REMINDER: THE ARENA PLATFORM, INC. has no obligation to monitor the Forums. However, THE ARENA PLATFORM, INC. reserves the right to review any materials submitted to or posted on the Forums, and remove, delete, redact or otherwise modify such materials, in its sole discretion and for any reason whatsoever, at any time and from time to time, without notice or further obligation to you. THE ARENA PLATFORM, INC. has no obligation to display or post any materials provided by you. THE ARENA PLATFORM, INC. reserves the right to disclose, at any time and from time to time, any information or materials that we deem necessary or appropriate to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, contract obligation, legal or dispute process or government request. Click on the following hyperlinks to further read the applicable Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
older designs are still relevant
- Thread starter Thunderbird six
- Start date
Yeah, I don’t think anyone would describe AO as user-friendly. For me, it certainly makes me work for those magic moments and push through those kooky moments/waves. It doesn’t help that, as you say, it doesn’t like mush. With tide, wind, time of day I can surf, I typically end up surfing less than ideal conditions for AO… or as I used to say, not ghost-worthy. Anyway, I’m challenging myself to try to ride it more this year to try to tame it, like breaking in a bronco LOL
As far as innovations in modern boar design the past 15 years, I’d say it’s more about shapers combining existing design elements in new ways.
Last edited:
If I’m in surf shape and the waves are firing nothing is better than a lightly glassed pu/pe hpsb. A fair amount of rocker with nor a sliver of extra foam. Small sweet spot and not very forgiving. But if I’m on and the waves are on it’s soooo on.
Too bad I have a mental block riding that kind of boar anymore. Or probably an old age physical block. Haha.
Too bad I have a mental block riding that kind of boar anymore. Or probably an old age physical block. Haha.
100% agree.
I’ve begrudgingly accepted the past 5 years that those elements rarely come together at the same time for me anymore. Niggling injuries and aches have seen to it that the board I want to be surfing once I’m up and riding is much sleeker and HP than the one I can comfortably paddle around a big lineup and catch a ton of waves with.
Don't. Get. Old.
I would be hard pressed to find a serious design improvement in the last 10-15 years. Oh sure, we get the new materials being touted, like Slater's "volcano" glassed board-whatever the hell that is- but it's all just a bunch of fluff to increase prices.
The Firewires with Volcanic are basically the same price as the Helium builds,
Want to point a finger at "a bunch of fluff to increase prices" look at carbon Dark arts boards. $1K more than the same model in PU here in Australia. Bend over and spread your cheeks.
Boards are the best they've ever been- is the main improvement.
Refinement of alt-shapes of all descriptions.
Guns and semi-guns are there best they've ever been.
Incredibly choice in high grade, functional fins.
Incredible choice in materials.
If you can't acknowledge the incredible improvements since, say, the 90's or even 2000's then you're not paying attention.
Refinement of alt-shapes of all descriptions.
Guns and semi-guns are there best they've ever been.
Incredibly choice in high grade, functional fins.
Incredible choice in materials.
If you can't acknowledge the incredible improvements since, say, the 90's or even 2000's then you're not paying attention.
Yeah, but this here 205 pound lead foot just ripped the **** out of a PU/DA for two full sessions with many waves ridden (one solo session and yesterday at a point break where I was being a complete dick to crew of Barneys that showed up (fucking 6 foot Tomo riding faggots)) and not a single dent to be found. A PU/PE board even remotely close to the lightweight of the DA build would be pressed and cracked to sh!t.The Firewires with Volcanic are basically the same price as the Helium builds,
Want to point a finger at "a bunch of fluff to increase prices" look at carbon Dark arts boards. $1K more than the same model in PU here in Australia. Bend over and spread your cheeks.
A CI UL glass job would look like I used it to hit golf balls at…accurately.
I’ll gladly pay triple for DA.
Where’s my shirt, Tony?!
I remember a while back reading about people developing a tech that would essentially "shrink wrap" a board with a type of plastic rather than fiberglass. Probably not the most environmentally friendly option but I think future is machine shapes to finish with some type of glassing that is not as expensive and labor intensive. Inconsistencies between boards will be removed and it will actually be possible to get a copy of a magic board. I can even see customers interfacing directly with the shaping machine remotely and plugging in dimensions, tweaks, etc and never actually interacting with a human in the process. Not sure it will be better or worse but as a skilled tradesman it will be sad to see the number of craftsman shrink.
agree with everything you said.
probably not well articulated in the op was that i think there is little room for improvement for the humble everyday thruster hpsb - and i tried to stay away from construction.
i agree there is an amount of refinement going on - much of it making boards (slightly) easier to ride and more accommodating.
but with this style of board it has been small refinements for ten or more years (really since the introduction of concaves in the late 90s/early 2000s).
thus, an everyday hpsb thruster from 2010ish would probably work just as well as the new thing for most chumps.
what i poorly alluded to was that the law of diminishing returns has surely hit the swiss army knife of surfboards.
the implications of this for production are interesting to ponder.
eg. taking it to the extreme, what if the "best/most reliable" everyday thruster hpsb design for most punters is essentially decided upon for various regions/wave styles?
will we see a race to the bottom - ie a few manufacturing houses producing essentially the same allrounder?
13.5' @15sec west swell today
rode this board. 7-8 trifin shaped in '95
was relevant
rode this board. 7-8 trifin shaped in '95
was relevant
Like pretty much most stuff - it gets to a point that the only things left are refinements, mashups of existing designs, recycling old designs and gimmicks. Some design elements may be taken too far and then corrected over time. Surfboard design has been in this stage for decades IMO.
Around '77 I was working the counter here and there at Ventura Surf Shot and Malcolm was shaping in a back room. This was when the shop was on Front Street. Malcolm made very few twins back then. But, I was kind of a twin fin fanatic and there was one in the racks that didn't seem to be selling. Fujii let me have it for pretty much nothing. I'm trying to remember if that board had the light bottom on it. I think it did, but that was a long time ago. I remember making light beer cracks about the Bonzer Light bottom. "What, is it a third less calories? Tastes great less filling?" (Malcolm rolls his eyes). And while the template and rocker were probably very similar to what is now in the water, as I remember it, the deck was really flat. And it had Stussy-like pinched rails. The board went really well. I rode it in double overhead waves a number of times without feeling disadvantaged. Which was different from some other twins I'd ridden that were loose and skittery in small waves and sketchy in large waves.
You can order an A/O without the Light bottom. Bonzer bottom. The difference in my opinion is control. A light Bonzer bottom sans the light modification probably performs a little better in sh!t surf. Wider, shorter and lighter concaves gets the board gobbling up little waves.
I was the crash-test dummy and nagger-in-chief for the second coming of the A/O. I dare say that board would have never happened if I hadn't been following MC around bugging him. So the first one went to me. I remember mc drawing the template out and I thought the tail was too narrow. So the tail was widened. Put the light bottom on it. I knew in one surf it was right. Told Malcolm I was happy with it and that was it. Out it went. Seems like I was correct in my evaluation. A lot of really good surfers have given that design a thumbs up. I believe in the board history on the Bonzer site I get a name credit. Yay.
EDIT: I disagree with the characterization of the board as less than user friendly. When people say that, I have found that they generally don't have a lot of experience on twins. IMHO, people with more experience on twins get it pretty easy. And Malcolm's orientation was, I think, wanting to make a twin that would handle real waves. That was/is his bias. IMHO.
I've been wanting to take his MBLV, relax the nose rocker a bit, widen it up and A/O the thing. I have one MBLV that I widened the tail on and then had Malcom put a swallow tail on it with a Bonzer 5 setup. I keep looking at that thing and thinking it would love a twin fin setup...
Last edited:
I was going to put this up yesterday as well. I really liked it and the 80's music took me back to middle school. The BQ footage with Kian Martin starting at 16:12 is solid. Looks like the riders loved it as a thruster.
When I say it’s not user friendly what I really mean is basically what you said. Not really a good choice if you don’t ride twins, needs real waves. It’s also very sensitive. IMHO it’s a good board for good surfers on good waves.
FWIW the DA one I just got has a flat deck and knifed rails. Maybe I just got used to Album‘s KardASShian thiccc rails.
A lot of people think of twins as easy cruisers for gutless waves.
The AO is not that.
BTW, thank you.
Speaking of twins that go well in good waves, I have one that deserves a mention. Aipa showed up in Ventura one year and made a few boards. I surfed with him a few times and he made a board for me. I was trying to ride twins in large waves. Towards that end I had even worked on riding twin fin guns. Ben made me this 6 channel racy outline twin. The most interesting thing was the fins. Glass ons. Double foil, long raked out fins. Made out of marine ply. At first, in CA sh!t surf I didn't like it. Then I got it in better waves. Went well. Then I learned to ride it in small surf as well. Took it to the North Shore of PPK's Island and got some waves I still remember. Board handled some serious juice.
Kind of everybody made a twin that worked in small sh!t surf. That was easy. Making them work in bigger more powerful waves seemed like the challenge. The Aipa fins looked a lot like what Greg Webber puts on his twins. I assume the double foil was to create more control at speed. I felt like they held me back a bit on small wave speed generation, but when it came to controlling high speeds, they worked.
Kind of everybody made a twin that worked in small sh!t surf. That was easy. Making them work in bigger more powerful waves seemed like the challenge. The Aipa fins looked a lot like what Greg Webber puts on his twins. I assume the double foil was to create more control at speed. I felt like they held me back a bit on small wave speed generation, but when it came to controlling high speeds, they worked.
The decks on the Tomos (if they are Heliums) wouldn't have any heel dents either.
It's cool you like your board. It sounds awesome.
Frosty reckons Tomo is riding a 6' Revo these days.