"I am not a surfboard collector"- Donavon Frankenreiter


"I'm not a surfboard collector. All the boards I have, I ride. There's dirty wax on all of them. I ding 'em up, have all my friends ride them. I've never priced out any of the boards, either. I love to look at boards and wonder what they ride like. I don't know, I guess I'm just addicted to the ride."
I could'nt agree more with this quote from Donavon from the Surfers Journal via Pineapple Luv
I think I better change the name of the blog to not-a-boardcollector-a-board-rider.com

Twin fins, hardly retro!



I have about 20 twin fin's. I feel I'm pretty committed to the the design. But that's nothing compared to Dave Rastavich. Regarded as one of the world's best free surfers, Rasta is a twin fin afficianado. According to Squidforce his whole collection of craft for the Hawaiian season is twin-finned (above is his 15 board Hawaiian Quiver, all of them twin fins). Stay tuned to see what goes down in Hawaii. I expect Dave’s performances to be groundbreaking and anything but retro. Check this video of Rasta riding various configurations in 'The Free Way'


Fluid Foils


Fluid Foils ad from Breakway September 1977


Geoff Fox from Surf Research is an amazing Australian surf historian who has done an unbelievable amount of work on his web site 'Pods for Primates: A catalogue of Surfboards in Australia since 1900"
Once again his knowledge has helped me learn more about my own collection, in particular about this Jim Polard shaped 'Fluid Foils' 6'0" single fly swallow tail channel bottom twin fin.
Whats unique about this board are its small, sharp raked fins and its four long, soft channels that start 3/4's of the way up the board and run at an angle to the stringer.









According to Geoff, Fluid Foils was a decal/label used by Shane Surfboards from about 1977-8 for models shaped by Jim Pollard, primarily single fins, but all channel bottom designs.
Jim was originally inspired to try shaping channel bottoms by an article called ''Groove Ridge Theory'' by Jim Richardson and Art Shafer from the USA that was possibly printed in either Surfer or Surfing magazine circa 1975.
It detailed experiments using flexible polyurethane rubber ridges stuck to the bottom of surfboards and concluded that they improved lift and increased directional stability across a range of designs and lengths.
Around 1976 -77 at Noosa Heads in Queensland, Jim Pollard had developed a conventional pintail design with six or eight channels nose to tail, running parallel to the rails and exiting at matching flyers. This model was test ridden by Peter Cornish, Steven Butterworth and Col Smith, all Newcastle surfers. By 1979 the design was modified to straight channels, parrallel to stringer, in the rear 2/3rd of the board, still exiting at the flyers. This design had international exposure with successful
contest results by Col Smith (Newcastle), notably a win in the Pipeline Masters around 1979. The single fin design was manufactured in Australia by both Shane Surfboards, Brookvale (Jim Pollard Fluid Foils) and Free Flight Surfboards, Ballina (Col Smith Channel Designs).
From 1978 onwards channels were a common features on a variety of designs. For example the small flutes on some Mark Richards Twin fins and Laurie/Phil Byrne's more extreme Clinker Bottom Twin fin, circa 1981. (both featured on this blog)
Channels became more subtle features through the 1980's, virtually disappearing from design by 1990, The channel bottom as since evolved into the single and double concave designs we ride today.

VMX

In addition to my surfboard collection it gives me great joy to share with you a selection of my vintage MX and BMX racing jerseys. I collect them for many of the same reasons I collect the boards- for fun, colour, funtion, design, history and graphics reference.

But it raises the question as to where do you draw the between a passionate collector and a hoarder of junk?
If collectiing, admiring, researching and documenting give me such pleasure how can it be bad?
But is it healthy to be filling a shed to the roof with old crap?
At least I'm not comsuming the latest electrical gadgets whose production contributes to the burning of fossil fuels and landfill because i'm collecting items produced 20 to 30 years ago. But then again I am aquiring more stuff that I dont really need to survive.










In my own defence I do ride a custom MX inspired motor bike so I feel I am allowed to wear vintage jerseys, although they are hard to find in my size. Its a Deus Ex Machina custom Yamaha TW with extended hill climb swing arm and a detachable surfboard rack.


Mick's lips




I'm generally not a fan of retro / re-issue boards when, if you try hard enough, you can generally find the original design for around the same money and you'll save a piece of surf history from ending up at the tip. But I would love one of these for big days at the point. Click here to find out more.

Deus / Boardcollector Surf Market photos by Carby Tuckwell.

Check out all of Carbys galleries on the Deus website.

After months of planning, emails and meetings the first Deus / Boardcollector Surf Market went off without a hitch. Crew drove in from Noosa, Byron, North Haven and Torquay. I sold some boards and bought some boards, breaking my own rule by sending much more than I made!
The outside wall of the meet was set up with elastic straps as a consignment wall and worked really well. Guys came by in the morning and dropped off 1, 2, 3, or 4 boards and left them with Steffan who had a clipboard and kept all the seller info on file.
I encourage everyone to bring more individual boards on the 10th of April. The only rule being the boards must be pre-1990 to earn a spot on the wall.