the history of concaves goes way back as we all know i would venture to say that to not mention Greenough and his contribution to the modern shortboard design stubbies, concaves, Tri hulls, flex fins would be a major ommision, as remembered somewhere in the sixties the evolution was taking place at Rincon maybe some of the old Wilderness shapers could give a history if not George maybe Cundith? aloha
The Channin Diffenderfer boards in 1969 - 70 with their low rail line to edge in the rear ,slight tri -plane bottoms with double concave out the back ,
and the Hynson influenced Brewer Inter - Island and Hanapepe surf shop down rail boards surpassed the Wilderness hull shapes in performance and speed.
The original Wilderness only lasted about 2 years because of this.
The Pat Curren guns at the Santa Barbera Surf shop in the early 60’s were the unspoken of influence that led to these boards.
They were great surfers and were a major influence on what Al Merrick made in the 70’s in his hull shape single fins.
And of course i made all this 10 years earlier when i was only 5 - 8 years old !
Hi to Sunsetpoint
Do you have any pics of your old boards, the other era, with or without waves?
Hope so,
Thanks
This is a picture of a concave tailed wing pin 6’10 i made in 1978 that was sent to me a year ago.
Like Greg L. i really liked these in the 70’s
I made concave tail wing diamond tailed tri fins i really liked - my version and inspired by the Brewer type of 70-71
I moved to Hawaii and brought a wing swallow tri fin with me in 1980.
I would like to keep this thread about the people who have made history and changes in design , Maurice is one of them and i am not.
Hi I love to see those pics, its such big part of history you dont see in magazines, especially in Europe
About you not being one of them, you cant look (or is it see??) into the future…
Thanks for keeping us informed…
About the picture,
do you surf that board, or tried at least, just to feel it out?
Is it true what they say about that Brewer outline, being the cleanest, ever?
Or about gun design not being altered through the years?
Who is your oldest legend, who still surfs today? On what design? Is it a historical design? And for the same conditions, but for a younger fitter surfer, what different design does he shape? Is that one historical? What is the biggest design breakthrough for big wave surfboards you reckon?
Share! loving it.
Bob Duncan is the last Wilderness shaper he posts now and then maybe he can post some history very reclusive though the first Wilderness shop was at the old ice plant area before refrigerated trains lot of surfing history went thru there maybe someone has photos, Dan Hazard and co. and his ranch adventures if could or would be told great reading of course i was not even born when this happened, aloha
Wilderness was the Cult surfboard conection to OZ back then but was cut off by the down rail boards of 1970. Hiking in in 1966 with your longboard from Jalama with sleeping bags full of food on the rail road tracks. Then having them come at you at 60 miles an hour. - great fun.
Camping at Pericos and having Floyd looking down at you from the cliff wondering what he is going to do.
2 freinds taking diet pills and running to Coho for the day.
On the way out at night one of us moves the green shit out of the way in a cow trough for a drink.
In the car his eyes swell up to the point of closing and its high speed all the way to his parents house 200 miles away. Lots of adventure back then.
I don’t think it matches one go out at Ghost Trees though.
Sorry if you misinterperated what I wrote. Vee off the tail was pretty much done by the early 70’s. I don’t consider a blended vee a reverse vee. It’s also not vee off the tail. The apex of a blended vee is in the area of the fin. Again, I consider a reverse vee to have the apex of the vee 1/3rd from the nose of the board blending into a reasonably flat last 1/3rd. Concaves have been around since longboards, even in tails. But popularity of this bottom design is a 90’s phenominon and was never more than an underground fancy before that. I’m pretty sure most would agree that the general evolution goes from spiral vee to cambered spiral vee, to blended vee, to reverse vee, to concaves. Putting a name to each would be McT for the spiral, Dotson for the cambered spiral, a bunch of people for the blended, Cole for the reverse, and Webber for the concave. Anyone disagree?
Just for us uneducated folks, can you define each of these?
spiral vee to cambered spiral vee, to blended vee, to reverse vee,
It seems that lots of folks use these names interchangeably…
Thanks,
JSS
So where do the single to double concave single fins of 1970 - 71 fit in.
A major contest was won by a notable surfer on one of these.
And the double concave tail channin diffs in 69 - 70-these were not underground
Bruce Jones did this bottom on most of his Russel shapes in 1972 as so did others
Al Merrick stayed with his tri plane hull bottoms until 1978-9 when twins were revived and he was making them for Shaun
To bad no one can post the Brewer sting that has a concave tail its pretty dynamic looking and doesnt fit.
Things were happening all the time
There was no High wing squash for over 20 years back then. It was a time of change not stagnation.
I am shure your living through this time period has kept you motivated and got you where you are .
What seems to be going on now is waiting for a design to reach a certin momentum then jumping on it until the next one arises by most.
Maybe I’m stuck in some time warp, but would’nt eliminating vee in the tail, although speeding up the board, make it harder to bank the board from rail to rail? I’ve always felt the you need to have at least a tiny amount of vee to loosen the tail up.
On the good ones tail kick is what eliminated the vee from the begining.
You just simply chopped off the vee with your planer raising the tail above the veed section in front of it.
This allowed all of us to go staight up just like Johnny Boy right ?
Certainly everything has been done all through all eras. I’m talking in generalities and what was the most prevelent design in each era. I could come up with people who were doing different things all along as well. Natural Art had double concaves in the early 70’s. Stewart had em sometime in the 70’s as well, so did others. But where did they lead and did they lead to what we have today? There’s a strong evolutionary track and that’s what I’m talking about. Putting the reverse vee into perspective along with the others.
We have certainly seen a stagnent period but changes are happening now and we’ll see revolutionary ideas again.
When I read your descriptions of various types of V, you describe them as transitioning down the length of the board, almost depicting a genre of board and not the V per se. I always visualize the V as it lays across the width of the board at different points and how the type of V itself may transforms as it moves along the rocker. Your perspective of V appears more relative to rocker and position, or at least as you descibe it.
They lead to a shaper making them with a rider such as Tom Curran or as a surfer shaper such as Simon using these and these becoming validated and marketed while they existed all along.
All these shapers you mentioned using double concaves in the 70’s is what i am taliking about.
Most here would think it was a thruster era design.
I wonder if the internet is changing all that. Certainly competition success still validates a design and leads to uptake by the average surfer (eg Firewire and Taj). But word of mouth has always been mportant too and forums such as this are word of mouth amplified by the number page views. I wonder how much the recent fish revival and the quad boom were driven by average guys posting their experiences online.
In 1995 i was hired to work for Russ K. Makaha
They were a high end longboard company and the first board they wanted me to make for their japanese cientele were fishes becaues of the Tom Curren video
This was about a rider and way before internet interest.
While i was redeveloping my multi finned boards for T&C about 4 years ago all top shapers here were scoffing at them. They did feature my 3 - 4-fin shortboard on their website from 1999 - 2001 as well.
Then the Stretch thing happened and many started to make 4-fin shortboards and then a few started making fishes.It almost took a year for this to get going.
Only when orders for pro shortboard shapes got really low did i see a shaper copy and make fishes and once busy again that has almost stopped.
None of these boards came to be because the shapers were really interested in making them out of their own interest in making something different.
About 1 month ago i was standing in a showroom where a customer and sales person were disscusing the design merits of a major hawaian shapers epoxy " custom type " board and how the customer was going to get one soon.
Both had their chests sticking out with pride being involed with such greatness.
This board was selling for 425.00 and was made in china and illegaly had no label on it identifying it as such.
Team riders are riding these and several longtime customers hated them , yet they are going to dealers right now.
This is the next level of non inovation - creativity .
In the 70’s non shaper made model boards only lasted a short time because of the constant change in design.
These will take over most of the slots in the stores in the near future because its good buisness.
Shop owners don’t follow whats on the internet.
Hi Greg,
Can you make a decent living these days?
Cheers