Congratulations to Rich Sanders aka Halcyon for getting the write up in the Santa Cruz Sentinel.
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/…/stories/02sport.htm
Gwen Mickelson: Local surfer pushes the fin frontier
Rich Sanders popped out of his old yellow Mercedes on a recent weekday and spread a collection of his artisan surfboard fins on the hood.
“Touch them,” he said, his round face breaking into a smile.
There’s a big blue one with a white hibiscus print that slopes suddenly near the top; there are a couple little side fins with green palm fronds appearing to spike through them; others are a clear green tint, as if they’re made from an old soda-pop bottle. They’re pretty.
“I got that one off a tuna fin,” Sanders said, gesturing to a slim, blue model. His designs, he said, come from long observation of the fins and wings that have evolved over millennia in the natural world and work very, very well. He calls his brand Halcyon, a word that means happy, joyful, carefree — a feeling he hopes his fins inspire in the water.
A lot of surfers, particularly ones newer to the pursuit, just get their surfboard off the rack and use whatever fins come with it. But as surfers progress in ability, fins become yet another way to experiment and push their level of performance and enjoyment.
A fin, said Sanders, is the sail and propeller of a board, while the surfer is the rudder.
In the world of surfboard design, fins could be the final frontier, say surfboard shapers. Tinkerers such as Sanders, 64, of Live Oak, are playing a role alongside large fin production companies in encouraging the next step in surfing’s development.
“We’ve done so much in shaping,” said Santa Cruz board-maker Michel Junod, who has several sets of Sanders’ fins. “The last few years there’s been more emphasis on fins — the quads coming out, the types of fins and materials. All this type of design is creating some great speed and velocity out of the turns” 
Sanders has been playing around with a four-fin setups, or “quads” — even for longboards.
“I have a set he made me for a fish, and they work really good,” said Junod. “They really accelerate out of the turns. He’s onto something”
For Sanders, a plumber and longtime local soccer coach, making fins is a creative outlet and an expression of both keen observation and a deep and lifelong love of the water. For his art fins, he uses cloth or photos to make groovy designs, such as a multicolored leaf that looks pressed in glass, or stripes that have a zebra effect. Performance fins, however, are plain.
“Most of my fins are imitations of the beasts that swim in the sea,” said Sanders, who’s been making fins since 1973. “It’s functional sculpture, is what it is. It’s a study in fluid dynamics”
More artist than businessman, Sanders might make a dozen fins a month, or he might make none. But thanks to the Internet, he sends them all over the world, including to San Diego, Huntington Beach, Virginia, Florida, Spain, England and Australia. Former Australian professional surfer Cheyne Horan is a client; so is Santa Cruz pro Peter Mel, as well many area local surfers. Sanders has collaborated with a long list of local board makers.
A former commercial fisherman, Sanders had a lot of time to study what worked in nature.
“Round surfaces enjoy the water,” he says, in one of his poetic sentences that seem to have been crafted and polished for days rather than simply stated off the cuff. “I don’t like flat spots too much. They’re dead. They don’t do anything”
All of his fins are custom made. Before making a fin, he’ll want to know how fast a board is going to go, the shape of the board, the type of surf conditions it will be ridden in and a million other details.
“The variables are infinite,” he said.
His high performance fins are made with carbon fiber, fiberglass, bamboo veneer and epoxy. The pretty fins are of polyester resin and fiberglass, though Sanders prefers epoxy construction for its more environmentally friendly profile. Custom fins run $80-$200.
He has no Web site, let alone a storefront. He doesn’t advertise. If you order something, you may wait three months. It’s just something he does for the love of it.
“You just discover what’s in your heart,” said Sanders, “and you do it”
To reach Sanders, e-mail .