Musing Hot Buttered Surfboard Design

Musing Hot Buttered Surfboard Design

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Sunday, October 26, 2008

Terry Fitzgerald | 7'4" 'Speed Thrills' | Double Wing Pin Single Fin


Just recently a few people have been asking me if the board i am riding in the HB ad, that appeared in the Oct issue of Surfing World mag, is actually the same board that my old man road during the epic "Bells 81" contest. Yes folks, it is.


In 81 Terry shaped that 7'4 single fin (dubbed 'Speed Thrills') ,with a Double Wing Pin Tail for the Bells event, as well as a variety of other single fins for the HB team that headed down to the contest, such as Nick Carroll and Derek Hynd. The period was a real transition period as far as board design goes. Mark Richards, Shaun Thomson and a collection of surfers were riding a variety of twin fins. Shane 'Channel Bottoms' were also in the water, TF 'Classic Drifta' models with side stabilizers, and of course Simon Anderson won the event on the Thruster.

On the large Saturday many surfers were under gunned, and opted to borrow boards. Hot Buttered Surfboards were the most sort after with Derek surfing TF's 7'4" 'Speed Thrills' to 3rd place in the main event, and Bobby Owens won the trials on Nick Carrols 6'5" pin tail.
But , due the monumental rise of the thruster in 81 and 82 it wasn't long before old 'Speed Thrills' ended up on top of Terry's shaping bay, (which is kind of a space where Terry keeps his prized possessions ) and there it stayed until i picked it up in 2007.

TF 81: Photo by Aition


After a few surfs on the board, it felt pretty obvious, that this was one of the best boards my old man had shaped. It just had such a natural fluid speed under my front foot, and a solid driving direction out of the tail. The board really did hold a combination of single fin, rail and concave perfectly, and, luckily, TF and i got in the shaping bay a couple of times, to do our best in reproducing the original before i snapped it.


Epilogue

When i snapped 'Speed thrills' i new TF wasn't going to be particularly impressed. Especially since it was one of his favorite boards that he kept for 26 years. I kept the broken bits in the back of my car for two weeks, wondering what the hell to do about it. (Cause it wasn't the first time it's happened)
Eventually he found out and it wasn't pretty!

In the photo's below i am riding my new 7'4 Double Wing Pin Tail. TF used the same original rocker, concave and outline as 'Speed Thrills'. It goes insane, and i'm looking forward to hopefully getting it to Hawaii in Jan 09.

Photo's by Brett McLeod