man (can't remember his name but I think he may have passed some time ago). Over at Bill Wallace was Johnny Otton and Steve O'Donnell (he may have been somewhere else). Cannot remember if John Blanch was around but he may well have been. Dale had disappeared I think. Midget got on the wagon a bit later. Not sure if Scott Dillion was still going but someone (maybe Baddie) was doing stuff at his factory. Cannot remember what was happening at Bennett's or if McDonagh was still going. Shane Steadman got onto it reasonably quickly and had some good innovative shapers after he stopped trying to do it himself.

The whole thing was done and dusted to the point of ridiculousness in about 3 months. It took most of us a long time before we could surf them with any real confidence or ability and then only because they started to get a little bigger. 5ft of what we would now call fatness wasn't a lot of fun in bigger waves.

And then we got the sideslipper and the tracker. That put us back even further. It was only diamond tales, pinnies, decent rocker, down noses (to be able to get into waves on the shortboards of the time. Up noses pushed too much water) harder rails towards the tail and getting rid of s-decks that made the shortboards of the time really surfable.

Thanks Huie, Trev and Felix, Cactus et al.

As you guys probably know Bob is almost finished a film about the shortboard "revolution" called Going Vertical (i think).
Whether this is the gospel according to Bob or a more thoroughly researched doco remains to be seen.
I've seen a rough draft of the script and I know Kevin Platt does feature.
Shame he died penniless and unknown in a Casino caravan park.

I did not know that Kevin Platt had passed.

He was a real good surfer and shaper and from the little interaction I had directly with him (he was a bit older than me and I was only on the fringe of that group) he was also a pretty good bloke. It blew me away when I saw him surf main beach (first point) Noosa in about '65.

I actually bought my first pair of boardies from his mum when she used to make them at their home in Foam Street at Harbord in about '62.

yeah like shearer said, thanks you blokes!

hey it's funny how KS and a few others, along with a lot of less well known but still good surfers, are going the hack-down again these days (5'6", 5'4" etc)

Some of the boards are a bit reminiscent of those viciously hacked down double enders and twinnie templates of 1970 etc. Just a bit more functional thanks to finer tuning, better fin setups and so forth.

Been riding 5'8" quads myself for a couple of weeks now, various shapes etc, got on a 6'0" standard hi per yesterday for six waves and it actually felt clunky and inefficient.

Everything old is new again and again....and again.

Nick Carroll wrote: Everything old is new again and again....and again.

Except for people.

Anyone else remember Derek Hynd's 5 fin creations with swallow tails? My mate had one that had been turned into a thruster in about 1985. He now rides no fins.

No one person can take credit for the groundswell of change that happened in the mid to late 60's.

Anyway MacT has allowed or caused far too many surfers who can't surf to caome back. Like McCoy's boards... sounds rude but the rest of us who never stopped surfing don't need fatties appearing in the lineup after a 20 years of accountancy.

Oh come on monkeyman! Be a bit more Sir Philip Sidney about it!... "His need is greater than mine" etc

Felix wrote: actually bought my first pair of boardies from his mum when she used to make them at their home in Foam Street at Harbord in about '62.

Jeez a lot happened with older ladies in Foam Street didn't it. Miss Letham's former home too.

Nick Carroll wrote:Oh come on monkeyman! Be a bit more Sir Philip Sidney about it!... "His need is greater than mine" etc

I thought you'd be quoting Proudhon: "from each according to their abilities to each according to their needs".

Interesting, but keep in mind that shortboards existed in Hawaii centuries ago.



.

puurri wrote:

Nick Carroll wrote:Oh come on monkeyman! Be a bit more Sir Philip Sidney about it!... "His need is greater than mine" etc

I thought you'd be quoting Proudhon: "from each according to their abilities to each according to their needs".

nahhh fcuk that pompous Commie bullshit.

and yeah roy! So did titanic four-metre slabs of six inch thick wood. We're all right onto them hey.

Actually, Proudhon was an anarcho-syndicalist.

Westerly was right
One thing about the evolution of the short board is the move from riding from the front to riding from the tail. The first shortish boards operated on the idea that you would ride from the front like fish do.
The big thing with Simon and you can see Baddy Treloar was a big influence on him was the whole drive from the tail thing. Its a real Sydney style. McCoy works off the same idea. That was why thrusters changed everything so much.

North Coast waves didn't inspire that style at all.
As far as Crystal Voyager goes. Nats Keel pintail was a reaction to being flogged in the world titles at Bells riding a 5'10" squaretail. Everyone except gromets started going longer plus chasing waves in Bali and beyond started to require a bit more racy lines.