For me, it was 1957. Alan Nelson had a 5'0' x 20'' balsa board with twin ''half moon'' fins. Today recognized as a ''Mini Simmons.'' I did not know then, that Simmons had built boards with twin fins in the late 40's and early 50's. Alan was surely influenced by those boards, as both were ''regulars'' at Windansea in the early 1950's. It was only years later that upon seeing a Simmons twin, that I recognized the influence of Simmons in the board that Alan had made. Years later, in 1964, I did a board with three equal size, small ''reverse fins'' in what is now termed a ''thruster'' set up. Does anyone, (particularly GhettoRat) have any knowledge of other ventures into the multi fin realm? Or did boards ''always'' have more than one fin? What say you?
Little fuzzy on the exact year (yes, I did inhale), maybe 69’, Dick Keating ripping up a Norcal beachbreak on a small wide tailed twin fin, first multi fin I had ever seen…was so impressed had a 5’8 made for myself…lotta fun that ride…
Hey Bill,
I’m a ways younger than you and boards with more-than-one fin way pre-dated my grommetthood ass.
But remember well seeing a “two-skegger” for the first time.
I was still a kid, holidaying at Lorne and watching with fascination, wondering how the surfers stayed on board as they streaked down the point - I was in awe of the sleek surfboards and tried to lose mum and loiter around where the surfers hung out under the foreshore trees.
I fancied the boards should be ridden upside-down so the fin was like a shark, and one time I spotted a board with two! Count 'em! Two!
In my pre-adolescent way that was a WTF moment.
JD
Wait… surfboards come with more than one fin? haha. I’m starting to think I’m mostly a single fin guy. Although I’ve got four quads and a twinnie on my rack, I’ve not really felt the love for them yet. I’m too back foot heavy.
I’m not a very good historian, since I have a terrible memory, and don’t always pay attention to what’s going on if I don’t see how it directly relates to me at that moment. When did those stick-on sidebites come out? I remember trying those on a few boards, but not sure of the year.
The first twin I remember seeing was one of Corkey’s mini-Simmons type things in about 1970. Of course I had to rush out and get one just like his. That was one of the worst surfing (for me) boards ever. I remember thinking it ruled the whitewash, but sucked at pretty much everything else. Didn’t turn for shit, and was noticeably slower than my other boards.
In 72 I was riding Mike Eaton’s Bonzers. Had lots of those. The ones I had were amazingly fast down the line, but weren’t super loose. The newer ones I’ve tried surf way better.
Bill I had some of your stick ons when I was a kid; as I told you in a pm; it served to inspire me to make my own side bites out of scrap glass, back then I didn’t know who you were, just thought the outer fins was a good idea. At the same time I didn’t know nor at the time know who Velzy was when we bought our first blank from him at Roger’s Foam around 1970, I didn’t care then, but its kind, of cool now. Now let me ask you a question, doesn’t it suck when others have stolen and profited from your ideas without compensation let alone recognition?
[quote="$1"] Bill I had some of your stick ons when I was a kid... [/quote]
No, you did not. As far as I know, the stick-ons were done by Bing Copeland. The tri fins That I did were injection molded, with a glass box that was molded in the board, prior to sanding. The fins were removable, with no tools or screws needed.
For me it was when I hollowed and chambered a redwood tree that fell and trapped me in my cave back in 1131 a.d. The redwood slab as we called it "Thor God Of Wood"...was good to my family, it brought us many fire. After shaping and hollowing out in the shape of a Norweegieen Karp (aka Mini Simmons, Speed shape, with side bites....err, and wings) I installed 3 5 x 5 chunks of granite into the tail. The first go I put the granite on the wrong side. Lacerated my left side of my scrotum... boy was i stupid. I fixes it 1 week later.
I invented the fin...and the tri fin. This is proof.
dam you guys are old. I thought I was old.
My first twin fin (fish) must have been about 1975. A lot of people thought it was nuts. Guys used to stare and laugh and ask me what the he!! it was. Not too many guys riding them around the Ventura area at that time.
My buddy read an article in some magazine with plans and instructions, so he bought a blank and made one in his garage. I liked it, so I had him make me one too. It was 5-11, loved that thing!
My first trip up to Big Sur was before Clark Foam closed.... ........so.........Fall of 2005?
One guy was using fin systems no one had ever seen...and little superchargers too...........Herb S
Some time in the late sixties Hobie had an early twin fin might have been a Corky Carrol model. The first Fish was around 1972 when I first got out of the Army. Fish were starting to appear north of the original home grounds south of La Jolla i bought a used Fish knee board and used it to stand up surf. Soon after I was clued into the earlier twin fin swallow tails by Surfboards La jolla.
I recall using the little stick on fins, got crap from some people. They called them training wheels.
Bears “Twin pins” swoopie turns.
Rock the Cock and his brothers square tailed twinnies from Sunset Surfboards in Encinitas about 71 or 72? Or, maybe the two garage boards a neighbor built in his garage with the help of another older “Rooster” about the same time or earlier. One was a single fin which he used the two ‘stick on’ side fins and the other was a fish in which you could make spider cracks with your thumb.
Bill T. I hope you’re writting some of your stuff down somewhere other than the W.W.W. It’s a great piece of surfing history. How many guys your age, ‘older than rocks,’ are still involved with surfing. I know Mr. Kenvin is doing it, but he’s more my generation. Mike
hey stingy,
i'm buildin' a new stick to replace that very same board.
.......as to the Q: my first belly board in the latter mid 60s was a pacific surfboards from my hometown of imperial beach,ca.
it had two small half moon fins on it. all the way to the back/tail(squaretail) and out to the rails ..........as far as it would go w/o being on the deckside .
it was a great rider,either belly,knee or stand-up.
herb
I thought I wouldn’t have a reply for this post until the mention of Dick Keating. He had a longboard that had a single-fin at the tail like many boards do, but also had a fin with about a 3 to 4" base and a depth of about 3" about 18" from the nose. Steering control from the nose. My friend Manny ended up with such a Keating board, so I got to ride it on occasion. Didn’t exactly turn my world upside down, but it looked really, really cool. Multi-finned - in-lne rather than side by side.
One multi fin that really stood out in my mind back in the day (1974) was this 5’8" Rich Parr Surfboards that I think Harold Iggy or Maybe Rick Irons might have shaped. It was a first incarnation type twin, short, wide, thick, squaretail with two kind of tall skinny plastic removable fins. I had already gone through a twin phase with the fish and was into narrower diamond tails like Lopez was riding. Out of curiousity I borrowed this board just for the hell of it, expecting to write it off. To my surprise it ended up being a really fun board. I could barely cut back with those narrow single fins, but I could actually pull of tight little round house cutbacks on this board. A total mind machine.
I seem to remember boards with twin fins when I lived /worked in Cape Town in the late sixties , my guess is it would have been from the guys at O Donnel they were on the cutting edge of everything surfing at that time .
Corky riding that hollow twin about 1970 or 71. Wide tail with fins way out on the back.
I Made me a little pendant that looked just like that.
A friend got one of those not long after that. His name was Brutus. I think they were made by WAVE. He also had the first Bonzer I ever saw.
The first twin I ever rode was a beat up board we got from our neighbor. I think it may have been a large knee board made by Randy Wong. My brother fixed it and put twin fins that were designed after something he saw in Surfer Mag that Jeff Ho did. It was thin and had cuts into the back about an inch in and maybe a quarter inch between all the way from top to bottom. We surfed that until one of the fins broke off. Then we added super thick fins based off of what Mike Hynson was doing with the Dolfin.
That board snapped in half and I eventually reshaped it into a short fish that I rode a lot at Officer’s Beach Barber’s Point. I let a coworker try it and he never gave it back. That’s Hawaiian style borrowing. He has the first 2 boards I ever made, stripped, re-shaped and glassed all by myself.
The best surfing on a twin I saw was a guy from the west side we called Bush (actually Bush-tree-stump) he was a thick guy missing a few front teeth and he rode the hell out of a small fish whenever Shark Country had good waves. Some of the fastest surfing I ever saw.
Dick Keating also made an oversized kneeboard in the late 60’s with a steering wheel on the front mounted to a pulley with cables going back to a smaller pulley which turned the rotating fin…DK would kick paddle into a walled up wave, vault onto his knees, haul ass down the line, then crank the wheel over sending the board flying into a 180 degree turn back in the direction it had come from, then crank it over again and rebound of the whitewater and back down the wall.
Full spectrum shaper, former red hot surfer who can still rip in his late 60’s, fisherman and diver, custom boat builder, the classic all around waterman, an increasingly rare breed these days.
Surfers Journal did an article on him that unfortunately did little to capture the true spirit and genius of DK - for those who know, the most respected all around waterman to ever come out of Norcal. And also one of the funnest to be around.
I still have one of those little stick on side fins someplace out in the garage. Transluscent red.
First time I ever saw a board with more than was fin was during the summer of 1970. Was living in Ventura and a buddy of mine blew through town with one of those hideous, Hansen, “Strato-Glas” twin fins. Super wide, thick, square tail. No (or at least very little, by today’s standards) cant or toe on the fins, which were set way back on the tail. I tried it out: tracked like nobody’s business and was way too corky and skittish, planing quite high in the water. The fins were very deep (about 5"-6") and were molded of black plastic, if memory serves.
To be fair, the 6’6", S-railed, domed-deck single fin I was riding at the time was also a loser compared to much of what has come since, but that twin fin was a real stinker, in my book. There certainly wasn’t any shortage of dogs floating around during the early shortboard days, as shapers/riders struggled to figure out what worked and what didn’t. I didn’t ride a multi-fin board again til the Mark Richards-style winged swallow twins came on the scene back in the mid-to-late '70s.
“Dick Keating also made an oversized kneeboard in the late 60’s with a
steering wheel on the front mounted to a pulley with cables going back
to a smaller pulley which turned the rotating fin”
I remember somebody mounting a speedometer in the deck of a board back in the mid '60s to find out “how fast surfers go”. I don’t remember if it used some sort of Pitot tube arrangement to measure the water velocity, or what.
I noticed that some of you NorCal guys mentioned Keating and his kneeboard. Did you see this while watching NaturalArt? I wonder whatever became of that film? Iy also showed some hippy stuff and some bigger OceanBeach at VFW's waves.
Gettin on with the years now, and it'd be insane to see that movie again, even with all the hippy stuff. I remember cowering as low as possible when the SF stuff started, Nov'69, VFW's.