RealSurf Surfers' Forum

[quote="Natho
Nothing against singles, but kayu when you say you have only had one thruster possibly one is not enough to make such comparisons.
[/quote]
.....had the thruster for about 6 months (a pipedream by Lance Murphy ) and had one day at Burleigh that I wont forget..........I went back to singles (or twins), because I don't like the continual rail to rail pumping to get thrusters to work........plus I like volume........and I'm too old anyway.

Kayu, why do you need to have a single to have volume? You can have volume in a thruster or any board. I can't understand why so many surfers think," single fin, must have thick chunky rails with small fin set as near to the back of the (70's )tail as possible". Knowledge gained from the past is great, riding a board made from the past is both fun and an education, but making retro replicas to surf, reminds me of Shaun O'riellys Antiques "We make to order"

In the early-mid nineties when the Slater potato chip thruster was all dominant I got a hard-on for singles after OD'ing stoned on Storm-riders. In particular Joe Engel, Peter McCabe and Thorton Fallander's surfing at Ulus, Padang and Nias.
I rang Thornton and got him to make me a single, a mid length 6'10" if memory serves, which I rode mostly at the Noosa Points, beachies and South Coast reefs around the "Dulla.
The board wasn't a retro replica but a refined version of the boards he rode in Indo.

What a joy to get the early entry paddle speed and line off the bottom back in surfing. On a lined up point or reef it felt so much better than the under-powered thrusters I'd been riding.

I rode the boards exclusively for a couple of years then sent the remaining board to Mexico with a mate with the expectation to meet up with him there. He snapped it at Puerto Escondido and I went on to Hawaii, to ride mostly semi-guns and guns, including a majestic 8foot McCoy single fin pintail that felt so good at Sunset, Haleiwa and big Jockos.

If I had to have only one board it would be a single fin between 6'10"-7'4".

You still out west, Steve, or did you make it back?
Wouldn't like to miss what's brewing...

back at the Ox Boo.

Had a 6'4" roundtail with the fin hanging right over the back as they used to do for kirra. Used to be funny to ride until you dropped into a long hollow barrel and the fin just slid into place and held perfectly.

crustt wrote:Kayu, why do you need to have a single to have volume? You can have volume in a thruster or any board. I can't understand why so many surfers think," single fin, must have thick chunky rails with small fin set as near to the back of the (70's )tail as possible". Knowledge gained from the past is great, riding a board made from the past is both fun and an education, but making retro replicas to surf, reminds me of Shaun O'riellys Antiques "We make to order"

Yeah I know crustt , but the generic thrusters were always too thin for me.......you can have thin singles as well , and chunky thrusters......geuss I just like longer lines without the need to pump......years ago had a chine/full concave Kevin Platt single that would surprise a few thruster riders I'm sure >><<

I rode single fins from the start of my surfing life, in 1970: a Midget Farrelly Pro Champ styrofoam Coolite with a rubber fin. The board snapped after 3 and a half weeks of pure joy in the Newport shorie. My brother stole the fin and stuck it in his own far shittier Coolite -- step one in a lifetime's bloodcurdling rivalry.

Next was a 5'8" squashtail shaped by Nigel Coates from Avalon. This was what I thought was a second hander from a school friend called Nigel Savage, a kneeboarder (which explained the board's shortness). It wasn't until many year later that I discovered this was the board Nat Young had ridden in the 1970 World Contest final at Johanna Beach in Vicco. Nat came sixth and I surfed the board for a year, only briefly interrupted after my brother and his best mate borrowed it and broke half the tail off in the shorie, and tried to fix it with resin, not realising you also needed hardener.

Next was a 6'0" Bennett, a beautiful round pin bought from one of the great Newport surfers of the time, Mark Tugwood. Mark moved to West Oz and spawned a cool surfing family including daughter Philippa who won a bunch of West Oz contests. The Bennett had a fin well up the board and did insane cutties.

Next was a Richard Feathers pintail, 6'10". Feathers was the Man at Newport at the time. His logo was a seagull feather glassed under the nose. The board was a blue tinted marvel. I was 14 years old, rdiing a 6'10" in the newly created post-1974 Storm Newport sandbars, in fcuken surfing heaven.

Next was a John Brixey 6'10" roundtail, just a little pinched-off roundtail with a spiral vee bottom and a fin well back, basically an adaption of the Timmy Rodgers singlies around at the time, and on this board I learned to surf for real, riding all the big swells of 1975's winter on it, being the first Newy guy to beat Derek Hynd in a contest out the Pool on a clean six to eight foot day, and catching what remains one of the highlight waves of my life on it: a squared up 10-footer out the Pool one day in July that year when I should have gone to school, but couldn't.

I must have had another 20 or so singlies before 1981, maybe more, and a few after -- for Hawaii -- until AB's six channels got the better of me in 1985's winter. The first Thruster I got was a 6'2" TF single flyer pintail; after one surf I was gone. That was early 1982, me always being a slow adopter, having always taken things too seriously to chuck 'em away on the spur of something else...but when I realised what three fins had opened up, I never once thought of going back, and still today out of some 80 or so surf craft, only four of them have one fin: a racing surf ski, a racing paddleboard, a 6'0" semi MP roundnose squashtail made by Stu Kenson from San Diego, and a 9'6" Pat Rawson Waimea gun, which right now is lying on my front deck, wondering if it might be needed tomorrow in this hectic east swell. If not, I'm gonna cut that single fin off it and turn it into a quad for next time.

How many quads in the quiver out of interest NC?

Hmmm fcuk let's see, five. Mostly pretty retarded.

Plus two soon to be quads (the 9'6 and an 8'6" Rawson thruster whose fins are way too big, sorta early 2000s style)

I'm gonna get back into them again I reckon, watching Kelly is just too much, he's obviously done the work and got 'em going insane. Not "fish" though.

Kinda the opposite of your bro ay.Talking with TC he was saying he is getting back into thrusters esp in waves where he wants to pivot more ( keeping to quads for down the line waves). Then again he may have changed his mind?

I have always viewed thrusters as twin-fins , with a rear stabiliser....considering the history, that's what I thought Simon was trying to achieve, and he succeeded......they were born straight onto the pro level of surfing , and have remained there till recently.....the only thing they dont have is glide.......singles have glide

kayu with respect mate, maybe your thruster didn't have glide, I've got plenty of 'em that glide just fabulously.

I'm picking up a new Simon on saturday. It's not a single fin. Yes, I am excited.

What model you getting Col?
I've had many Simons and all of em have been good.

Nick Carroll, my memory might be failing me but I distinctly recall you writing an article for one of the surf mags in the early 80's, probably Tracks, and your thesis was to do proper turns you needed to train on a single fin, and then move on to a thruster. You, my friend, are responsible for me getting a ridiculous G&S Stinger single fin, which was way too big for me and taught me absolutely zero about surfing.

Apropos of not much.

Possibly what Nick may have been saying is ride a single, then go to a thruster and you will realise how much better the thruster is to turn.

I reckon singles do teach you to get the board over on rail ( for those who do turn them rather than just going straight).

Natho wrote:What model you getting Col?
I've had many Simons and all of em have been good.

ahh, it's called the TOE. Not a catalogued model as far as I can tell, and Simon did some wizardry on the basic specs for me. Good for a fat bloke like me. I've had lots of Simons in my time. Loved 'em all.