the future of surfing

I don't really care what people advertise, sponser, enact.... I'll still drag my log out - rub a little wax one it - and catch some waves. I think once you hit 40 or so you don't care what the latest is because its all about draining your pockets. I think thats why Longboard Mag failed - because most longboarders are a little older and are not effected by advertising hype. Hey, I may be wrong but thats my take.

 

gotta say that i completely disagree w/ you. the only validity that the modern thruster-based shortboard (i'm not talking your white diamond/dumpster diver/rocket type of boards) has is directly tied to the world tour. in fact, in terms of STYLE, it has affected surfing for the worse. its not user-friendly, it only works in quality surf, & tends to inspire an insipid, lackluster type of surfing in most folks. you know the type: the flail, flap, & spazz their way across the wave, never actually engaging the rail in the wave face. they put no power into their turns. they embody everything ugly about modern surfing.
as far as design, design has already benefited greatly from the retro revival. if you ride anything like a fishcuit, biscuit, rocket, white diamond, etc...they're all based around the concept that foam=good. most of them are modified versions of the the lis fish & the 60's egg...arguably the 2 biggest design ideas revived in the late 90's/early 2000's. even kelly slater's wizard sleeve, at it's core, is just an egg. sure, the rails are different, the bottom contour is different, & the fin set up has changed, but the template & basic design idea is based firmly in the egg. so if nothing else was gained from the retro revival, the cross-pollination of designs has greatly benefited what was once a very stale thing.
i, however, don't think that that is all that was gained by the movement. in a way, the fish revival "saved" me from riding a longboard full time. i will admit that attempting to ride a conventional shortboard in average east coast surf frustrated me & is directly responsible for my interest in design & design theory. it has also led me to abandon entirely the thruster. i find other fins set ups work at least as well, if not better, in various conditions. the 5 fin bonzer is my go-to set up & has been since mid-2006. i still ride others - i have a quad fish, single fin egg, a twin w/ trailer, & a single fin log. but all my go-to or travel boards are bonzers. 9 boards, 5 of which are bonzers. prior to embracing the bonzer, i was riding a twin keel fish & a single fin egg. the last really good thruster i had was a ci black beauty in 2005. but it was only good in quality surf. & i like bonzers better in all kinds of surf. i mostly keep the other boards around b/c i get bored easily & like to try different feelings. removable fins becoming mainstream has really been a huge thing for me, b/c i can change the feel & ride of a board just by swapping the fins...i don't have to buy a new board or grind the fins off & glass a new set on.
i agree that competitive surfers will need to be more aerial oriented in the future, but like every sport, the gap between pros & average, everyday participants will only become larger. look at marathon running. the olympic champion & the guy who wins your local race can't even pretend to be on the same level. i see surfing going more in that direction. i view professional contest surfing as really only a sideshow/bastard off-shoot of what surfing really is.

oh, & the best feeling in surfing in my opinion is coming out of a deep barrel at mach 9, running out onto the shoulder & cranking an absolutely HUGE cutback! the kind where everyone who sees it goes & you're all when you're paddling back out.

 

Yep,Thats what im talking about.

 

Longboarder failed cause the owner took the money and ran . He basicly drank his buisness away from what I heard. Alot of people paid for 2 years and got ripped off .

If you want a longoboard mag Check out Slide Its a fairly new Longoboard mag out of New Zealand. only down fault its 4 issues a year right now.

They have a website www.slidemagazine.com

 

NJSurfer: I feel what you are saying. I have had this conversation with quite a few people over the past few years. Mainly because about 5-6 years ago, every 14 year old kid was trying to sell me a $750 retro fish when I went in… My room mate always raved about these old twinnies and these old 70s style SD fishes, so finally on a trip down to mex, I rode one of these fishes… And I did it for a few days, and it was just crap to me… Granted, I was surfing head high point breaks in clean conditions, so all I could keep thinking was, damn this is slow, damn how do I even bury a rail on this thing, much less bust the tail out… Again, out of frustration, I never ride those kinds of boards any more. The only thing CLOSE to this, is a board that I love. My shaper made me an Epoxy, 5’10 basically a new age fish, with THRUSTER fins, and let me tell you. The thing shredded. You can do airs on it, get tons of speed on the face and still lay down a big hack… It gave me everything I get from a traditional short board thruster, with the thickness and glide of a fish… That I like, but it all leads me back to love 3 fins… I hated every single fin I’ve tried. I put three fins on my Longbaord in the summer, so cause that’s what I like. So, correct me if I am wrong, but unless you get some crazy hybrid shortboard with quad fins maybe, the retro boards CANNOT perform the things I need it to do. If a board makes it so you can’t release your fins. You can’t get any air. You can’t bury your rail and do a sharp turn… its basically just a vehicle that makes initially catching a wave easier. It’s a beginner board to me. All of those things are… yeah, they get you up on a wave, and glide easier, but the style looks like garbage to me… Guys squatting down through turns, just looking like they are really surfing in the 70s… So, I don’t know, maybe I just have bad luck with those boards… But I have NEVER had a good session in good conditions on a board like that. Period. That’s just me though.

But I do understand where you are coming from. I took my 5’11 potatochip to OC MD last summer and took it out in knee to waist high surf all week. There were times when I almost got out of the water and just karate chopped my own board in half… I needed like a 10’er that day… But like I said, I understand logging it or riding old as$ boards when its ankle high, but once you even get past waist high, you will never catch me on anything but a thruster…. High performance surfing is impossible on old out dated vehicles.

 

Yeah, wetsuits are going to be insane in 10 years. People are already out in blizzard surf all winter. Half the guys on thi site did this year quite a bit... So with that being said, yeah wetsuits have a WAAAAYS to go, and they are already awesome, so that kind of excites me about the future, especially since it looks like i will be back in the mid-atlantic in the future, that makes me a little less sad about winter. The thought of paddling out in 37 degree water and not dying would be a pretty good start. Yeah, i think the future holds super warm, super thin suits..... somehow. someway.

 

I have to disagree. It doesnt matter what kinda of board ya have ,If you skills are honed and your a good all around surfer you should be able to ride just about anything and make it work.

Joel Tudor has won contests on 30 year old boards. Beating people who are riding the best , most expesive boards on the market

I think the tecnology of surfboard making is at the best it could ever be right now. The amazing thing that are being done to Shortboard and well as longboards is really extordinary.

Far as wetsuits go I think they are gonna get to the point to they feel like a second skin or the to the point where you are like surfing in a plasitc bubble as if you were in the Jetson mobile

 

Like I said, these are just my own personal preferences. I agree with what you are saying. I have surfed with Joel before. He was on a newer LB, but he and Robb Machado are classic examples of guys who just KILL anything they ride. Watching Robb ride a single fin at cardiff is a thing of beuty. But Robb has also explored every inch of the globe, surfing high performance thursters the whole way. Only in a basic surfing retirement, does he excite his imagination with riding different stuff. Like I said, I will ride anything. And I will have a blast doing it.... but wat personally happens to ME, is when I am at a spot, riding a weird or old board, its pretty fun, but there is always that once wave, or that one lip or section that you dont really get to hit the way you want, then I am paddling back out like, I KNEW I should have paddled out with the shortboard. Same thing happens when I long board in the summer. Its knee to waist and im out there cruising, then a set comes that is like chest to head high and im like DAMN!!! I knew i shoulda brought the thurster =) But like I said, that is just me, and that is just my style. The waves I have been surfing lately are pretty high quality, so I caint complain. But when the waves flatten out and there is a lot more time spent at the beach, I may paddle out on a picnic bench and try and surf it =)...

I guess what im saying is this: Its Head high to 1 foot over head, super glassy with light offshores... Its 8am, its mid tide.... You see barrels off your local jetty and clean conditions.... What board do you go get? What board do you grab because the conditions are the most ideal for you. If it was me, I would have my 6'0 round tail shortboard with a three fin thurster set up... What ever board you would pick, thats you. Thats your style... I understand getting creative when its boring, but when you want to go get barrels and do turns, what are you gonna ride? I told you what I would.

 

now keep in mind i'm not trying to convince you of anything here, but...i think 2 things happened w/ you in mex: 1) the fish you tried was either too big (they need to be ridden small....way small. there's a TON of foam hidden in those things) or poorly shaped. i had a 5'10" pavel twin keel that absolutely killed it...but it was the right size for me. i could throw the thing straight up into the lip & had no problem at all burying the rail on turns.
2) the conditions were not right for the board. traditional fish really work best, i've found, in that waist-chest/shoulder high range. they are NOT, repeat, NOT mush buster boards. they are not the anti-longboard that so many people seem to think that they are. they also, i fully admit, SUCK when the waves get over head-high w/ any steepness to the faces. head-high, kinda mushy point break? bring your fish. think sunset cliffs. head high rincon? bring whatever your daily driver is.
like i said, these boards need to be ridden at a size appropriate for your ability. i think what happened, & what gave the movement it's bad name, is that guys started using them as crutches...they weren't looking for a new feeling, they were looking for a way to catch more waves or to look "cool". i don't have the single fin i started out w/....as i progressed, it became too big for me, so i sold it. even the new one is so beefy, i only really ride it in the dead of winter b/c it floats me so well w/ all that rubber we have to wear. as soon as the water starts warming up some, it'll be de-finned & stuck in the back of the line. i will also be the first to admit that keel fin fish tend to track very heavily backside...once you get it going down the line, it takes a LOT of force to change direction. one of the main reasons i switched to a quad fish. as appropriately sized fish, tho, is faster than a cheetah on speed.

as for no type of board performing the way a contemporary thruster does, have you ever seen footage of taylor knox or mick fanning riding their bonzers? i would say that knox's surfing is BETTER on a 5 fin than on a thruster. there's not enough footage of mick to say, but he still kills it on the 5 fin at least as well as he does on a thruster.
as i said in my last post, i am a bonzer fiend. i find them faster down the line than thrusters, & not only hold their speed thru turns, but actually accelerate out of them. esp. cutbacks. i think they barrel ride better as well, b/c not only do you have the larger center fin, but the side fins are heavily canted, about 15-20°, so they're biting into the wave face at a higher angle, sucking the tail of the board to the face, eliminating that squirrelly "slip n' slide" effect you sometimes get when you're really deep.
i've been riding bonzers pretty much exclusively for about 4 years now & they're all i take when i travel. i really should get some pics of that board up, i think you might be surprised. have you ever ridden a bonzer, zach?

& to answer your question, in the face of those conditions (8am, mid-tide, 6-8ft, light offshores, i'm grabbing this board:

5'10"x21"x2 5/8"

 

i ****ing hate hollister. my friend has a hollister sweatshirt that says hollister surf team on it..it disgusts me i make fun of it to the point where she wont were it anymore. they're already trying to do that to surfing.

I think what we should do is all we can and keep originality in it. Try as hard as you can to keep the sport full of friendly competition and peace, base it around a general love of the feeling surfing gives you. When you see kooks in the water, yea it sucks they're annoying but try to each them how to get better that way you don't have a bunch of idiots who can't surf in your line up, instead you have a bunch of good surfers who have respect for you and your break. I surf because i love the ocean and It's an escape to a better world. Don't shut other people out from that, let them in. How can we sit and complain about other people ruining the sport by trying to join it when the generation before us lert us join it ? hollister you can go to hell, i hate your company, but the surfers left who still surf because they just love the surf and onthing else matters need to spread that mindset on to the next generation of surfers that way our sport doesn't become over run with big brand companies, crowded breaks of competitive assholes dropping in on eachother left and right and firghting over waves instead of sharing them.

 

But I do understand where you are coming from. I took my 5’11 potatochip to OC MD last summer and took it out in knee to waist high surf all week. There were times when I almost got out of the water and just karate chopped my own board in half… I needed like a 10’er that day… But like I said, I understand logging it or riding old as$ boards when its ankle high, but once you even get past waist high, you will never catch me on anything but a thruster…. High performance surfing is impossible on old out dated vehicles.[/QUOTE]


dude don't knock retro boards. i have a 5'10 retro fish quad and i absolutely love it in the summer time. took it out on a day that was heavy and hollow and got shacked every wave haha my friend let me borrow his firewire for hte rest of the day and i hit so many sweet barrels. surfing is about understanding what is good for you, so just let people surf what they want. i love longboards and retro fishes but im a shortboarder at heart i learned on a 5'8 thin beat up old board in knee high choppy summer time trash. surfing is surfing eitehr way though, so for those of you who can hit a 360 backflip in the air thats ****ing crazy and congrats to you, and for those of you who ride longboards and like to just glide down a wave and enjoy it do it then. don't critize everyone else because they don't surf like you though, learn to appreciate every style of surfing because they all contribute to our sport. i surf all styles, im better at some than others but i enjoy every aspect of it and every moment im in the water and i think that's what really maters. its not about whos the best whos getting the biggest airs or the longest rides, its about who is having the most fun. if your not having fun then your not surfing right

 

You da man!

So in class last night, we watched a short video about advancements in life... and they said by 2049, a $1000 computer will have greater knowledge, intellectualism, everything, more than the entire race! So one computer will be smarter then every human being combined..

 

great post

Hey this has bee a great post. I have enjoyed the info and opinions. I believe the future of surfing will be much like the past. There have been highs and lows of modern surfing over the past 60 years and that will continue to be. Even with the developments in the sport and the mass marketing it continues to be a more counter-culture or niche sport. Yes lineups are crowded, but take a look at any Jepsen, Brown or Dittrich films from the 50-70s and look at huntington pier, malibu, rincon, dana (rip), north shore, etc and you understand you are not the first knuckle head whos entire existence revolves around the creation of swell and then the sliding down the end result.

Surfing a pure activity that puts man against nature. It is meant to be enjoyed in the moment and with others. If you allow yourself to get frustrated by elements of the activity that are out of your control, you miss the opportunities of peak enjoyment. The future is the past and past the future. All the things that were present in each decade will be there in the future, just more applified because there are more people on the earth and more money and resources. So yes, kooks, mass media maketing, localism, better board design, forcasting, etc will all continue as long as there are knuckle heads like all of us that are either surfing right now or thinking about when will get a session in next.

 

Dude, that Bonzer looks freaking sick man... See, that I could work with. To me, the bonzer is a modified thruster. The middle fin is what I like... I have only ridden one once, and it was pretty fun, but one session wasn't enough for me to really feel it out... But in my opinion, that board you showed me is a very new age model. It has some dimensions that remind me of the retro boards, but that thing looks pretty high tech... The fishes that I really dont like are the ones with only two fins and no middle. the old 70s model. And the new Quads have the same issues. Without that middle fin, the fins lock in nicely but it has a squirely feel to me...

I think that board would be sick.. That looks exactly like my 5'10 epoxy Fish Thruster I was talking about. Same kinda board, just with a standard thruster setup...

Answer me this: Does that larger middle fin have a tendency to stick in the lip through a turn. A lot of my basic turns, I try and really swing back around and have my board in a reverse position to let the fins release as the lip falls out under me. I like the free fall turning and sliding my tail a lot, so I would ASSUME, that the longer middle fin and the bonzer setup would kind of help lock the board in, rather than promote any release of the fins or tail.... Am i correct in that thought?

Grom Surfer: No body was "knocking" retro boards. My main point, is that some of my friends, who are really talented surfers went through a phaze of riding fish that were ACTUALLY built in the 70s. And it made their surfing look really bad to me. Some people can pull it off, but really, when we are surfing decent waves, it destroyed their style. Thats just my opinion... If you like those boards, ride them. They just have not been for me at this point. Ride whatever you like. That is your choice, your style. To each their own.

 

Every once in awhile I like to grab a surfboard (any particular length or fin combination will do), go down to the shore, paddle out and catch a few waves. I enjoy it. And I never once think about corporations, whos sponsoring who, what the pro rankings are, whether my style sucks, whether anyones watching me, etc.

 

that particular board came about b/c, while i feel that twin keel fish are very fast, bonzers are faster, esp. thru turns. i had a standard 6'3" bonzer that i rode in better surf & neglected my fish. as i really prefer to ride boards w/ the shortest rail line possible, i took my fish to brian wynn & explained to him what i had in mind. that was the result. so it IS very fish influenced...the front third of the board was taken from a template he made of the board.

the bonzer is completely unrelated to the thruster as far as fin set up geneology goes. malcolm & duncan campbell built the first 3 fin bonzer in 1971 in oxnard, ca. as a solution to their short, stubby style boards spinning out at the bottom of waves. the side runners were originally intended to help the board stay on the wave...eventually the single-double concave was added (around '72, i think) & the rest is history. so the bonzer is a direct descendant of the single fin. the thruster, meanwhile, came about in 1980 as simon anderson's attempt to counter mark richards' domination of competitive surfing. the first thrusters were more like what we today would call a "twin w/ a trailer". simon's big guy & had trouble making the twin fins of the day work for him in small surf. so the thruster is, evolutionarily speaking, a relative of the twin fin.

as far as the center fin...i've been riding them so long, i don't honestly notice it. i'm bigger, so i use a 6.5" center fin...i'd say a 6" would be a better choice for you. i believe you can do anything on a bonzer that you can do on a thruster. tail wafts & slides may take more effort, but you can do them. that big center fin is just going to take more effort to break out of the wave. but i've seen them done & have done them by accident when throwing a big hack off the top.

 

Well said.

 

Yeah, that is some good background history of the fins. I really got into surfing in the late 90s so it was pretty much thurster city. Ever since kelly started riding for Merrick, that is all I knew... When I came to San Diego, I started working for a restaurant that was opened on shelter island back in the 60s. It turns out that the owner and his friends, all in their sixties now, basically invented surfing sunset cliffs back in the 50s and 60s while Skip fry and the boys were riding la jolla. I got to sit down with the whole crew of guys. Mouse, Lance Morton etc... they all had their old photo books, of them sitting in point loma hand sawing their wooden planks with no fins. Photos of them foot dragging 12 foot planks at Garbage back in the day... Amazing stuff. I got to hold one of the boards, it weighed about 500 pounds... Luscombs (named after Rob Luscumbs, RIP) and many other spots along the cliffs are all named after these guys, so spending some time with them was amazing. The one thing they were all really stoked on though, surprisingly enough, were all the new technologies. They weve raving about the kids that ride for plus one that are doing rodeo flips at the OB pier. It wwas cool to hear them all embrace the new school, while talking about where it all came from....

Like I said, that bonzer photo would be the board I would grab if sunset cliffs were 6-8 feet and I went to Abs or something. Nice big, clean faces, occasional barrels sections. Waves made for speed and carves... That is how that board would work well for me. Locking into a slower barrel or digging into a huge roundhouse and stuff. So I do agree that certain situations call for certain boards etc....

But I am a creature of Habit. I surf the same places. Same boards. Same times. Its like clockwork. Its the old, if it aint broke, dont fix it. Im happy with the setup ive got, so I rarely think outside of that paradigm. However, I probably should broaden my horizons. I have not gotten into shaping, but that is the next step for me, and when I begin focusing on that, I have a feeling that I will be making some boards that I would never normally try out.