Surfboard Design | Modern Double Wing Swallow

Two main aspects drove the Double Wing into existence, planning area, but, keep the tail tight. The wings give speed, and the ability to hold high and run. The Double Wing Swallow also keeps the planning area forward for front foot entry speed, and combines a shortened rail length for release to maximize rail to rail performance, another driving force in surfboard design early to mid 80's, which, in turn led to further fledgling design aspects that now make up what is called a modern surfboard, but, sometimes the greatest things come in the simplest forms, Single Fin, Wings, Concave......Double Wings are exactly that.

Surfboard Design | Classic Drifta

Classic Drifta

The whole Drifta thing was a design divergence in the hunt for a combination of speed and points per turn. At the time (1980), rounding off noses, made a lot of design sense, when 3, 4, 5 inches were lopped off…..voilá, you have a shorter board with no nose weight, that can be stood up, vertical with less effort….but, still hold longer board lines on the rail…strike 1.

By taking the old double wing swallow tail templates and widening the front wing the boards had impressive planning area, speeding over flat spots and skating down the line. In stepping down real tail width with two wings, the narrowed tail held in when it mattered, biting deep into the wall….strike 2.

Ten years of concave work had provided the engine…single concave under the front foot – lean forward and accelerate, double under the back - lean back and turn, a wide based single fin and two smaller trailer fins focused on the front wing release points….strike 3.

Terry Fitzgerald

Surfboard Design | Double Wing Pin Single Fin

Double Wing Pin Single Fin

The Double Wing Pin Tail evolved from one of Terry's most popular templates being the Classic Wing Pin circa 72 , 73. Come 77 to 79 Terry was developing his wing concepts into flat out gun specific designs. The Classic Wing Pin was versatile in the mid size wave bracket with it's wide point forward and Single Wing to give the board a break point for direction change off a reduced rail length, but ad the Second Wing, as Terry did in the late 70's and the board now had a narrower tail to hang tight in bigger waves.

Kye Fitzgerald