I have been blessed with several ,“Magic” boards in my lifetime…
…but there’s always that one…
…That one that stands out…
…Tell us your story,make,model,and best moment.
A 8’ Keyo, huge raking red fin, learnt to surf on it and it lasted nearly 8 years of abuse…
It was also my first fibreglass board…heavy as buggery but I took it to the beach nearly every day from Randwick to Coogee and back…
Made me really strong too…
6.9 x 18.75 x 2.55 roundpin thruster. Supergreen .25" bass stringer. Shaped it around…oh…say ‘86. Still to this day, the best board I have ever owned. Absolutely, completely magical in every way. I rode that board to death and back about 3 times and even when it was a discolored wreck, it still worked unreal. I used it on head high days at Diamond Head, at 6’ Off the Wall and 6-8’ Ricebowls. I was riding it when I broke my back at Backdoor when I was 21, and after I recovered it had survived being borrowed by all my friends, and still worked as well as it ever did. I did the best surfing of my life on that thing and seemed to make anything I tried when riding it. Everyone that rode it wanted to buy it off me, but I wasn’t selling. I finally gave it to some kid in the country one day.
Only got about 18 months of surfing to pick from, and i’ve only ridden a few boards. At the moment, my fish is my fave, but i learnt to surf on a minimal, 7’6’’ x 16 x 21 1/2 x 14. Its dinged up now, but i refuse to throw it out, and im thinking of getting it restored/fixed. I had so much fun learning to surf on that board, a lot of “breakthroughs” on it too. I just cant get rid of it. As much fun i have on my fish, i still want to be able to ride my minimal now and then.
my favorite board is always the one I am working on.
…ambrose…
slow tom asked about ya today.
he’s doin ok.
My first thruster it was a 6ft X?? probably about 2.3 thick rounded pin Skill made by PSP in South Aftrica(Home for me then). It was amazingly light and it surfed amazingly on my backhand. Its the reason why I love surfing on my backhand today. It fell to pieces after about 3 years of abuse. But maybe I was just fitter and more radical back then.
But my latest is shaping up to be a keeper. Funny enough also a rounded pin
Keep well
Mine was a 6 foot round pin. Early eighties thruster. I was told it was Harbor Bill’s and he didn’t like it. Had to be perfect I suppose considering where he likes to surf, how deep, and the consequences. Anyway, it was perfect for me. I was still in my prime and I remember getting out of the water and thinking ‘I have never surfed better than right now.’ Still true I guess. Rode it until it was roached and gave it to a friend who also loved it. Mike
I bought mine in around 84-85. Must have been a good design year
The next one! Prior to that, 9’6" Peck Penatrator from MP bought it maybe 1967 or 68. Inside Campus Point in SB. Perfect little waist to chest high, paper thin tubes. Flying.
Haven’t found / built one yet . . .
the best that stands out is a 7’6 harbour SR egg. But while its great, its not ‘magic’ or what others have described as magic.
Well I have quiver of boards to try out, its bound to be one of them!
The one i first stood up on - 14 years old (22 years ago)- old thruster with a big redback spider on the deck. Cant remember what happenned to it though - would love to think that another 14 year old boy is getting his first ride!
Ado
72’ when surfing was just playing…
a custom 6’8" single wing single fin swallow from Harold Iggy
pulling off big backside over the falls floaters sideways in the lip and making it over and over again at sharkcountry in front of all the hot goofy foots
Early 90’s
6’8" Gary Linden “recycler” Epoxy/EPS till it delammed
same spot same move except being able to air launch and meet the lip halfway in the air with the bottom of my board making the loudest smacking noise anyone had ever heard in the lineup over and over again on the same wave. Everyone couldn’t believe I hadn’t snapped or bucked the board after that fireworks sounding ride…
but you always seem to surf better in your memories…
Hi Oneula,
Where did your board delam and why do you think it did??
Wouter
Can’t really narrow it down to just one. I have a list of my top three.
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6’10" Ocean Rythyms round pin, tri fin with glass ons by Paul Kuhn in Santa Barbara. It was a late 80’s model that he made for himself for a trip to Puerto Rico. He didn’t like it, but it was pure magic for me. Took that board all over Costa Rica and Baja to Santa Cruz.
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7’10"? double ender, tri-fin w/glass ons, from “Gumby” Pat Ryan at ET surfboards in Hermosa Bch. Purchased in 99. Another great travel board from Baja to Kauai and all over California. Have some great memories from that board. Especially one perfect day at Pakala’s. Some of the longest most perfectly shaped Lefts I’ve ever ridden.
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7’2" S deck hull from Spencer Kellogg. This is my go-to board throughout most of the year. It’s so smooth & casual yet loaded with speed when needed. This is another board that has traveled from Central Ca. to Baja and back. I can’t imagine ever getting rid of this board. Then again, I eventually sold the previous two.
Honorable Mention:
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6’4" Allan Gibbons round pin. Surfed it to pieces in H.B. in the late 80’s. Literally!
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6’2" Matt Moore tri-fin square tail w/quad channels. Also a late 80’s model. Snapped two fins off it in S.B. during two separate sessions. Finally buckled it at Hendrys Bch.
Hyson-designed Bahne Standard, as of (methinks) 1970. The one with the soft diamond tail, I think the previous year was a rounded pin, and the following year was a round tail (I could have that backwards) I could practically make that board sit up and beg. Rode it for over two years, and loved every wave. Then I got the “gotta have something newer” fever, and traded it in on a more radical board that I never did get completely wired. A perfect example of “better is the enemy of good enough”, although the inadequacies of the replacement did lead me to shape some of my own (purely out of economics), so it wasn’t entirely a bad thing. I never have quite recaptured the magic of that Bahne, though…
-Samiam
I think my all-time favorite was a 7’0" Lightning Bolt round-pin single from about 1972 or so. That thing worked in everything, and it totally shredded. I remember walking down the street one time in Huntington when a carload of guys pulled up convinced I was Lopez. “I’m not Gerry Lopez” - says me with my goatee and lip hair (this is in 74 when I was 16). “Good one Gerry” - says one of the guys… “we’ll keep it a secret that you’re here”. haha
My 9’2" Brewer hi-performance noserider is my all-time favorite longboard. I have four of them - the original that Dick made for himself, and three copies that Matt Ambrose scanned and Michel Junod finished. All of them are red… my new color. I’ve discovered that guys seem to get out of my way more when I’m coming at them on a red board. The original and one copy live in my garage in San Fransicso, one copy lives in Kauai, and one will be stationed in San Clemente. That way I don’t have to shlep longboards all the time.
My 6’4" Stewart EPS S-railed fish is pretty magic. It’s light and really fast:
I just picked this up yesterday. It’s a 6’4" quad by Michel Junod. It has a modern quad tail and a 70’s style nose. It should be good for a beefy old guy like me. That’s Michel in the first pic:
I can’t wait to try this gun I got from Reno… well… considering what it’s made for, maybe I can… this board makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. It’s a 9’3" gun with a 3" channel running down the bottom. That’s Reno with it in the pics. The purple and green one is mine… I fell in love with the resin tint. The pink and blue board may be for sale. It’s 9’8" and designed for a big boy with big balls. If you’re that guy, and you want to drop a wad of cash PM me:
ok…dont tell anyone but my favorite board is my 5’11" barney swallow tail by santa cruz…i know i know its one out of a million just like it so how can it be “magic?”
well it wasnt until i put the futures vector 3/2’s on it with the hatchet trailer
ive ridden it in DOH morro bay and east coast hurricane swells and waist high everywhere else with the same setup and i love it…most fun board ive ever ridden…but there are a lot of boards i would still like to ride
Quote:
well it wasnt until i put the futures vector 3/2's on it with the hatchet trailer
This helps support Futures claim that the fins are more important than the board.
why else?
I forgot it in my car one day surfing another board.
in the early 90’s most of us were kind of clueless about epoxies back then anyway
This was well before Surftech came about
Same thing happened to my Bamboo Surfboards Australia epoxy in the late 90’s
no one was putting vents in them back then…
The board was great though
I wish I bought several more
superlight, paddled like a dream and very fast with wood glass-ons fins
and the multiple tint lines from the glue-up of all the individual cast off strips of foam looked neat.
Made you think you were making a green statement back then even though I understamd now it was all clever marketing by Linden as it is probably today by the new snake oil salesfolks.
My current fave is my 5 fin Griff fish which is just a good all around board for everything except those days when you need a thruster mingun.
I was going to mention this thinned out flex fin mini-tank my aunt owned in the early 70’s shaped by Rennie Yater called a RamseyJay (?). That board was well ahead of it’s time as was some of the custom concaved bottom tri-fin Brewer swallows her son rode in the early 70’s. But I never owned those boards.
It’s funny how boards over the years all blur together. But the right board at just the right time in just the right place; that’s different.
Early 1970’s at the peak of my physical abilities, in relatively uncrowded reef breaks, in college so no worries…
My friend Dave Lloyd’s 6’4" 23" wide Liddle spud with a flex tail. A real flex tail; all the foam scooped out and nothing but glass in the last 10 inches of tail. 9.5 Liddle fin up around 13 inches. Smmoooth, loose rail to rail. So easy to link up turns. I could feel the tail twist up on a steep wall.
The last reef you can walk into, minus tide, head high + south swell, rights just wind down the rock ledge gaining speed as the wave wraps into the little cove. Make the drop and do a S-turn check before laying it over. The tail loads up and lets go in a power drift up the face. The wave feathers and starts to square at the base. Roll to the outside rail. Not too much, more of a re-direct but you can feel the g’s.
Aim for the the base, the crook between the face and flat…This time, push it over hard, weight forward, aim way down the line and hold it up on the rail. That deep gurgle is all around and the tail is twisted just right; no slip, no drift. The rail and bottom find the line by themselves. Nothing left to do but enjoy the view…
Last time I saw the board was in a photo of Dave’s garage in Las Vegas. He had tacked a thruster set up on it…