MR's twin fin

Now there's an MR twin fin and there's MR's twin fin.

A personal rider hand shaped by the man for himself to ride at the peak his competitive career.

They don't get much more exciting than this Brisbane find of John's.

Torquay Surf Museum

6'0" MR twin fin.

I've always loved the footage from 'Wizards of the Water' of Mark Richards surfing maxing Merewether on a 6'0" twinny by himself. His surfing is so playful and fun looking in such serious waves. The silver wetsuit probably helps.

It was big and stormy so I thought I'd grab my 6'0" Bob Margetts shaped MR twinny from the same era and give it a go to see what it felt like. This model is unusual in the sence that is got a hard edge to the rail that extends a good 12 inches forward of fins, the point by which most twin fins have nice soft forgiving rolled rails.

I got a couple of big ones before I pulled out the camera and to tell the truth, the board absolutley worked a treat. I pushed it as hard as I could off the bottom and off the top and it flew through the turns and never slipped an inch.

My stoke was short lived as shortly after I broke a leg rope and had a long swim in over the rocks where I seemed to discover the previously unknown sea urchin breeding grounds. I could see the board bouncing up and down on the shore break over the rocks but the faster I tried to push in to get to it the more urchins I found with my toes.

Here is some mixed footage from Matt Warshaw's encyclopedia of surfing that includes plenty of MR having fin on his twins as well as the big day in Newcastle.

Big and stormy with just a few heads out

What a fine example of an early 80's air brush design

A more 'modern' or '1982' interpretation of an MR twinny with the wide point close to the middle of the board

Ouch! Bouncing of the rocks in the shore break after breaking a leggie.

Back hand top turn selfie. Ha!

time to get to work on removing those spines.