Me surfing my Jacobs Fish twin fin at Hermosa Beach, California. Photo taken by Bill Mac Faden, 1981
Australian, Simon Anderson and his Thrusters in the 1980s.
Simon Anderson was the dude who blew the door wide open in the early 80s.
He is responsible for the real power surfing to begin. There were designs that worked all around, although the Thruster design has had staying power for more than thirty years.
I grew up in a very hostile localized surf region of Los Angeles. Up on the Hill, there were people who were stuck in the 60s and 70s. They did not play nice with anyone holding new forms of wave riding vehicles and wearing bright colored wetsuits charging down the steep cliff trails to surf. You were headed for some big trouble.
So I started out with a multi colored rail “swallow tail fish” design from Jacobs’ shop. My Uncle John flowed it to me for my eleventh birthday, cuz he surfed for Hap and he grew up surfing In Hermosa Beach. It was one of those twin fin designs that has since re-surged to popularity. I must say that it was one of the best shapes I have ever rode, it worked in anything from small to medium size waves. Although it was not the standard approved board in PV. At Haggerty’s I was rocked and heckeled at by some locals and they are heavy dudes. Funny thing was, I lived on Via Del Mar, PVE and could see my house from the line up when it was good size. So I had to conform to the norm, and get at Eddie Talbot’s main shaper, Gumby, to shape a single fin totally clear single fin, White, no colors and certainly Kook no cords!
When the three fin revolution happened it happened overnight, almost as fast as the Body Glove day-glo colored wetsuits hit the scene back in 1982. Another weird tick in PV was that no one was to wear a wetsuit other than the O’neil Animal Skin black with red, green, or blue in the “V” portion down the back and chest. If you were to surf in Palos Verdes, then you better tow the line, or get hassled. If you parked your a car on the Drive, then it was keyed up, and the tires would be slashed. That was the locals law, and if you broke their rules, you had to pay some heavy dues.
I paid some dues surfing up on the hill.
When Simon’s three finned Thruster design came to America from Australia, it was like a big bright light snapped on, and the whole crew realized that this was a happening design for the type of point break waves we were all surfing. So it made sense to change the game and let the PV surf culture evolve. Well that was the in good theory, yet there were still die hard Neanderthals dudes, who just would not give up the black and white single finned ghost of the past.
When finally the change came, local shapers started absconding the templates from surfboards Simon Anderson shipped to ET Surfboards in Hermosa Beach. In P.V., garage shapers were producing the design with some great results, Talented shapers like; the Trident brand of Zen Del Rio, Bob Stassi’s “Bali High” brand, Artist/shaper Chris Lundy’s tiger stripped surfboards from the North Shore, with the impeccable Joe Bark designs , and John” Pineapple Head” Francisco’s far out log shapes and custom color jobs with all the 80s splatter you could ever want on a stick.
They were all into shaping thrusters, some got into four fins and even later on “swallow tail fishes” like my5’11″Jacobs. Surfboards with custom color air brushing was a big deal way back then. The change was here to stay, although the locals never really did warmed up to the Valley Kooks and Herms all that much. Still sometimes you hear in the news and in local rumors about these young punk kids being big jerks to wandering non local surfers.
Pity that we all can’t get along, and be stoked on just surfing waves…
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