Cronulla shaper Stuart Paterson recently hosted an exhibition of surfboards at his factory. The purpose of the exhibition was to encourage people to delve a little deeper into the figurative meaning of their surfboards and the process of creating them.
Have you seen the O'Neill clip that's floating around the Internets this past week? Featuring Jason 'Salsa' Salisbury, it's all Indonesian exotica, casual styling, and hearty barrels. While watching the clip my inner tyre-kicker came to life: "What is that board he's riding?"
Let's call this a work in progress. A project with an unknown end point.
"I was making fresh imprints on the planet, pushing surfing's limits to the max, being right where I wanted to be."
The first Bonzer I saw I was drawn to. It just made a lot of sense to me how it directs water through the fins efficiently. It's primary purpose is to efficiently organise water flow.
There is nothing that has been stumbled upon with my designs. They're a result of about eight years of direct intent to take high performance design to the next level. They utilise a specific design lineage of hydrodynamic planing hulls and parallel rail lines
The sidecut changes the water flow along the rail line of your board. The result is that when on rail the board takes a path of its own following this curve. The feeling is that the board wants to turn on these tighter arcs.
Listen up guys: Length isn't important.
While the planshape may be the most distinctly different feature it's not the only thing that's out of leftfield on the board. In creating the Camel Toe Cory threw many accepted norms away and looked at the shortboard anew.
The Lazor Zap has a checkered history; born from a period of great experimentation but largely forgotten in favour of the conventional Thruster, its popularity mirrors the success of its most famous pilot - Cheyne Horan.
The surf industry has a propensity to look backwards - to look at what happened in the 50' s and the 60's and the 70's - and I doubt very much if you went to an aerospace conference people would be talking about the Wright brothers, like 'yeah they killed it back then!'
"Slater's knowledge of fin design is okay, but lets see what happens with the all important bottom shape in the back end of his smaller boards."
