Found FISH on Amazon for 10 bucks. Watched it this morning. The story really resonates with me, having lived it and seen it happen at the time, when it was all going on... and having built and ridden countless fish surfboards for 35 years. I remember the first fish I ever rode... borrowed it from a friend on a shoulder high day, and remember throwing huge rooster tails for the first time in my life. That was the beginning of a long love affair I've had with twin fins ever since. There's a part in the film where Rob Machado says something like he decided one day that he didn't want to let his equipment dictate how he surfed. He turned his back on the performance shortboard, which he felt was designed to do certain things, and his approach to surfing was to make sure he was doing all of the things the board was built to do. Instead, he wanted to let the wave do what it wanted to do, and he wanted to surf in RESPONSE to the wave. I'm not doing a good job articulating his point... he does it much better. But it was something I could definitely relate to, having evolved through all of the cycles surfing... as a lifestyle and an industry... went through. I learned to surf when all there was were logs and the first single fins of the shortboard revolution... then on to the first generation fishes... then the Simon Anderson thrusters... then the potato chips... then on to the quad fad era... and finally to today's "groveler" shortboard and alt shape generation. I was there, immersed in it all. Good film for anybody my age, who started surfing in the '70s, and who paid attention to what was going on in board design. Not too many people built boards back in those days. I was fortunate enough to have a mentor... my brother-in-law... who had a surf shop and built boards. Funny thing, though... he never rode a fish.
That was great i recently picked up a board Greg made for me, someone recommended him to me and I've not been disappointed.
One shouldn’t tell little white lies on the internet. I know the truth and have the evidence to back it up.
