In the 70s and 80’s Cheyne was quite popular for several reasons, and he received lots of gingoistic publicity about being the handsome blond surfer-guy from Bondi.
Next thing these Cheyne Designs started showing up in Ron Woods Bondi Junction surfshop.
Ron always sold heaps of McCoys anyway, the shop was always stacked with McCoys and I saw Geoff in there several times.
The new designs were McCoys Lazer Zaps all right, but the ‘Cheyne models’ were always sleeker. A big step up from the basic McCoy shape but toned down for public consumption.
They were the first boards that I thought were ‘beautiful’ to look at, the curves were satisfying to touch and in retrospect it was probably the start of my love affair with design.
The designs stood out in comparison to the stumpy slabbish twins and elongated pin-tails that were available at the time.
Still had the loaded dome, 2 1/2" thickness and sweet double flyer / swallow tail.
Later on the thickness dropped but they still had the WP pulled back, single fin and no-nose.
I bought 1 in 1983 as a custom and then they disappeared from the racks forever and there cant be any more than a hundred or so of them made ever.
So yesterday a mate rings up and says he’s got an original Cheyne model,
Thats got my attention because it would be nice to have a “memory stick” of something I really liked so long ago.
would I be interested in a 25 year old board that for the past 20 years has been hung up in a country surf-shop ?
Can he bring it 'round tomorrow for me to look at ?
Today I surfed it.
And its brilliant. It was like a wet deja vu, something just sits right with McCoys and me that I hadnt found elsewhere.
Bouyant for paddling, speedy rocker, the perfect outline, it rides like a modern board without all the effort to get it going. And its still beautiful from every angle.
I’ll always make compsand bodyboards and experimentals surfboards for laughs but this old board with its old design is magic for me.
Now I know why hippies still exist.
5’9.5" X 19" X 2.5" WP 3" behind 1/2 way. Original glass fin. 9/10 Condition.
That’s the exact era of my formative years as a surfer and Cheyne was a front-runner in my adolescent hero-worship…
Remember the scene from “Free-ride”, with MR and Cheyne both way back in the same Barrell at Off-the-wall? Thats what I learned to hoot to at the local picture hall.
I’d like to see a “…what ever happened to…” with the likes of Cheyne, Shaun, Buzzy, Larry…
Josh, I read recently that Larry Blair is working in Sydney CBD in his own business, Shaun was in Cal a few years ago because I traced him to Sth Africa and then on to the US. Dunno where Kerbox is…
“Doorman or Storeman” a lot of them.
Where in Australia would I get a copy of this board done? The more exact the better.
I’d like to keep the good one safe and surf the replica. Snapping the McCoy could push me to tears.
Indeed there would be a few sorry tales of ordinary life after Pro-surfing…maybe I don’t want to know after all.
Geoff works out of the Town and Country factory in Byron. I don’t know how he would respond, but he would be the man to do another of those.
Otherwise, it is possible to get a 3d scan of a board, but its Exxy, and then you need a Propellerhead to put the data into a format for the shaping machine.
You might give the trusted shaper-off-the-street a go…Not me, I’d be “improving” it a little too much!
Nice looking mccoy you scored yourself I was always partial to a double fly swallow single fin myself. Had a few before I started to ride thrusters, and when i think back on it i think i was probably caught up in the hype of the time, in a juicy reef wave or a down the line point set up. I think a single would have held there own for the first 10 yrs of the 3 fin phase. I small gutless waves there were a fantastic development and for backhand surfing they were a god send. but i believe they develop very repeditive surfing off the top off the bottom which they do very well.
I was watching an old video the other day with Simon Anderson surfing haleiwa in Hawaii on a single fin with a narrow swallow tale this was filmed the year before he rode the thrusters in the pipe masters, and i must say it is the best footage i have seen of him in the islands. On the wider swallows with thruster setup he rode after that he didnt have the nice sharp angles as he had on the single and looked a bit flat in comparision.
Why dont you just go to Geoff Mccoy and ask him to shape you another board the same he makes amazing boards still after all these yrs, I got a new lazer nugget 2 weeks ago and wow i have had alot of his boards but this one is wonderful.{ This aint an ad i pay retail}
What a find. I sold mine way back and had the chance to buy it back a few years ago…but the kuk local department store surf shop had added FCS plugs ruining the magic board. Take off the wings and add a squash tail and you have sitting there the original thruster and forerunner to the modern Surfboard. Geoff will never get credit for all the things he has done for modern surfboard design and the coaching of world class surfers…but knowing Geoff…I suspect if he is remembered as just a really great shaper that would be enough.
Contact Cheyne and Geoff …I think they both would love to see that board. Geoff and I were going to produce his designs over here, but he decided to keep control and do more of his own shapes without even an apprentice. His boards are uniqe and nothing rides quite the same. Love em or hate em…a Mccoy is a Mccoy. I always thought that generation of Zaps were the best and most functional. The super wide tails looked great, but were hard to ride. Alot folks don’t know the ones with the really wide tails were not even called zaps…he called them Astron Zots.
That board you have pictured is similar to the one Cheyne called…" This is the one " that had pink rails and pretty much that same color scheme. Beautiful surfboards. I think the problem with modern boards is they have forgotten floatation and glide.
Actually Geoff did get credit for his shapes being the foreunner of the Thruster. Below is a quote from an article of the time by Nick Carroll:
"Anderson, therefore, put aside the twin-fins and turned to the “no-nose” concept, a design popularised by Geoff McCoy that combines an exceptionally narrow nose and wide tail with deep rolled vees and tail lift. This design is very loose when surfed solidly from the tail, and when Anderson drew out a series of flyer squaretails featuring the basics of the McCoy ideology, he had high hopes for its success. However although he found this design effective at first, he soon saw that he was missing out on the “skating” speed effect that makes the twin-fin alternative so adaptable in small surf. Anderson did the logical tlting, and thought about a combination of the two ideas.He shaped a basic Anderson version of the no-nose with a slightly wider, heavily squared- off tail, and fitted two abnormally small, slightly raked fins into the normal twin-fin positions. He then ground out an upright little baby single fin and placed it on the stringer about two inches up from the end of the tail section. "
Actually Geoff did get credit for his shapes being the foreunner of the Thruster. Below is a quote from an article of the time by Nick Carroll:
"Anderson, therefore, put aside the twin-fins and turned to the “no-nose” concept, a design popularised by Geoff McCoy that combines an exceptionally narrow nose and wide tail with deep rolled vees and tail lift. This design is very loose when surfed solidly from the tail, and when Anderson drew out a series of flyer squaretails featuring the basics of the McCoy ideology, he had high hopes for its success. However although he found this design effective at first, he soon saw that he was missing out on the “skating” speed effect that makes the twin-fin alternative so adaptable in small surf. Anderson did the logical tlting, and thought about a combination of the two ideas.He shaped a basic Anderson version of the no-nose with a slightly wider, heavily squared- off tail, and fitted two abnormally small, slightly raked fins into the normal twin-fin positions. He then ground out an upright little baby single fin and placed it on the stringer about two inches up from the end of the tail section. "
It’s a fairly recent thing and in Oz. Anderson has been really good about it…but the mags over here have largely ignored Geoff for years. There was one issue one time that showed the board in it’s proper perspective. Glad to see Tracks. Simon called Geoff the first godfather of the thruster.
Geoff was also one of the main characters in the developement of the Twin fin. M.R. ( a Mccoy team guy at one time )also gives him credit on that, but you rarely see it in mags.
Thanks for this Surffoils- that’s a fantastic looking board. Solo got me on a Horan and love the things. It’s making want a Zap-ish board more than ever.
That board you have pictured is similar to the one Cheyne called…" This is the one " that had pink rails and pretty much that same color scheme. Beautiful surfboards. I think the problem with modern boards is they have forgotten floatation and glide.
Thank you guys for adding to the thread.
I agree that flotation and glide are lost qualities today. The bouyancy makes it a breeze to paddle, I sit in the line up rather than ‘sink’ up to my armpits, the board spins around and reaches a quick and decent full speed in a few strokes and paddling out is so much easier.
I had a quick surf this morning before family commitments and I noticed it has extra run or glide so I dont have to search out the pocket, it’ll keep going even way out in front on the face.
I can think about what I’m doing… not about what it’s doing.
THATS something I remember about riding it years ago too, it was a painless extension of me rather than a burden I was required to motivate and nurture through each wave.
I can ride it without looking down.
I tarted it up with this little extra I had stashed from the late 70’s. Midget used to sell 2 types of them when I worked in the factory back then. I’m almost certain its the same finlock I had on my original 82 board. They went out of fashion but were so practical I couldnt throw it out even if I’ve had no use for it in 25 years. Glad I held on to it now !
I can move my ‘whole fin setup’ in seconds between waves !! Now thats something young surfers miss out on too.
That is a beautiful board. I remember seeing Mike Tomson riding what looked like one of Cheyne’s boards much like the one pictured near Pipe during that period and he was ripping it. That board looks just as valid today as it did 25 yrs.ago. I lost interest in the Zaps when Cheyne/McCoy started making the tails super wide. The outline did’nt appeal to me as much then. But wow, that is a treasure you have there.
McCoys were really leading the charge in late 70’s up until the thruster arrived. Like a lot of Terrigal and Avoca crew I rode McCoys in those days. Best one I had was not shaped by Geoff but by Eric Taylor 6’2" triple flyer swallow mild Zap.
We tried to be true to Geoff’s vision in the face of the thruster but the turning point for me was watching a film at the Avoca surf club of the last Bali season. Boomer and Bloated were riding Full blown Lazor Zaps and these guys were hot surfers yet a couple of average/good guys on new thrusters were going so noticeably faster and making sections that the zaps could’nt.
Geoff would’nt make a thruster for me but Bill Cilia did and like nearly everyone of that era I entered the world of high speed top turns and thruster cuts on my feet!
Got to give McCoy the credit for what followed. Pity Cheyne never rode a thruster. Who Knows what might have been.
Pity Cheyne never rode a thruster. Who Knows what might have been.
Cheers
Mooneemick
He did later in his career. Whipped Tom Carroll riding a nugget three fin in 99. I don’t think thrusters are faster than singles…I think certain singles are just as fast, but in a different way. Thrusters bog when you quite pumping. Those early zaps before the tails got wide were where it was at in my opinion. Beautiful things. I like the nuggets because you can use more of the board than the zappers.
Hey Surffoils or anyone else in Oz got any idea where I can get one of those finlocks pictured? Screwdrivers have a habit of slipping with me. No danger of scratched/gouged boards would be great.
I remember those great little devices now. Easy to adjust out in the water and I’d rather have that than the other nut you need a FCS tool for.
Last board I had one in was an early Zap when I was hanging at 3rd ramp, Scum Valley.
Yep the early Zaps before things got too extreme were the cutting edge in performance singles. Beautifully tuned and balanced boards for their era.
I agree that thrusters are not faster than singles , the beauty of a singlefin being able to set a line and not have to pump to maintain speed. I think for me thrusters allowed me to go faster on parts of the wave than I could on the singles. At the time there was a lot of twins around as well but they never suited my style or vise versa with one exception being the Glen Winton twinflex with those deep flex fins which I could ride in small surf.
That was one of those classic periods in design and innovation. Really laid the ground work for the next 25 years of fine tuning.