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bob
mctavish : break the straight line, 1967- 8 |
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This "constant velocity" style virtually
established the direction of performance surfing for the next generation.
It was dramatically put into practice
by Wayne Lynch, whose surfing in Paul Witzig's Evolution, 1968,
had world wide influence.
Today, surfing's main school is the
turn the board, walk to move out, get forward for trim, adjust a little
across the board, backpedal like a log-roller to haul the board into a
cut-back type.
Noseride, slide white water, stick
your body into any nearby mass of fluff.
CALL IT INVOLVED, "in", New Era, high
performance, aggressive.
Call it anything.
Plenty of thrills in it, deep moving
out, but, oh! in a straight line.
On the tip, hanging well over, feeling
good, but that crazy straight line again.
Nice wall.
Walk up some, hold back on the inside
rail, let it go!
Walk up for full trim.
Moving like crazy!
But. ..in a straight line.
BREAK OUT FROM THE STRAIGHT LINE.
Go fly ...go free. ..up up and away
down the barrel. ..down down and yup!
Drop, bounce, thrust. ..up, down thrust.
..cut!
SOUNDS BONZER.
HOW PLEASE?
Get your frame on the all-new
FANTASTIC SIXTY- EIGHT MODEL VERTICAL
PERFORMANCE CUT- DOWN THRUST- UP INNER SPACE PROBING ZAPPER.
Kid's crazy.
SHALL I EXPLAIN FURTHER OR JUST LET
THE NEWS SLOWLY, INEVITABLY, CREEP OVER THIS CARVE-UP KIDDY?
I SHALL PUT IT DOWN, HE MAY PICK UP
AS HE SO DESIRES.
Here's putting down news.
Surfing equipment evolution has swung
into a new phase.
A huge new breakaway direction has
sprung out of the conventional surfboard move.
The entire thought behind this new
flow is freedom.
The entire freedom.
This is not surfboard riding.
This is wave riding.
These are not surfboards, these new
vessels.
A board is a rigid flat plank for standing
poised upon, balancing, defying waves from flinging.
The little wide-back machines, vessels
or flying saucers are mind vehicles, just like your bodies.
Performing, like part of your body,
the new unit will take your conscious many fantastic places, in some fantastic
ways.
How?
Elimination of two feet of board.
Limitation of walking.
Sounds like you're just going to hang
around the tail.
Right.
Hang around upside down, sideways,
doing 360 degrees, flying.
You see, the turn area doubles as a
planing area.
It's wide and flat.
Many square inches of plane - acceleration
and speed.
Fraction of a second from banking to
full planing.
Maximum speed one-half second from
banked on edge.
You can get yourself from some deep
hole, out and up under the lip in the blink of an eyelid.
Up under the lip the speed you have
allows you to bank up under there, much like a toboggan in an ice trough
deal.
Centrifugal force.
The force that gave you the speed in
the first place.
That wide, wide tail will not mush
in.
That short length (7 feet and up) can
be spun into a cut-back without ever digging and sinking.
Ridiculous manoeuvrability.
Especially the offsets.
Vertical performance.
Broken the straight line at last.
Replace nose riding as World's No.
1 fad?
Why not?
It's limitless.
Some exciting manoeuvres have been
developed already, after only a few months of feeling out.
Try these.
The Superman.
First recognized and acclaimed at North
Avalon, one Sunday nine months ago.
Ted Spencer on a standard board.
Blast up wave at great rate.
Two-thirds up, pull board out towards
beach while still climbing.
Rise completely clear of the water,
twist and drop back in after stall-out.
Best performed where you'd normally
throw a conventional curl cut-back.
Desirable size 4 feet and up.
New equipment's great vertical speed
and lightness make it a cinch.
The Flypaper is the most descriptive
name yet for the hanging under the curl banked over so your body weight
is almost horizontal, pinned to your board by centrifugal force.
Tremendous fun.
George Greenough developed it.
Really small arc turns are frequent
on such small boards.
Really wind up some G forces in these
tight powerful turns.
Feel your back ache and legs nearly
buckle from rapidly doubled weight.
All kinds of bitchin climbs and drops
of all classes.
Anything vertical.
At this early stage of refinement, it
looks as though there will be no loss of noseriding, in fact probably a
vast improvement over even the "noserider" shapes.
How?
By moving the entire controls to the
nose as soon as the surfer's weight is up front.
Perhaps even taking fulcrum up to a
couple or feet from the tip.
Virtually still turning over the fin
but on the nose.
Imagine the sensation of powering a
full banked turn up the front, with the tail snaking along behind, even
whipping along behind, like a mini minor's front wheel drive feeling, but
really amplified.
Take off on the tip, take the complete
drop just off vertical, power into a full blasting turn with your foot
over the nose.
Nice?
A great help is a changeable fin slot,
it opens the range vastly.
Shallow drop- out fins, raked-back
soft flex skegs, hot foils, thrust fins.
A nose slot for real nose performance.
Farrelly, Spencer, Young, Platt and
this kid, were all riding considerably different styles of units at time
of writing, six weeks before news-stands.
The wide range will give many results
- by now we'll have the whole thing pretty wired.
Oh, yes.
It's all been done before.
Belly boards, kneeling did it.
And even Foley boards five and six
years ago had the feel.
But now we're standing up digging it
and doing it about doubly as well.
2. In design this is achieved by:
"Elimination
of two feet of board."
This translates as approximately as a
board 7 foot long.
Dimensions would continue to shrink and,
by 1970, the common board length was around six feet.
3. "The little wide-back machines"
(
Vee Bottom Stubby) were only a brief
stage of design development.
By mid 1968 the wide Vee Bottom had been
replaced by a variety of designs -
foiled Pin
tails, small square tailed
Trackers
or Double-ender round tails.
4. Wide tail boards would not re-emerge till 1978 with the No-Nose, typified by Cheyne Horan/Geoff McCoy's Lazer Zap.
5. Vee became a standard feature in bottom design, but has never been as deep as in these designs.
6. The use of fin boxes was initially
limited, but the introduction of the Bahne box in 1970 saw the development
of extremes in fin design.
Nose fins have yet to become standard
features...A nose slot for real nose performance.
Also note the use of thrust fins
- an term later appropriated by Simon Andeson's Thruster,
1981.
7. The dates of Surf International
magazines are not specified in the publication details.
The article notes that it is written "six
weeks before news-stands."
This was the standard printing lag and
it is difficult to accurately date when the article was written.
Certainly with the rate of experimentation
in this period, by the time the article was published, board designs had
been further refined.
8. Note the inclusion of Midget
Farrelly at the forefront of these design changes.
Midget Farrelly's role in this period
was largely ignored by the surf media of the time and is rarely credited
in retrospective artlicles.
9. There was an accompanying image, but I am unsure what it was.
10. The article does not have a formal title - the first line is quoted.
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