Hi Rachel,
As Sam and John have mentioned, these were transitional models, typically more like 7’4" or so long than 6’6"… how shall I put this, they were not great boards.
Round rails, mostly, a kinda odd rocker, they all had kind of a blob outline, long Greenough type fin to keep it from sideslipping out of a wave - and that was about it. As a thruster, the shape would be awful, as a singlefin with a lot of fin it’s marginal. We are basicly talking about a board where somebody took an old-school longboard rail and rocker and put it on a slightly newer outline shape and called it good enough. Hey, they didn’t know any better, y’know?
Similar boards would be the early G&S Magic, Weber Ski and the earlier Stratos, and yes, the Phillips Strawberry Shortcut, though they were a helluva sight more sophisticated than the DFG in terms of rails, rocker and bottom contours.
The later ‘just before the twin-fin’ era boards, similar to the old Weber Australia might be better for what you’re looking for, wider tailed and much more sophisticated rails and rocker and bottom shape. With an even newer rail and rocker, it might work with a thruster setup as well as working as a single.
Or the mid-'70s gunny shapes, typically around 7-and-change, mostly downrailed with mebbe a little concave to the bottom, though the Reno Abellira hyper-kick nose versions are something to steer clear of. Of all the '70s boards, I’d say those worked the best.
Of course, the question then arises: why try to make a 1970s shape work with a modern fin and rail setup when there’s lots of others done since then that work just fine.
Just a rant in general, but I really don’t get this retro thing - I was around for all that stuff, the whole range of boards that came out in the late '60s through early '80s, and the main reason for most of them was to come out with something new every year that the poor dumb surfers ‘had to have’ - it sold a lot of boards, but the fact is a lot of them were horrible.
hope that’s of some use
doc…
