Thrust: The Simon Anderson Story
Before I get into this I oughta say that three fins on a board look entirely normal to me. Always have. And I guess by saying that I reveal myself as a child of the revolution. You see, I started surfing a few years after Simon Anderson unveiled the Thruster to the world. He'd already proven the design thrice over, and in the most spectacular of fashions, before I ever set foot on one.
By the time I came along every board had three fins, including my own. Normality, it's said, is just consensus of opinion, and everyone – save MR and Cheyne – agreed the Thruster was a winner. So to us newcomers it appeared normal, and we – that is, all the children of the revolution - never bothered with single fins or twinnies: we reaped the benefits without ever understanding the struggle.
Thrust is the biography of Simon Anderson, written by Anderson and edited by Tim Baker. As you'd expect from the fellow responsible for the greatest design breakthrough of our time it shoots just a bit higher than a straight bio. The goal is to place events in historical context and allow the readers - especially the younger readers – a chance to time travel. In this case to comprehend how ingrained single fins and twins were in surfing and how groundbreaking the Thruster design was. To this end Thrust mostly hits its target.
Baker's narrative style is to intersperse Simon's words with timely anecdotes from his contemporaries, many of whom comment upon the Thruster's left-field oddness and how it was received. Simon's Narrabeen mate, Brian Whitty, in a typical quote:
"It was the weirdest look having those three fins on the tail. All who first saw the board had the same thought going through their heads. Comments from leading surfers and shapers were: 'Back Heavy,' 'How can you turn a surfboard with an anchor attached?'"
It's a theme reinforced by repetition and helps to appreciate the design upheavals wrought by the Thruster. Nick Carroll manages to put another twist on the improbable design breakthrough, one that says more about the designer:
"The thing that most struck me at the time was how completely unlikely it all seemed. Like, Simon Anderson coming up with a radical new surfboard design idea? Not that he wasn't capable of extraordinary shit...but busting out wacky ideas and sticking 'em into the pro milieu? Fuck no. That was Geoff McCoy's job."
Beyond board design Simon recounts his life and he proves to be a laconic and understated storyteller. Understated to the point where I occasionally had to read back over lines to understand if the humour was intended or not (I have to assume it was). Contrast this with Rabbit's biography Bustin' Down The Door, also edited by Baker, which was full of colourful, animated stories, and you've got a dry, congenial read. Entertaining but contained. The high points come in chapters written by Phil Jarratt and Andrew Kidman, and also the various anecdotes, especially those of Shaun Tomson, who provides amusing and sometimes astute insights:
"Dane (Reynolds) is like a modern day Simon Anderson, without the revolutionary shaping vision, but that kind of, aw shucks, that whole Bukowski, don't try too hard thing. He comes from a very similar environment, a blue collar, working class environment that's not too dissimilar to Narrabeen."
Unlike Bustin' Down The Door, and also unlike Baker's last book, Occy, Thrust is the full hard-cover, gloss paper production. The type of book that's too good to dog ear – let bookmarks guide the way! The photographic vaults have been thrown open and many classic shots from the late-70's and early-80's - a high water point in Australian surfing – are accorded full colour reruns. Plus all Anderson's landmark boards are given close scrutiny under Kidman's lens, hanging like mediaeval swords backlit against a black background. It's a stunning effect.
The publishers of Thrust, 3 Crown Media Group, have been putting together some of the better surfing books of recent times, catering to the groups that the magazines don't and producing works to endure. The story of Simon Anderson and the Thruster is one of Australian surfing's greatest stories and so deserves an expansive account - one that can give those of us that weren't present an idea of its enormity. And that is something that Thrust manages to do.
Comments
I realise this is a countervailing view but what has always seemed overwhelming to me is how big an advance the Thruster has seemed, when in fact it was just one more small logical step on the design timeline.
McCoy already had the outline down.
3 fins had been in the design soup since the 70's.
It seems kind of a small historical step to make the fins all the same size and stick them on a more or less modern planshape.
Sure it became the dominant paradigm pretty quickly, but confusing dominance with revolution is an historical accident that has been repeated so often as to acquire the status of fact.
Did surfing really see a revolutionary leap forwards in performance on the back of the Thruster?
I'd say no. The advancements came mostly on the back of technique via Tom Curren and Occy and were post Thruster.
The thruster produced a lot of ugly/industrial surfing in the 80's.
I'd argue that Slater's low volume concave boards (and Webber/Herring) saw a much bigger quantum leap forwards in performance.
I guess you can always us the timeline theory to denounce the importance of design breakthroughs and the person who make them. That being: the invention was gonna get discovered sooner or later so don't give too much credit to the person who stumbled upon it.
Sure, progression is inevitable, but that detracts from the efforts of the people pushing it forward. Shouldn't they get credit - at least one of them - for the work they do?
And yeah, there is the whole standing on the shoulder of giants thing, but honestly, in Thrust Simon goes well out of his way to pay credit to the people who helped him: McCoy, Steve Zoeller, Frank Williams and MR.
Here's a couple of good quotes from Frank Williams, who was riding the board with the sanded down stabiliser fin that Simon took the Thruster idea from:
- I do believe the idea is mine, not Simon's...and that's why I'm reluctant to speak.
- I was down here the afternoon when Simon drove in and I saw the fin on the back, I thought that's it. That's it. That's the answer. I was researching for 10 years . Simon stumbled upon it.
As for the leap in performance: well, I wasn't there so I have to defer to the people who were, and they all seem to be in chorus. The fact that so many people jumped on the thruster express must say something about its performance, no?
Could Occy have laid down his teenage gouges without Rusty's boxy rails and three fins under the rear? Would Fatboy Elkerton have made the tour if not on a thruster? Could Cram have cutback as he did?
I'm not denouncing it.....just saying there's always been a certain hyperbole associated with the Thruster which might be misleading.
There were boards with three fins which led to amazing radical surfing in the 70's.
Check Steve Core's footage of PT and Terry Richo on three fin bonzers shot in 1974/5.
To my mind the three fin genii was well out of the bottle by the 80's.
Simon's "discovery" was more of an unearthing and polishing of an already existing concept.
And probably more importantly winning contests and hence the American market over.
As far as performance goes, watch Storm Riders which documents the change over between singles and thrusters.
You'd be a hard man to argue against Thornton's and Joe Engel's surfing at Nias on Dick Van Straalen singles as being the high point of the film.
As well as Bugs on a short channel bottom squash tail single fin shaped by Gil Glover.
Thrusters were incontrovertibly better in shitty surf, which is where they found their market domination in pro surfing and hence the mass market.
If John Howard surfed he'd call you un-australian.
OK, call me a hard man then. Those cutbacks by Thornton had a 30 metre radius and he still couldn't get 'em around for a proper foam bounce and if I remember rightly Engel did more than a bit of side-slipping - not the deliberate kind - in the barrel.
Great waves, good section, but brought undone by the surfing.
That means nothing.
History is written by the winners, I accept that, but going back to the primary documents sometimes reveals a different story to the one that has been accepted as mainstream truth.
Or, at least a more nuanced and less hyperbolic one.
And Simons' vaunted '81 Bells performance which heralded the thruster doesn't look that crash hot when seen with modern eyes.
Lots of half turns and wiggles.
Now that was prophetic for most of the 80's.
Simon includes a quote by Winston Churchill: I'm not afraid of history as I will be the one who writes it.
Purely ironic, of course.
As much as some people push a 'heroes journey'...heh heh... Simon comes off as the deferential type. And there appears enough info between the covers for sceptical punters to glean the real story, a more nuanced and less hyperbolic one.
PS: Were you comparing Bonzers with Thrusters? Please don't say it...
Context, context! Simon's '81 Bells surfing doesn't look that crash hot but what were the others doing?
Where's NC when you need him?
I mean Curren and Occy's '86 semi doesn't look that good in hindsight and that was supposed to be next level surfing at the time. Gimme some context!
Thornton, MCCabe, Lopez and Engel were power surfing in Indo on single fins. MR was carving the shite out of it on twin fins.
Shaun Tomson was getting deeper than anyone on single fins.
Col Smith was getting radical on channel bottoms.
I'm not comparing bonzers to thrusters, I'm saying the Campbell Bros Bonzer is one of the(many) forerunners of the thruster and a legitimate tri-fin design.
That's well proven by historical fact.
And the Occy/Curren Semi is a fine example of how hyperbole can sometimes do with an historical revision.
How do you know that the Occy Curren semi wasn't the very best surfing in the world at the time? You're looking at it through a pair of 2011 glasses, it'll always appear dated.
You gotta sit your self down and watch every Chris Bystrom film back-to-back to get you in the headspace to make a correct judgement. Start with Blazing Boards.
And the Thruster doesn't owe THAT much to the Bonzer, cept having three bits of glass on the bottom. The planshapes were polar opposites with Bonzers set on typical forward weighted shapes.
You were closer to the mark with McCoy.
Well having three fins is kind of important to the thruster concept, right?
And we've already acknowledged that McCoy had the wide point back in the outline.
Surfing history as written at the time by surf journalists can sometimes be wildly hyperbolic and use some critical revision.
As a counter example go look at Wayne Lynch's surfing from Evolution.
Now that is some surfing that holds up to scrutiny.
Tom Carrolls Pipe Masters win in '91, just 5 years after the Occy/Curren semi is another piece of surfing that holds up to the hype.
Single fins were good but nothing beats a well configured quad for drive and release.
We're talking kneeboards, right?
Only in the hyperbolic, superficial account of history are three fins vitally important to the Thruster concept. Us guys seeking the nuanced tale know that McCoy's planshapes were more important. But we're agreed on that....
So then, if everyone was so quick to jump on the Thruster then why didn't they jump on Bonzers? Further, if PT and co were surfing Bonzers so well in '74 or whenever why did they go back to singles?
I believe the professional term for the link between Bonzers and Thrusters is a coinkidink.
freeride, mate you seem to be tripping out mate. Simon did invent the thruster, he was responsible for the design, he took some design cues from others, but essentially he was the one to put it all together. You seem to be sucking on sour grapes with this one. And the 81 Bells event, Simon surfed way better than everyone else on the big day, then backed it up on finals day in surf that was a lot smaller, I was on the beach watching it all go down.
I think the domination of the Thruster, speaking of context, was also a product of the times.
The 80's were the time when the surf culture became increasingly commercialised and under the sway of a surf media that became more and more narrowly focused on Pro Surfing and pro surfers.
It's easy to see the Thruster, as some do, as a punctuation mark in a period of great design stagnation that was only broken apart by the dissatisfaction of some free thinkers like Kidman, Hynd and Curren.
Freeride, mate Kidman wasn't even on the scene back then, he was at Warriwood riding LS2 reshapes and was only about 10 years old. You should get a few facts right for once rather than sprouting off with your un-based wisdom.
So Stu, are you saying that planshape is more important that 3 fins to the concept "Thruster".
So a forward outline board with 3 fins of equal size (moreorless) is not a thruster?
Non-Local there's no sour grapes here. I'm putting forwards a different point of view, thats all.
One I have heard espoused from many people in the surfboard building industry with far more knowledge, insight and experience than me.
As to why PT etc etc didn't stay on bonzers? Surfboard design progressed so rapidly in the 70's that people were jettisoning concepts at a rapid rate, to move onto the next one.
Also the contest scene didn't have the same import in determining what was a successful design.
But I think we can all agree that 3 fins is integral to the thruster concept.
Hey, hey your putting words in my mouth!
Of course three fins are important to the Thruster concept but we were talking - or at least I thought we were talking - about Simon's inspirations. Where he sourced his design cues from, and that being more McCoy than Campbell Bros.
As stated the Bonzer concept, especially in it's early days, was radically different to the Thruster. The photos I've seen of Dunc and Mal Campbell have them holding Hawaiian downrailers with big single fins and heavily canted and toed keels.
Except for counting to three they've got nothing else in common. Those boards would never have acheived what Simon was aiming for when he set out to create the Thruster.
...."Kidman wasn't even on the scene back then, he was at Warriwood riding LS2 reshapes and was only about 10 years old. You should get a few facts right for once rather than sprouting off with your un-based wisdom."
Non-local, I didn't mention Kidman in any context expect in his role in bringing in non-thruster, alternative boards into play as a result of Litmus.
This is a talk about surfboard design history. People will have different opinions. It's nothing personal.
Why not play the ball, instead of the man?
I've spent most of my surfing life (30+ years) fascinated with surfboard design.
I've had long and fruitful conversations with many surfboard shapers including McCoy, Duncan Campbell, Chris Brock, George Greenough, Dick Van Straalen, Thornton Fallander, Gunter Rohn, Tony Cerff, Phil Myers, Peter McCabe, Maurice Cole, Rob Fenech,Frank Williams, Bob McTavish, Warren Cornish etc etc .
I've heard many different versions of surfboard design history from blokes who were there mowing foam.
What you read in the magazines and what gets recorded as "history" in the coffee table books isn't always what happened.
I recently received an indignant email from a colleague complaining that her university was getting a motto inscribed on its front wall: Quaerite Veritatem. Latin for 'seeking the truth'.
How can there be only one truth? She asked.
She is a social scientist.
AFAIK, to score a patent you only have to be 10% different to whatever has gone before, and Simon's Thruster easily qualifies as being "new" in that regard. It's a shame he passed on the patent process.
In early 1981 I had a brand new 5'10" triple-channel wide-tail single. It was fun, but squirrelly. As soon as we heard about Simon on the Thruster at Bells* the single came off and three equal-sized white fins went on. That was a quantum change, the little shooter was on steroids, with tiger claws in the tail.
Life would never be the same again.
*Didn't see Simon at the comp that day, we drove thru the Bells boomgates blowing the plastic trumpet at the hapless volunteers, and continued on to surf a once-every-decade spot down near Apollo Bay
Actually Norv......can you imagine how different the world would have been if Simon did patent the thruster?
He certainly wouldn't be the well-loved bloke that he is now.
Instead of massive mortgages blokes'ed be working to pay off surfboards with 3 fins.
I don't agree that Simon should've patented the idea as I don't believe he deserves all the accolades. Yet it's interesting to note that one of Simon's best friends is Brian Whitty, who designed and patented FCS, the dominant removable fin system, that were sold to Macquarie Bank for a motza.
Yep, Mac Bank own FCS. Shapers have to pay around $80 for every set they install and it goes to the millionaires factory.
Ironic? Interesting? Both design inventions: yet one deserves a patent and the other doesn't (IMHO). How does that work?
You're kidding? I did not know McBank owned FCS. Arguably the singularly most overpriced, inelastic item necessary to surfing.
I am so surprised that the Chinese havn't jumped on board (no pun intended) with cheap knock-offs of fins. Must be a matter of time.
When do FCS and Futures come off patent? I for one, can't wait.
Sorry, off topic. I remember years ago, I think it was Derek Hynd suggesting in a mag to send Simon $50 or something like that if you have owned a thruster. Somebody please correct me on the details, my memory is a little hazy.
I still owe him but that thought has never escaped me, I'll get around to it one day.
Maybe that's why Derek Hynd doesn't like fins?
I thought it was a fiver for every board.
$2 bucks it was Zen. The big fella mentions it in the book and seems a bit embarrassed by the whole affair - strangers coming up to him on the street and handing him $2.
Probably wouldn't mind a larger sum mailed in a discreet envelope but.
Sorry, it was a dollar. Hynd write it in Waves magazine (must've been under Kidman's stewardship then).
That's right, I remember now. Thanks Stu. If that's the case, I owe him about $200. Not bad really, roughly the same cost of a slab and a set of his own signature fins.
Now, where did I put my cheque-book?
This book will be hitting my shelf for sure, though dwarfed a little by the discussion of the contrarians and subsequent info. My first 9much loved) stick was a twinnie (MR of course, dragon 'n' all)) so I land pretty much smack-bang in the middle. A mate in the mid-eighties who always rode singles did think he was onto something when he fitted a winged-keel fin to his board though, once they were on the market after the historic boat win. watching the thrusters filter, then flood, onto the scene was pretty damn amazing.
Interesting throw-in of technology vs natural progression in riding moves. I'd nearly forgotten about busin' down the door, cheers for the reminder. Occy's return got me out of one of those dark spaces long ago and back into the water, so 'Occy' will always hold a place of personal importance. Sucks heaps that thruster cashola goes out-of-industry.
@heals: lol, too funny ;)
disclaimer: I have been privileged to work alongside both Simon and Brian, legends both, and I'd guess that Brian patented FCS because he realised what an opportunity his mate had missed out on. AFAIK Brian didn't sell to Mac Bank, he sold to another surfer/photographer/industry fella, so he could spend more time playing tennis ;)
nice discussion, I don't know anything about surfboard design, but zenagain there are plenty of chinese copies of FCS fins out there. Even coming out of the same factory.
You just have to look for them.
Just bought myself a Tri Zap - McCoy's answer to the Thruster - off eBay for $250. Shaped in 1983 and appears to be in alright nick. Keen to see how it rides. Shame it doesn't have the classic spray...
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n245/stunet/Boards/TriZap3.jpg
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n245/stunet/Boards/TriZap2.jpg
http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n245/stunet/Boards/TriZap1.jpg
Thats looks a beauty Stu.
I found one in very poor nick under my mates house and made it watertight.
Thing went unreal.
The tail doesn't look as wide as a classic zap, should be less extreme to ride.
Yeah, thought it would've sold for a whole lot more than that. I logged on last night and just by chance it was sitting there 30 mins out from auction. I whacked an amount down and it turned out to be the last bid. Can't wait to ride it.
Stu, I don't normally encourage violence, but smack freeride around a little next time you see him. I think he's been on the natural, organic, city-free mushrooms.
I honestly think the thruster is that revolutionary it isn't even worth talking about.
Re patenting, it's likely that Simon could have patented the thruster, but by god it is expensive and if you don't get your patent you are out of pocket.
And I think Simon may have been a bit too humble to claim it, but I have never met him. Just saying.
I doubt he will ever have to drink out of a brown paper bag though. We just wouldn't let it happen. If you saw him destitute on the street you'd pick him up and give him a hot feed, a shower and a bed, and make sure your mates took him for other days.
Freerider,
I'll stick with Stu on the point about bonzers not having that much in common with thrusters. Sure they both have three fins but if you take the back fin out of a bonzer you wouldn't call it a twin fin.
I know I'm a bit late to the party but I thought you may still be around.
Stumbled across this the other day.
Anyone be able to shed any light on age, history etc.?
Have been surfing twins and quads a fair bit the past couple of years. Pulled out a thruster in the past week or so and have had such a ball......forgot how much control and pivot you get through turns. Really sparked me up.