Some of you might remember surfco member 'expat UK' who bought my old favourite 9'1" 'Thrusterbuster' pintail with the intention of refinishing it.
Well he didn't do it but Jared did over the past year, and here's the result. The board is simple but goes like a bat out of hell and was the terror of the Mount for quite some time back in the banana republic days. In spite of the low rocker the board never pearled, thanks to the extreme pintail planshape.
Dimensions:
Length: 9'1"
Width 23"
Thickness 2.25"
Rocker 1" approximately
Construction: Ecuador balsa.
This was the first of two identical boards, the other was swapped for a 1971 Dodge AT4 Ambulance in mint condition, which was an epic surf vehicle.
Construction took place at the old Power surfboards camp at Aerodrome rd Omanu, where we shared 40 acres of gorse covered industrial land only half a mile from the beach( belonging to page and Macrae Engineering and the Bay of Plenty Times ) with the local hoons for about 5 years. Rather than do the job under canvas again I took delivery of an old weatherboard site shed which Acme Engineering were going to demolish, it arrived on a huge forklift and was the only building on the entire property, where it sat proudly for a few years. The site shed was only big enough to house the new 9'1" project if the board was placed diagonally across the room, and to get from one side of the board to the other I had to go underneath and up the other side... there being only a couple of inches spare at each end.
The board started life as a single and was epic, it was also the first board I ever rode a tunnel fin on when we added a 4 inch diameter tunnel behind the single.
The first surf on the tunnel finned version was at Shark Alley and I was rewarded with epic standup backdoor barrels (righthanders) in perfect sunny offshore conditions for about 25 minutes as the swell angle produced a big wedge. My wife just reminded me that I got out of the water and said " We've cracked it !"
Marty Matenga saw the session from the rocks only a few feet away from where I was getting spat out into the channel, he was babysitting at the time, beached as !
There were only three of us out, the other two ( Dusty Wadell and a mate ) caught nothing and grumbled about it hahahha.
Good memories. .
Thankyou to Jared for the pictures and for doing such a nice job !
