Watch: Torren Martyn // On The Light Side
Longtime readers of Swellnet will know that, of all the fin configurations, twins are my least favourite. And that's being polite.
Yet I'll admit to whispers of curiosity whenever I watch Torren Martyn surf. There's an underwater shot here in 'On The Light Side' that clearly displays Torren's two glass ons cutting through crystal blue Indonesian water. Once upon a time that shot would've filled me with disgust. Ambivalence not being in my DNA.
And now? Call it cautious fascination.
I'm fascinated that he can get that sucker to hold through vertical sections, especially when he's shuffled three-quarters of the way to the nose unweighting the rear, fascinated that he can get the projection he does out of turns, fascinated by the commitment to an arcane design by both shaper and surfer.
Kudos Simon Jones. Kudos Torren Martyn.
'On The Light Side' is another clip by needessentials that elevates the slap dash of surf cinema. Again they slow things down, not striving for attention via sound and fury, but instead rewarding the viewer who invests in their tone and tempo.
It's filmed throughout Indo, with backing tracks by needessentials favourites, including Mick Turner and Kikagaku Moyo, with the last track 'Eyes On The Ceiling' by Colbey who also appears surfing to his own music - see him in the orange shirt and white board.
Full credits below.
Produced by needessentials
Music
Mick Turner - Marlan I
Kikagaku Moyo - Dripping Sun
Jake Harris - Martyn's Place
Colbey - Eyes On The Ceiling
Heitor Vallim - Lost Beach
Footage
Ishka Folkwell
Alessio Saraifoger
Ryandi
Kevin Wau
Harleyson Almeida
Comments
Ffffaarkk!! The thruster is dead
No offence but that was just other-worldly
Filthy
Could Jack Robbo have threaded those pits any better..on a Twinny...i doubt it
Stu..i saw a 6 channel keel twin fin flextail swallowtail yesterday..
Solid bush
Was the opening wave bush from land do ya reckon? I've never seen footage of it as big as the closing stuff. Awesome.
Good pick up.
Yeah, I reckon it is.
You might enjoy this Yocal - some of the most solid Bush I remember
Ando's last wave as he takes off...many times over head!
Nice Jim, I would love to have a dig at it one day
That's the best backhand barrel style i've seen for a while, brilliant.
no surf today flat for last 5 days..
hi Stu,
i always had an open mind to design and selling boards made it possible to test lots of different boards.
i was lucky enough to be shaping boards when all the different designs good and bad were hitting the market so i got to test every board, i have been riding twin fins since then. i love them, they are so loose. MR got it right.
i had never ridden single concave into double concave board.
but a month ago i bought 7ft 2 inch with 5 fin boxes so i am testing again it rides better as a twin fin but the waves have been small so i look forward to riding it as a thruster and 4 fins in big powerful waves.
i was happy and impressed to see Toreen riding a twin fin so well. made my day.
i have not seen anyone ride a twin fin as good as Torren, this guy rips. be good to get some measurements from his board. thanks again for showing videos.
Bipola, try the quad setup and add a nubster or 1-2 inch trailing fin - punch and pivot as well as twin fin loose.
Magic, that's how it's done.. ;-)
It's not exactly a classic flat bottom "twin fin" Stu. Assuming the channels give it "direction" and created a huge vee in the tail - fins! Combine that with down rails and concaves and you'll get something which drives!! All the waves he is surfing are silky smooth, wonder what happens in chop..??
How do you really describe the detail that goes into each (non-pop out) board - "It's all about where you place the curves and flats"??
Some brutal head-first wipeouts in that last indo section. Careful of brain damage. The first twisted-up one reminds me of a shoulder dislocation... cringe.
Nice antidote to Mason overdose.
thanks Ape i will try it when the waves come back
yes chop, that will be the test. most boards work in perfect waves.
the twinnes handled the late take off really well.
fuck he's good
Yea beautiful surfing. He really has worked on his boards.
Make no mistake though, twinnies force certain lines on you and exclude others.
Ridden well they look great as they force you smooth.
The freedom feeling is very enticing and fun but that happens with in a particular bandwidth.
In this instance he has pulled the pod in tight to encourage the penetration of the pod. Thrown some additional edges in the form of channels to help. I have done a fair bit of work with them, the best result I had was a super tight little pin tail, looked like a gun. I originally made it as a Thruster but pulled the rear fin out. That was in 2010 I still have the board. Very interesting concept, but have now moved well beyond that. Great clip really enjoyed it.
Pics please Shaper
yea why not..... You will have to bear with me Udo just caught up atm.
just realised I have no idea how to load them Udo.
what do you call that tube stance?
it's not a pig dog.
seen Torryn and his pals a heap around here and he's a pleasure to watch, no doubt.
only prob, as I was saying to Simon Jones, is it now feels half the lineup is on mid-length twins.
he probably got barelled more on one wave than I have all year.
only prob, as I was saying to Simon Jones, is it now feels half the lineup is on mid-length twins.
Why’s that a problem?
It'd be a problem if you're on a low-volume board in the middle of a bunch of em, but when i'm on my 7'4 twin it's no problem at all.
correct.
Epic
I had a good look at one, a 7'6", recently. Toying with buying it. The channels are pretty hefty, giving the board plenty of grip, as do the concaves.
could see the potential, but the waves weren't the best that day. And the price tag and lack of response from Simon on more info turned me off.
Bloody amazing surfing from Torren tho!
Got a few minutes here, for some thoughts the readers might find interesting. (I get Udo photos until a bit later) I found that the twinnie seemed better a bit longer. There are two reasons for that.
1) the longer rail line = more rail in the water compensating for the lack of drive off the pod. (seems to be playing out in Totrrens' vid, they are longer boards)
2) the length keeps you forward of the fins meaning that the pivot point is substantially behind the rear foot. This again helps keeps the direction reasonably solid.
The thruster by comparison keeps the direction with the foot on or behind the front fins.
Now this ones @Stu.........the difference is that the twinnie feels great as long as you are working off the rail forward of the fins...but as soon as you seek to engage the rear foot ...there is nothing there. .....Thats why I moved on. You can see this playing out in Torrens video .......@3.32 where he pops the foot back and virtually spins out. NOW he is so tuned into the board and so highly skilled that he makes it look really good but watch closely and you can see......it lets go and loses all power. Now the same guy on something else would have driven that turn into the back side hit. That is probably the only spot in the whole vid where you see him with his foot back there. Not that its not good, its just different, but if you are a surfer who reaches for the back foot squirt you wont be happy with the twinnie. Remember though, MR won 4 world titles on them.
Yep that's a twinnie. Even with my low level ability and being on them when your only other option was singly which didn't turn, they did exactly what you say. It actually took me ages to surf a thruster properly as I was always up the board and on the front foot. I have a twinnie now I take out when it is smooth (they hate junky waves) and I always have to check myself to move forward not back to turn. Funny it is more evident on my forehand than backhand, the slow down that is. Always found them a handful on my backhand but they were only 5'6'' chunky flat bottoms with a V. The modern one works better though I still put the knubster in the back slot for stability. Still only 5' 6". Excellent flick sort of like a modern Morning of the Earth thing happening.
What about the triple-stringer on the rights towards the start? He's got his back foot almost all the way back and it's hanging on mighty nice. Drivey, even?
his foot is further back but weight still on the front foot..............when you slow it down and look closely he has the full rail line engaged ........thats whats holding it in ........which is real credit to the shape of the board ....... every rule has exceptions of increments .....this is a balance of multiple forces and events being controlled and released by multiple dynamics. So yes its a balance of these forces. Of course he has some interaction with that part of the board but it has to be very light and rely on other factors. Some people will love that and some will hate it because they want to do different things in different situations.
If I can find out how to slow it down that will be the day gone.
Thanks for response cheers
"but as soon as you seek to engage the rear foot ...there is nothing there."
Move the fins farther back, and that's not an issue, imho. Been riding a Pyzel Astro Twin lately (fins at ~6"), and I'm yet to spin out or lose power. The thing drives through turns like crazy.
yes that's an obvious solution Island Bay......fins further back .scale the size etc. ....or those long base keels ....I have not gone back as far a 6" because I did not like what I was feeling from the principal concept .... ..there is a kind of "wooden" feel to it. You reduce the pivot. Imagine a sea saw with the fulcrum right at one end ..... .there is a certain balance to a good feeling surfboard it harnesses that pivot as a 4th dimension the thruster does that reasonably well which is why its hung on. In a general sense you can load the forces in various directions, move the fulcrum, if you know what you are doing, for specific feel perhaps suited to a specific situation or particular flow. I don't know that there's a right or a wrong a this or a that because we all want a board that works in the majority of situations and has a high fun level. Then we want to change it for a new feeling............lol! and the search goes on........
Yep, for every fin setup, there's a balance to be found, and we are all looking for slightly different things in our boards.
Re the seesaw/fulcrum, I found that on twinnies with fins far forward your back foot scoots back behind the fins, and you overpower the board/fins. And generally, these board are much more squirrely. Some looove that!
I like a more drivey feeling, and with a fins far back twinnie I've found teflon-like glide/speed, but a really powerful sense of drive (proper feedback when back foot pressure is applied).
Torren is a master on twins, and his surfing on Simon's boards is a joy to watch.
yea that's the first video I have seen in long time that I want to watch more than once. ................cheers I.B.
Pretty much exactly why I don't like them, TS. Yeah, they're whipy and free, easy to intiate turns, but on the backside of the turn, when I really want to drive out of it, I either have to wait for the fins to engage again or the board spins out.
These days my preference is for quads with a McKee arrangement, where I think you get the best of both worlds - loose and fast, but no need to nurse through turns.
Love all your input BTW.
I had this penned up to write earlier, the back side was the reason that I moved on. It did most things well but there was one spot .........on the back hand .........when the lip actually hit the back of the board.....knocked me off EVERY time.........despite my efforts to the contrary ......in the end I decided it was not the solution that I was looking for and moved on. Took me right back to what must have been going through Simons mind the day he set out to solve the problem. I asked the same question. By the way how do I load a photo? Udo wanted to see that pin tail.
Best way is to use a third party upload site like Imgur.
https://imgur.com/
Simply upload a photo via the 'Computer' link on the RH column, follow the instructions and then copy the URL provided under 'Direct Link (email & IM)'.
Then in a forum thread, wrap the image URL with image tags, ie [img] and [/img].
For example, [img]http://_______[/img]
...and if that doesn't work shoot them to me and I'll upload them for you.
stuart@swellnet.com
thanks Stu. Got it now. See how I go for time, you might get an email.
Oh appreciate your comments too...........thank you. I love this stuff.
thanks for the update Shaper. i found it very interesting how he was surfing so far up the board.
i really dont know why thrusters have hung on for so long. back in the day a new fad came out every six months.
not all of them good. cheers
Great surfing- so pleasing to the eye.
Some beautiful waves combined with some nice tracks helps.
I'm a great fan of twins. I have a few. Amazing on the forehand, still trying to figure things out on my backhand. This vid was educational. I reckon a great entry level drug on your way to twinfin madness is the quad.
I agree with Island Bay RE fin placement. I have a 5ft twin that has the fins right at the back. Goes like a cut cat.
where can you get one of these Simon Jones boards, ive had no luck on his morning of the earth web site.
I just bought one from Onboard Store Byron Bay. They get them in occasionally and can hook you up with Simon for a custom. I had no joy contacting him directly via email or Insta.
Phone him numbers on his site
How the hell does keep the nose up in those barrels.
Never seen anyone sit so far up the board, and almost with his feet together.
Got me fucked.
Ok no good with the images. I will send them to Stu and comment on them later.
Yes its kind of squatting style..or coffin ride at times...Lol........
I watched it yesterday then watched it again today. Haven't done that with a surf video for a while.
How anyone looks at Nias at that size and says to themself... 'wheres my flat rockered twinnie?' is beyond me
Images of The Shaper's twinny as mentioned in comments above:
Many thanks Stu for the technical assistance. I hand shaped this 6'4" x 19 1/2 and a 7'2 the same in Aug 2010. I popped my new Rocky Rawlings fin template in to make it look nicer.
It was the first board I shaped after leaving the industry 9 years prior. I took this to Java as a Thruster, when I got home it was the only board I had so I pulled the rear fin out and surfed it.........was very surprised. It had all the freedom of the Twinnie but I could still bury the super narrow pin.......... first guy I lent it to later ordered one.
There is a lot more to be learnt from this concept .................if I were to develop it further I would chop a flyer into it towards the front half of the fins and pull even more area out of the pod. You could then potentially pop a tiny keel right on the point. That would be very cool indeed.
Just further to my story, since that board in 2010 I have focused 100% on R&D no commercial production at all.
Is the R&D on this concept, or other ideas?
no ...a number of other concepts boxright. I am keen to revisit this plan shape though.
I work methodically identifying points of reference; changing one or two points at most......that way I know whats working and whats not. ...........this concept was not contributing to solving the problems that I was interested in......
Nice board!
Just to highlight my comments above re rearward fin placement, here's my Pyzel:
yea that makes sense. Interesting take on some of the very early twinies. ...Fins look quite big though for where they are. Have you tried it with smaller fins?
They are quite small! Captain Fins Christenson Especial. Upright a la MR fins, but smaller.
Looks like Orig FCS plugs handled the twin fins o.k....
Well and truely bonded to the deck Udo. Can't afford to sit on the sidelines with a stupid broken plug in Indo.
I made a travel board with a twin fin set-up. Had some original FCS plugs lying round. Anyway, I put in an extra plug and made a set of fins with three tabs. Admittedly a rather convoluted method, but there it is. I imagine the futures system would work quite well for this sort of thing.
Handmade?? All kudos to you Spuddups……..I made a few sets of fins by hand for old fcs took me over 5 hours plus per set...just insane….b the time you draw them out cut them out get the shape perfect, all the little corners clean, then foil them, get the thickness perfect so they fit the box, uuugggh.........they only had two tabs! Futures have angles on the fins so also a major pain.
Yeah, normally I don't bother, but this was a special case. Basically I spent an hour or two with a square file getting them right. They turned out okay. Glass-ons are much easier ha ha!
Late to the party but wow.
What a juxtaposition to chippa’s film. Chippa’s stuff was impressive, nigh another sport really.
But Torren’s clip to me is just about second to none. Loving how we get to see the wave from start to finish. Also refreshing to see someone carve solid waves backside on a Twinnie. I love Twinnies but like many, find them challenging going backside. Think he’s taught me a thing or two there, less is more.
I shaped myself a 7'1 after seeing his Mex vid. As a die hard short boarder I confess I'm struggling to get off it (Sorry, not sorry Steve!).
hahaha, don't worry mate, I'm quite capable of joining the arms race.
been riding a little 5'8" twin.. well twin plus stabiliser.
mostly backside and loving it.
Yeah I'll vouch for that 7.1, beautiful board. Seen you in action on it your local little while ago
thanks for the photos
Great vid and great discussion, well done all. Loved that last wave. old mate was Frothing!!
Its up on Utube ..so if theres any waves you need to see extra slow mo or check foot placement...play with the settings
5.05 mins Nias is sick at 1/4 speed....ironingboardrocker..
There's a difference between chubby twins for soft summer and razor-railed, performance shapes with tight fin placement and a tucked tail!
Torren looking as adept as ever, frontside and bootyside.
Bravo all involved. Pleasant viewing!
Need to change name Greenbush to Nuttabush
. EPIC !!!!!
Mastery of a wave. So clean. No wiggling-draw a line and stick with it
Wondering if anyone can shed any light/ insight on the NPJ Duo and where it fits into the twinny discussion, being that its a fairly new design idea and seems to be about those big turns and flowing lines same as what Torren and Jones have put forward here. cheers
Jeezus thats well worth another Watch
And would like to Torren on one of these
https://www.boardshop.co.uk/maurice-cole-rv-twin-pin-surfboard-7ft-1-fut...
Collab with MC
At Big Nias or Sunset... Torren already said a 7'0 Triple Stringer Fiji Twin for Big Wobbly Sunset.
Yep
Huge effort at Greenbush!
onya @udo, cheers, perfect thing to rewatch on a smokey, 38 degree, wacky-wind day here.. so, so good.