Sorry, not buying it. If you are the real Cheyne Horan, I mean no disrespect, but I watched you when you came to Newport every summer. Cheyne was the best surfer in the world riding the worst board. His failure to switch to modern equipment cost him at least 3 (possibly 4) world titles. While I have definitely seen the pluses of riding the fish in some conditions, the lazor zap is one design that needs to be forgotten (especially with the single fin).
you look at it as a failure…i look at as killing creativity in surfing…i rode one of the first thruster…and it worked great …my make up is different…the whole world tour rode thrusters and twins while i changed fins every month…If I had rode the thruster i would have killed creativity in pro surfing…i dont care about about world titles I care about the art of surfing…thanks for your comment about being the best…there were others though that were pushing all the limits as well…cheers to newport had some great summers there…dont forget your history its part of who you are today…aloha Cheyne
I live Hawaii, We are fortunate to have a veriaty of surf! If you like you can ride a hudge range of boards! It is true that you may surf better on one board than the other but it’s really about the felling you get from the choice of board! It’s in the mind!! It would of been nice to see Chayne surf a thruster or even a twin fin. Back then style and the felling of the dance were still important … No dought the surfing today is impressive but it’s nice when someone comes along and changes it up !!
Hey Cheyne… Because of your influence I bought a nugget. It was a 6’2" single fin shaped for me by Greg Pautch. I tried the McCoy keels and the star fin and I just couldn’t get it to work. I surfed that thing everywhere from crappy SoCal beach break to G-land just thinking that I needed to give it time. Even though it had a McCoy logo on it I kept getting “It’s not a real McCoy” so I shelled out the cash and got a “real McCoy” from Solosurfer in Fl. It is 6’ and also a single fin. I played with that thing all summer and there were moments of genius for sure but most of the time I felt like I was struggling. I am not giving up on it but is it possible that this shape is not for everyone? I have a 5’6" twin keel fish and would never even think of comparing it to the nugget, they are different animals and it doesn’t have to be one or the other.
it sounds like your struggling with the single fin…i use both thruster and single…when im on the single its freedom for me…cut loose and do your own thing…singles dont go like thrusters…they go like singles great bottom turns with variety in the lip with great cutbacks…the thruster loves the snap in the pocket
…sometimes I almost puke seeing snaps as ive been watching them for 20years…love to see air though…get yourself a thruster…aloha
People call him “Creature” around the OC/LA countyline,but I know him as Mike .He uses thruster fin set-ups for rudders(prefers glass-on aircores),but the shapes are very different.Mike usually rides a 6 foot something by say 20" with a very dropped wide pt. and the tails are somewhere from 18" - 19" wide.
Mike’s a treat to watch surf.He’s very skilled,and can out ride the 20 something crowd.He’s like 50.Herb
yeah I love to see the elders rippin …my thrusters are glassed on…tell mike i said hi…measurements sound fast
What do you think of the boards that John Orr in Hawaii makes?
regards,
Håvard
some of the best experiences Ive ever had surfing were on johns boards one in particular hanging five in the tube deep going past a bodysurfer in the tube both us smiling and laughing…yeah his boards go great you can nose ride and rip on them…aloha
I agree on Cheyne being the best surfer in the world, but that Pink railed board he road was the for runner of what you call the modern surfboard. How could it then be the worst surfboard in the world. Cheyne’s boards did not cost him the world title, but the fact that he did not play the game by other peoples standards. He stayed true to his own convictions. Simon Anderson himself has said without the lazor zap outline there would have been no thruster, so your comments simply do not hold up. Go to Cheyne’s website and look at his competitive record. Look and 1982 and see the number of wins and top 5 finishes he had and tell me that you think there was no fix on world titles. Go back and watch the footage of the second OP pro and tell me that Cheyne did not win that contest instead of Curren (who was sponsored by OP at that wtime). What wins world titles depends alot on who you are sponsored by and what is in vouge at the time. Not in every case, but in the infancy of pro surfing there was alot of that.
You look at Cheyne’s Pink railed board today and it will still hold up to what some call a fish. I have yet to see a board that still has so much mystery surrounding it as does the Lazor Zap. I am glad Cheyne has created this post on the board that became the modern surfboard, but is constantly left out of the magazines and given it’s proper place in surfings history.
well you have a unfair advantage you know me…and what ive done…the dvd is on the way isent it today…let me know if it works in usa we did it in ntsc…aloha
Very interesting. Riden with a single fin? Did this preceed the “no nose” sailboards or did they preceed this ?
all boards were wider in the nose then the tail…i told mccoy I just want to jump up and never move just start jammin so he put all the area under my feet this changed boards forever every one now rides lazor zaps…wider in the tail then the nose…
mate stoked…i love these old shots…ive never seen em…i saved it…that board was in a surfshop display this year…how he got the board i dont know…thanks heaps aloha cheyne
I bid on that board on ebay, but Danny Kwock got it ( I thought) it went for over $500.00 That and the pink railed boards were real beauties. I still love those designs.
No disrespect intended towards elewis. Not at all. There is simply so much bad information in the magazines which have tried to write some of surfings history to fit their sponsors and keep what they think the industry should be like going. I feel the modern shortboards look old and worn out and the surfing all looks pretty much the same. Thats what I miss about the early pro tour; you never knew what you were going to see in the water and a surfers style marked him as a unique individual instead of a cloan.
Thanks on the dvd. I have quite a bit of interest in it here. It is the standard now for all others. Thank you for making a much needed and very informative beginer dvd. I hate to admit it after almost 30 years of surfing, but I even picked up something from it. The putting your legs in a V on the board thing works unreal.
I have a copy cat of your old pink board that Pautschy did for my old shop and I let rippers ride it from time to time and they never want to bring it back to me. It’s a 5’11’’ . I agree with you that the nugget is an improvment. I like the stumpy and the potbelly.
Thanks for the call during the Hurricane. My phone is out or I would have called back.
Take care.
Swaylocks is one great place for information. If not for this forum many of these types of things would never make it to the mags.
I respect your opinion, and I still think Cheyne (you) was the best surfer in the world, but I still think the lazor zap is what held him back from taking world titles from MR. If the board was so great why did know one else ride them to any success on the world tour. There are pluses and minuses to almost all designs. It is obvious Simon took the pluses and got rid of the rest.
Tell me why I built the board attached and surf it with a starfin or as many as seven fins:
To much emphasis is put on how surfers place in contests IMHO. It seems to me that winning comes in many forms. I don’t have a clue how Cheyne and MR got along in the day or how they get on now but when you look at the type of boards they rode, how the rode them and how they completely dominated the circuit it’s clear that what they did and the ideas that are foiled into their boards you have some of the most potent seeds ever sown in the evolution of surfboards and surfing. Looking closely at what they rode and combining the things that are foiled in these boards you know how influential they are in modern surfboard design. The fin placement and fin designs they were using also represents a pivotal stage in performance developement.
Both of these gentlemen continue to be sterling examples for all the groms comming up and are still in my book two of the greats surfers ever. MR’s main stream image and Cheyne’s individuality may have had something to do how they placed in four successive years but the fact remains that although they are very different individuals in and out of the water the evolution of surfing and surfcraft would have suffered big time without them. In the end who’s on top doesn’t matter as much as what the contribution is to the big picture and their contribution continues to this day.
We all have our favorites. It seems to me that if your surfing style is more like one than the other you will favor him. MR is more bird like than anyone I can remember. Cheyne is the most explosive surfer I’ve ever seen.
Thanks for the reply, I appreciate your opinion. The thing is 90% of the boards I ride are single fins. I think my problem is the single fin nugget surfs more like a thruster. It works best when I really concentrate on surfing with my back foot.
Separate but related issue… I just broke my 3rd Starfin!!! It broke in the same place, right in the crack of the wings. I now have three one winged Starfins… screwed to the wall in the garage they make great utility hooks but I would rather they were still functioning. Have you ever had these manufactured in fiberglas? The plastic is just so brittle.
I have the jig all ready to make starfins. The trouble with fabricating them is that it’ll be so labor intensive. Very, very few surfers will pay for all the time it takes to make a custom fin like this. One can be made from a glass/carbon-epoxy lamination that will be just about bullet proof but I will take a lot of work. I’ll spare you the details of construction unless you have genuine interest.
I’m kind of amazed that the polycarbonate Starfins than Cheyne sells are breaking on you. I have a couple that I surf occasionally and neither one shows and fatigue at all.
Halcyon, ballpark and not holding you to it, how much are we talking for a bullet-proof starfin? And could it be made with a Futures tab? I have a STech nugget that I would like to try as a single.
If you surftech nugget has a futures center fin tab ~ that little one for a standard future fin center. I wouldn’t even consider making a star fin for it. You can’t get it to go in there and the fin box wouldn’t stand the torque the starfin would put on it. If it has a standard Bahne Box in the center you can get one from Cheyne. I can’t make one unless he gives me the OK. It’s his baby.
I have an original red stafin with a broken tab that I was going to grind down to fit in a back center futures box on my Brewer retro stinger fish. Pictures attached.
I’ll keep you updated…
seems like the newer opaque ones are stronger than these old clear ones… maybe just my imagination.
I agree with Rich, you’d want to slide this puppy forward a bit to get the most out of it. Hanging off the tail it’s more like a sail boat rudder than anything else
Cheyne may have not won the world title as a result of riding the lazor zap, but it was not because of the way the board performed for Cheyne, it was because of prejudice and Cheyne not playing along with the way the powers at be wanted pro surfing to go. As for others riding them. They sold hundreds of them back then and if you are riding a thruster today, you are riding a refined lazor zap. As for Simon taking the good and getting rid of the so called bad. His first board looked like a lazor zap. It had a 12 inch nose was 20 inches wide and had a 16 inch tail. Cheyne later began riding 18’’ and wider tails, but his original had about a 16" tail. The Lazor zap is the missing link in modern surfboard design and Mccoy is given little credit for his major if contributions to design. Especially since every single modern pro surfer is riding his plan shape. You can go all the way back to Velzy pigs and see the experiments with wider back tails and narrow noses. Geoff simply put his beautiful and functional shaping style along with his bottoms with the design and gave it life. If you want to see other surfers who have ridden the designs go to my website solosurfer.com just to name a few:
Larry Blair
Mark Warren
Damian Hardman
Nicky Wood
Another Mccoy rider prior to zaps was M.R. himself.
