first ,
then …
post your photos of the man HERE … 52 years old and charging !
december 1980 issue , photo taken at D.Y. point , by the late Peter Crawford [R.I.P.] …
1981…
Hi Chipfish
That cover of Simon at DY is unreal thanks Chipfish!, im going to see him in person in Bondi junction this Friday, he is doing promotion thing in a surfshop…I cant wait!
I dont know what to say to him without being a pain in the arse. Is there any chance i could get that cover in a higher resolution for print (for me)
And is there any burning question youve always wanted ask him I might pass it on! Thanks and Regards Brian
“you owe simon anderson 5 dollars”
tell him "thanks for making the thruster " , and if inclined , give him a few dollars (as per whoever it was who suggested we should give a dollar each for every thruster we have ever owned since 1981 …)
[also maybe ask him what size that board was he won big Bells on that year ? And was it the same board he rode at the surfabout , and the pipe masters that year too ?]
cheers
ben
one of the guys whose boards I worked on in my previous life, simon 6’2"
notice the long natural low entry curve and accelerated tail rocker.
This generic design is what slater used at JBay some years back…lota power under the front foot
prefect for long fast point breaks.
nik.
interesting doing this sort of work with top level shapers. To understand where they are giong with their designs
you realy have to get inside their head…pretty scarey place sometimes.
Simon’s bottom turn at Sunset was soo square and powerful, just unmatched. Any photos out there?
Aloha! I got to work with the big guy at Nectar in Cal. in the mid eighties, when he would come over and shape with Gary McNabb. He clued me in to some valuable tips that really cleaned up my rough shape style. I still use the same approach, thousands of blanks later. Much Mahalo. Aloha…RH
Hey Chip, I got to surf with the big fella on Saturday afternoon at DY. He was riding a 6’ 3" “quad” fish and let me tell you he can still surf pretty damm well!! Made me think about making my new fish a “quad”!
Simon is right up there as one of my favorite surfers. I forgot how pretty he shaped lazor zap outlines for his thrusters. The guy can surf.
Singlefin,
What’s his quad look like? Is it a full nose Lis fish outline with a quad set up and deep swallows.? Similar to what’s very popular in the USA right now? Let us know.
apparently the board he used to win the '81 bells was a 6’6" thruster, ridden on the big day and in the final where it was small. check the footage out in ‘storm riders’. other interesting footage of him is in ‘fantasea’. where he rides single fins at j bay and narrabeen. heavy back foot, right on the tail.
Hi Chipfish
I gave him 6 bottles of quality wine for all the thusters ive owned he was stoked! But not as much as me. He signed photos I had prepared of him for me, one being a shot of him with the first thruster ever. He wrote that on the photo with his sig. He also said that board was burnt in a fire soon after he made it, he still has all the other testers tho.
I asked him about the thrusters he used at bells, yes it was a 6’6 he also used 2 6’2 at other contests.
He was a terrific bloke, straight shooter. A Shaper called Murray Burton was at the shop too, Him and Simon were both working on quads, they had their demos next to each , and had this full-on discussion. It was great evesdropping
