Bob Hurley shaped Rabbit model twin fin goes for a run

I'm stoked to see Hurley teaming up with Stacey surfboard to re-issue the twin fin design that Bob worked on with Rabbit in the early 80's. Its similar, if not identical the model I found that was originally shaped by Bob for Hawaiian Quiksiler pro Mikey Nielsen.

I love the foam filled fins. What attention to detail.

I surfed it many times at this southern Californian semi point break in all sizes and all conditions.

This day I brought my camera along.

 I was surfing with Ryan Martinez, he denies being related to Bobby, but one look at his back hand attack and you would have to disagree.

I updated the board with some era correct stickers.

The lovely Kaley Swift was out there absolutely ripping it up.

This spot breaks left and right. 

Its no secret, you can see it from the PCH and its mentioned in a Beach Boys song.

Nick Everist off the bottom

The board is quite thick and buoyant, as you can see by the way the whole tail sits is out of the water through the turns.

Is that Nick dropping in?

Scotty took the camera for a run with the hand plane and scored some nice images.

An interesting experiment, I'm not sure If I'm too stoked on the pole cam.

OZ Zap = US Blaster / Zapper

Of course, there is no denying Geoff McCoy's influence on the world of surfboard shaping.

Geoff tear drop needle nose designs are credited with inspiring most of modern surfing, from the evolution of the thruster right done to the G&S Zapper, Schroff Blaster etc.

What I'm interested in are the many incarnations and varied interpretations of the idea.

Like the way beer is brewed slightly differently on each continent and in each country. Its the subtle differences that appear at the end of the process that  starts with the same set of ingredients that make it so good to travel to and enjoy a lager in Japan, Fiji, Australia, Mexico, the US and Belgium (not so good in the UK for me).

Of course the closest thing to  Geoff McCoy McCoy is a Greg Pautsch McCoy.

I love the way Greg was so dedicated to staying close to the original even his hand writing looks the same as Geoff's.

Quicksilver ad from Surfer 1981

Here is my recent find from the Huntington swap. 5'10" double hip swallow tail quad.

Danny Kwok and crew. Screen grab from Echo Beach

Screen grab from Echo Beach

My 6'2" tri fin by Greg Pautsch from Florida via purchased originally in Huntington Beach in 1982.

I've been riding this board at Oceanside lately. Its performance is comparable to the most current boards in the surf shops today, the only major difference being the older boards have more foam, more volume throughout. A thinner more modern profile may make them more responsive, but I weigh +100kgs, so more foam is fine by me!

Reese has shared these pics of his Bill Shrosbree shaped early 80's tear drop.

Giving it is work out in Costa Rica in 2012.

2012 US model by Greg @ Surfy Surfy

Schroff Blasters

I currently have over 100 boards in quiver and I try to take a different board each time I go for a surf. Recently I have been suffering a bit of surfboard design fatigue and I had come to the conclusion that what is truly interesting about the boards in my collection is not how different the performance of the varied surfboards designs are, it is , at the end of the day, how similar they all go. 

I had decided that the 'no nose' concept is over rated in terms of being a major break through and that, twin fins specifically, perform better with a narrow tail and the wide point further forward.

It is true that I had been surfing some particularly fine examples of the genre of late and that may well have skewed my view point.

To test my lazy assumption I went to the far extreme of the innovation period design spectrum and pulled my Peter Schroff shaped early 80’s Blaster tri fin out of the racks.

As soon as I took off on the first wave I knew I had been wrong in my conclusions. 

This board felt amazing, fast and loose, exciting, and seemed to be able to go anywhere and everywhere on the wave I could think of.

I’m so excited to see the new versions that Peter is putting out in limited numbers for Thalia St, Yoki’s store and the like.

Wide tail with baby swallow and subtle double hips

Pronounced vee through the tail

2013 collection of Schroff re-issues at Yoki's in Newport

This beautiful example of an original early 80's Schroff Blaster was sold by friend recently. 

Lucky for me I don't require mint condition examples of a design, as much as I like them, to be able to test the design in the water.

My buddy James shared these pics with me of his recent score from San Diego.