It would be hard to place an exact date for the birth of what we call the modern short board, but it can be argued that the duel between Cheyne horan and Mark Richards from 1979 until 1982 on the International Pro Surfing tour would be the time period. With the birth of the pro tour a few years earlier and the eighties renewed idea of competitions being a good thing…the Australians were leading the charge for performance surfing.

Almost as soon as professional surfing competitions began in 1976, there would be a major equipment breakthrough with Mark Richards and his twin fin. Mark Richards surfing was a polished and well honed style, but his refined twin fin allowed for  extra looseness.  With his refinement of an old design he had begun to lead a charge in performance that would gain him four world titles.

Many of other pros on the tour had started having their surfboard builders make them twin fins to compete, but few really excelled at mastering the surfboard as M.R. had done. Others were seeking their own way to compete with Mark and the edge was enjoying with his twins. Among these pros was a young 17 year old super talent named Cheyne Horan. Both he and Mark had been part of Geoff McCoy’s talent riddled surf team growing up. However… Mark Richards had decided to walk his own path and shape his own surfboards, while Cheyne stayed with his  mentor board builder Geoff McCoy.

The plan shape of the twin fin, was pretty much the same as other surf craft of the day with a wide nose and narrower tail. The twin fins had a wider tail than most of the old single fins, but other than that, the outline remained pretty much the same.   Geoff McCoy seeing Cheyne’s talent and potential began to create a surfboard centered around Cheyne’s short arc and gouging pocket surfing style. A surfboard that he could stand up in one place on the board and get his moves going.

The board he created was a plan shape with a narrow nose and a wider tail that was nice and thick with a convex bottom he called the loaded dome. They would later name the board a Lazor Zap, but Cheyne burst out of the stalls on fire and came within a few seconds in a controversial contest heat of winning the 1979 world title.

The stage was now set for one of the most memorable duels in surfing’s competitive history, between two surfers with unique styles and new equipment. One a seasoned veteran, the other a red hot teen with eyes on the title. One with a sweeping polished style, the other with a gouging free radical style of new moves.

The two couldn’t be more different in their approach, but the often forgotten fact about this duel,  and what is rarely mentioned in the retelling of this tale,  is the battle of the surfboards used and the contributions in design that would come from this clash of surfing talent.

Almost as quickly as the twin fin had helped give Mark Richards his edge, the wide tailed plan shape created by Cheyne’s mentor Geoff McCoy would raise the eyebrows of another professional surfer who had also been looking for his own edge.

Simon Anderson who had had some success on the tour was still riding single fins. Being a larger surfer/shaper, twins had never worked for him, so he had been experimenting with his version of McCoy’s wide tailed single fin design and found it more to his liking.

However, he could still see the benefits of the multi fin for a pro tour that was now rewarding the number of moves on the wave and began to think if two fins were working, then why not three? Could a third fin placed on the rear of the tail keep a twin fin’s looseness, but be more stable like single fins?

Most of us that surf know the rest of that tale of Simon becoming the father of the first workable three fin and Simon gives Geoff McCoy the proper credit as the first father of his three finned surfboard he dubbed the thruster…but what is rarely mentioned is how deeply Geoff McCoy’s experiments with surfboards during that period has effected the modern surfboard.

If you look closely at the outline of the modern thruster, it’s still just a refined McCoy Lazor Zap in it’s basic plan shape.  As things sit today, it looks as if we could be on the edge of another push in surfboard designs…only this time it’s an underground movement and not the pro surfing tour that appears to be driving the experimentation.

Young shapers have been returning to the past for ideas and droves of surfers are experimenting with late seventies early eighties equipment.   As things begin to come full circle… remarkably Geoff McCoy has also been at the forefront of this new renaissance with a refined version of his old Lazor zap single fin he calls, ” The Nugget. ”  Just as other valid designs like the mini Simmons are being ridden and shaped by it’s own resurgent underground.

It’s possible with the birth of what is called the modern performance surfboard such a short time ago and those boards having reached the point where minor refinements are the only real advancements in those designs…stagnation set in and certain groups of surfers began to again look at surfing for fun, more than surfing for recognition.  Not only has there been a resurgence of interest in older designs, there has also been heightened interest in building your own boards.

The future looks to be interesting.

04 Masquerade