Introduction
In Australia by the end of 1981, Simon Anderson's three fin Thruster design was rapidly being sought out by single fin riders, with a significant number of surfers staying loyal to the twin-fin as popularised by world champion, Mark Richards.
Within two years however, the Thruster would essentially dominate the Australian market, and then the rest of the surfing world.
These design articles feature four designers whose work would soon be superseded.

Col Smith from Newcastle (and not the North Narrabeen one) rode his Channel bottom designs, notably manufactured by  Freeflight and Shane Surfboards, to competitive success including wins in Hawaii.
The Hydro-Channel design  as illustrated  is a swallow-tail stepped-bottom with deep channels leading into a pintail.
The stepped-bottom had previous used in 1964 on John Kelly's Hydroplane board, and reappeared in the mid-1970s on Ben Apia's Stinger.

In a jocular and rambling interview, Hot Buttered Surfboard's Terry Fitzgerald is questioned (by an unidentified journalist) about his Drifta design, featuring a round nose, or no nose at all, and the hip, the latter said to be derived from Midget Farrelly's 1970 Slide-slipper.
He added small stabilising fins on the rails for boards designed for larger waves, and later (on the advice of Mike the mad sailboarder) reversed the foil of the side fins (flat on the outside, foiled on the inside) and set them parallel to the stringer.
Experiments with small rail fins, Tri-fins, began in the early 1970s by Reno Abellira in Hawaii and subsequently by Bob McTavish in Australia at Bennett Surfboards.
Mike the mad sailboarder was possibly Mike Maguire, the first Australian Windsurfer Champion (1977).
The reference to Neddy Seagoon probaly baffled most readers.
Seagoon was a character in the 1950s British radio comedy show The Goon Show, created and performed by Welsh comedian Harry Secombe.

Newcatle's Mark Richards details some minor variations to his popular and widely copied twin-fin, including lightening the fins with foam inserts, and comments on the use of super-light blanks.

Geoff McCoy is pictured with his 1981 No-Nose design, the fore-runner to the Lazor-Zap as ridden by Cheyene Horan and who added a radical Star-fin keel.
Initally a devotee of single fins, by the end of the 20th century he had converted to the Thruster fin set up for his Nugget design.

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Page 52 "For about five years I've been refining the bottom shape, as it is the main contact point between wave and surfboard and translates all the other design elements (planshape, rail lines, thickness distribution) into wave performance." - Col Smith Col Smith with the Hydro Channel design.

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Page 53
Hello? Hello?
Yes, who's this? NeddySeagoon?

Huh, you wish, but alas no.
Hey look what's the programme on these D3's?
The Drifta's?

YEAH!
Well, ummmm, just quickly I've been working on 'em for heaps now, basically I went way out and over, but by bringing 'em back and developing 'em for all surf conditions, I've gotten into a viable alternative.
Its taken about two years and l haven't ridden anything else in that time.
There isn't any singularly big difference, but, a lot of small ones.
The originals were built for small surf performance, as an alternative to twins.
Their biggest difference is the round nose, or no nose at all, and the hip - Iike the old Digget slide-slipper.

OH YEAH, I remember them ... 360's and slips and slides and ... drifts!
Yep!
So that was cool for 5'10"s and 6 footers.
But for "surf" I added small stabilising fins about a year ago, they helped to hold down all the extra planing area.
On the 7'4's though just the right tail, pintail that is, was enough to do the job - even at 15' Bells.
Now to loosen the three fin configuration, I added single-edged flutes with the concave created running up to the centre line of the vee.
The ol' concave in the tail trick for quickness and release, is something I first did about 1973 - along with the wings for edge control and short arcs.

HOW many of 'em have you had?
Well, lets see, a couple of the D1's, the little ducks - Davoli used to quack every time she saw me with one.
Ahhh, one, two, three D2's , two 7'4"s - half of one floated off to Guam when I broke it at Sunset
Now, let's see - three D3's - which I am now converting into 4's, a 5'6" D4 and a couple in the shaping bay for Hawaii.

WHAT"s the difference between a D3 and a D4?
Oh well, instead of having the side fins foiled on the outside, flat on the inside and angled like twin fins, I reversed the foil thing.
The idea came from Mike the mad sailboarder.

WHAT, flat on the outside and foiled inside?
Yes.

AND it works?
Well we had to make some changes.
If the side fins were still angled the boards tended to over-amp the short arcs.
So to keep the line in the rail drives we set the side fins parallel to the stringer.
And made them thin.

SO that's the difference between D3's and D4's?
Yeah, mostly.

UMMM, I'm still a little confused by it all, put it up against twins and singles.
Wo-boy.
Basically a single fin tends to stall at the zenith of its arcs - a Drifta will keep the pivot going on its inside rail fin while maintaining the big fin's drive.
With twins, they tend to slide on the corners - a Drifta will not let go.
You can keep the power on - a power drift.
Got it?

AHHH
It's like a thruster is a twin fin stabilised.
A Drifta is a single fin loosened with extra area, and then stabilised with the rail fins.

WHAT about the nose?
The nose .. the nose is for breathing, smelling, blowing, snoring and snort ...

NAAA, the Drifta's nose?
Okay, a pointed one will go through a lip, and then come over in a re-entry.
A round nose hooks into the lip and comes over with it - the whole manoeuvre becomes a fraction quicker.
It also allows you to have a 2-4" smaller board than you might have with a no-nose.

YOU said you were up to D4 ...
Working on it anyway.

YOU mentioned a 7'4", so they're for big waves too?
If you have a board that works, you can ride it anywhere, or should be able to if it's a real surfboard.
I've ridden Drifta's from 5'6"to 7'4',  from Sunset to Ulu and Monobe to Mexico.
Throw in Burleigh to Bells.
You name it.
What is this?
I've been everywhere man.
Shee, they're basically the product of 15 years travelling, surfing and slurping and guys are winning on 'em, Linda, Nick.
Developing something isn't just making a mistake with your planer and then giving it a name.
Its gotta go - everywhere, in every surf.
Hey, what do you want to know all this for?

AH... cause l don't want the same as everybody else.

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Page 56-57

Mark Richards "As boards get lighter, they get more sensitive. I personally feel that boards can get too sensitive, they can react too quickly for what you want them to do. I don't like a board that flaps. I like them to sit down in the water and run". - Mark Richards The man responsible for the twin fin revolution, world champion Mark Richards.

Page 57
With twin fins, I've got a design that works good and I'm just trying to improve it all the time.
The ones that I'm ridding at the moment haven't changed greatly over the past few years and the main reason for that is I'm really happy with them as they are and what I've been trying to do is to slowly refine them as I go along - not radically alter the design.
The things I'm doing differently now are: using more bottom curve, with less Vee in the tail and more Vee in the centre, a touch more roll through the bottom.
I'm making the boards slightly thicker and a little bit fuller in the rails than I have in the past.

About the only really different thing l'm doing now is using foam fins.
Actually they're fiberglass fins which I cut the centre out of, insert a foam piece in its place and put a few layers of glass over it to cover up the foam.
What this does is to take the weight out at the middle of the fin, it gives you very light fins.
That's also a help in making the board lighter overall.
Also, we're using super Iight blanks on my boards now, mostly glassed with 6oz., but some with 4oz.
What a lot of the public don't realise is that glassing is still the same on boards.

You get a lot of people complaining the boards are soft or the glass jobs soft, there's no such thing as a soft glass job.
Its just that with the demand for lightness, the blanks have gotten lighter and therefore softer.
So the reason the boards ding more easily than they used to is because the foam underneath is lighter.
As boards get lighter, they get more sensitive.
I personally feel that boards can get too sensitive they can react too quickly far what you want them to.
I know I've had boards which were too light.
There was a stage with them where their lightness made it almost impossible to think quickly enough to keep up with the board - the board was flapping, it wasn't sitting down in the water and running.

I've tried other shapes... I rode a thruster for a little but I actually didn't like it.
In comparison to a twin-fin I found it too stiff.
It felt okay on the backhand, but forehand a didn't have the speed and the manoeuvrability that I can get out of a twin fin.
They'll do me for a while yet.

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Page 60 "If the board is smooth and flowing it will have a smooth controlled performance. If the board has prominent design features, it win react to those features, if you don't know what they are, you won't be able to control or utilise them." - Geoff McCoy Page 61 Mark Warren, one of the surfers testing McCoy's designs.