Yes. I remember getting a Magic shipped to me in the middle of my 1969 Summer promotional tour. It had the new Guidance System.
Here's an exerpt from another thread (Con Auzzie) where a similar conversation is going on:
"The Guidance System was developed by the members of the
Surfboard Manufacturers Association. The major brands didn't like the idea of
buying fin systems from their own competitors (Morey/Pope w.a.v.e. set, Bill
Bahne Fins Unlimited) so they contracted to have their own system designed and
manufactured. It was a short lived venture. When Bill Bahne/Fins Unlimited came
out with his system which went back to a fiberglass fin, instead of the plastic
fins in the other systems, he took over the market."
and
"By '70, at G&S we were using our own system
designed by Larry Gordon. It had a fiberglass fin and was introduced in an ad
which said “Narrow Boards and Glass Fins”. We had a couple of
problems. One was interchangeability. The other was how to keep the fin from
falling out. Bill Bahne was working on a similar system and he solved the two
problems. We switched to his Fins Unlimited system but not until we’d shipped a
few boards with our system which became a problem for me as I traveled from
dealer to dealer trying to get the fins to fit."
Here’s a funny story about that: For the w.a.v.e set system, each manufacturer had designed their own fin. Larry Gordon’s fin was the most popular. I remember him designing the plug getting the curve just right and sanding that thing and getting it foiled the way he wanted it. It did look good. Shops were ordering boards from other manufacturers and requesting the G&S fin. When the manufacturers association put together the Guidance System one of the issues was they had been buying the finboxes from their competitors and the other was they were buying the fins designed by another competitor.
They forgot the initials for the Guidance System was GS. There was more than one comment at one of the SMA meetings.
Anyway, the move away from the polypropolene fins which were way too flexible and the lexan replacements which broke too easily was swift with the invention of the removeable fiberglass fin.
The original copy for the ad above had some pretty disparaging comments about the plastic fins and I cautioned Larry that we had a lot of boards (thousands) that we’d sold with those fins and boxes and that we had to be careful not to talk down our own product in the ad. The average customer only knew that their board was a G&S they didn’t necessarily understand the the fin boxes had come from another supplier and even if they did, we were the ones that had installed them and manufactured and sold the final product.
Skip Frye had designed a series of fins for w.a.v.e set and he had a gym bag full of sanded fins that he would switch around in his boards. I remember him returning from his first session on a board with the newly designed removeable fiberglass fin. He took the gym bag full of w.a.v.e. set fins and threw it in the trash can in front of the PB Surf Shop.
I remember looking at that bag laying in the trash can. I thought, briefly, about pulling it out and saving it for posterity. But I was mostly living in a van at the time. I really didn’t have room for the collection. Can you imagine what that would go for at one of the collector’s auctions or on ebay today?
Ok, can the mods tell me what “Normal O” means at the beginning of my post. It’s not on the preview and I can’t edit it out.
