Sipping twinfins

The Boardcollector is back in Bali. This time with a 5'9" triple fly swallow tail Christie twin fin from about 1980. A lovely board, shaped on the South coast of NSW around Ulladulla, that's working well for me despite its shorter length because of its nice wide fin base that can take all 105kg's of me thru the turns at Batu Belong and Chungu.
I've been spending some time with twin fin devotee and surf photograher, Dustin Humphries of Sipping Jetstreams fame.
Yeah, Bali's a pretty nice place to be for a guy and 28 year old surfboard.......

Emerald Twinny.

Here is my 6'1" Jim Banks model single fly, swallow tail, channel bottom, Emerald Twin Fin. A sweet ride, with hand shaped fins as thick as your thumb. I don't know if the fin foil was designed that way or some one had a hang over this day and couldn't be bothered sanding them down much past the original thickness of the fin blank.

Some boards get around.

6'2" Simon Anderson hand shaped thruster. Single flyer square tail, with red and blue panels on the deck. Clear bottom. This board was made when Simon had just left the Energy label and he said that only appox 100 were made of these boards with the Simon Anderson logo on the rails with the 3 fin circle logo. The board is well restored and completely water tight. No cracks around fins or delam on deck. I was really looking forward to surfing it. I bought this board at Mick Mock's auction and the money from its sale was donated to the Surf Aid charity. I was being offered for sale along side 2 other beautiful Energy thrusters by Scott Beggs. This board was particularly rare because Simon shaped it. He was'nt doing much shaping during this period as he was competing full time.
Sadly I can't afford to keep it, although I truely wish I could. I wrote on the ebay listing 'If this board was a puppy dog I'd say 'to a good home only'.
At the auction I thought it was an Energy and that maybe it had Simon's name down the rails cause it was one of his competition boards. But my research proved that it was not to be.
Then I saw an article on Coastalwatch.com about a charity that had collected 180 surfboards for Papua New Gineau. The boards are being donated to existing and prospective surfers in villages across PNG and also through the network of clubs of the Surfing Association of PNG. The donation is to encourage the locals into taking up surfing as a recreational activity and to foster a growing surf industry, including the development of a sustainable surf travel sector.
There in the photo I saw a familiar sight- The Simon Anderson I just bought at the Surf Auction.
Tomorrow its off to its new home, somewhere on the Australian East Coast.

Hawaiian Laser Zap

Brandon from Hawaii sent me these pics of his 5'10 triple flyer (triple!!) swallow tail 'Cheyne' model Mc Coy Laser Zap. Its in fantastic condition for a board from 1982. The board was originally designed to be ridden with a Star fin or winged keel designed by Ben Lexan and Cheyne Horan. I discussed the design of the board and the fin with Cheyne earlier this year. He explained to me that the winged tips on fin are designed to compensate for the surface area of the fin that is lost when the board is tipped on its side during a turn. Which makes complete sense, as this would give a lot of additional forward drive . The wide tail area of the board and 'no nose' design is meant to skim across the water like, and I quote Cheyne here, "when you squeeze a watermelon seed between your fingers", which is completeley mad makes no sense at all. I love the design of these Geoff McCoy shaped boards and have two of my own but I find them completely impossible to ride. But without Cheyne's , Geoff's and Ben's commitment to experimentation and innovation we wouldn't have the boards we have today.