Energy- transition period.


Alasdair from Victoria wrote to say:
Today I picked up a Simon Anderson thruster that had been left out on the street for a hard rubbish collection.
I've been trying to work out when it would have been made as the blank has not been dated, but blank is numbered 56.18.M.
This item on surfsearch is the closest - however mine does not have channels.
I'd be interested if you could shed some light on it.
While I was searching for details on the Thruster I came upon this blog - it doesn't have a lot of depth but it does document the hyper local surfing culture I grew up in.
Best,  Alasdair



From my reading of Simon Andersons's book "Thrust" I understand this board to be from the brief, turbulent but fascinating time when Simon was steering his career away from competitive surfing to focus on his shaping. I believe this board and the board below were from the short chapter in Simon's career when he was still shaping for under the Energy label while negotiating selling the business to Frank Latta. Around this time he had been advised by his manager or business mentor to emphasize the 'Simon Anderson' brand over the Energy brand.
So by that reckoning, in my opinion, the blue board is older than the orange board, based on decal size and placement, but are both from the period when Simon was still shaping at Energy, after they did the graphic update. The board on Surfsearch, although very similar in design, is shaped by Frank Latta and was probably done just after Simon's departure.
If my theories are correct we could date these boards to the year, if not the month.

Equally we could just ask Simon, but who are we to disturb the master with such trivialities, however intriguing.











2 comments:

  1. Might have trouble contacting Frank without the help of a weegie board. Been dead a few years now.

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  2. …“left out on the street for a hard rubbish collection”…

    Shivers to think of the boards that have been put out, past/present/future, for “hard rubbish collection”…
    And I thought I was having paranoid nightmares about all those boards left in garage rafters in Burbank, CA, USA (and many other neighborhoods, worldwide) that were left by someone going off to war (Korea, Vietnam, sheesh, even WWII), or “enlisted” in the hippie-brigades, or plain got-married and “retired”…or, convulsions, took up golf…

    The Statue of Liberty’s plaque comes to mind:

    “Give me your tired, your poor,
    Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
    The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
    Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me.
    I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

    Re-tooled as:
    “Give me your dinged, your snapped, and more
    Your yellowed foam yearning to ride free,
    The orphaned discards, once the prides of the shore.
    Sell these, the duct-taped, kook-ridden-lost to me,
    My garage awaits, with golden-resin-dripped floor!"


    Cosmic Dog

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