Omar found this lovely Jackson thruster for me on the NSW north coast. It features unusual soft, deep and long channels that run up the lenght of the rails that I have never seen before. I would have written them off as a blip on evolutionary design timeline of the modern surfboard and not thought of them again except for a strange co-incidence.
I sold a Al Byrne shaped Byrning Spears channel bottom thruster on ebay for $50. I was'nt very stoked, but the guy I sold it to on the Gold Coast was. He was blown away! He told me he only surfs Al Byrne channel bottoms and Jim Parkinson rail channels on the long and fast point breaks of the Gold Coast like Burleigh and Snapper rocks. He swears by them, says they are the greatest piece of surfboard design in history. Then Gavin sent me pics of his Jim Parkinson rail channel thruster. I better paddle it out and get up to speed on this innovation that I never knew existed.
Gavin's Jim Parkinson rail channel design.
HI Damion, sweet boards.I have had two rail chaannels like this ...one was a jim Pollard which i think was designed for Burleigh and the other was a bob cooper but both were single fins..the only thruster i have had with that channel was a Byrne...stay stoked Ross/Rasta
ReplyDeleteGood post Damion, I met Jim recently out the back of the Jacksons shop, laying on fibreglass, still at it after 30 odd years...nice bloke, uncommonly humble and understated for the industry...
ReplyDeleteZappa Wybrow did some not too different, maybe a few inches further in off the rail in the 90's , I worked at a factory on the Sunny Coast where he did a few, they were like half what you have here and belly channells, they worked ok but nuthing super special. cheers,
ReplyDeleteMP