Rusty

Check out my upcoming appearance on MTV 2's Rock N' Jock. It was a blast filming it the other week and it airs Saturday, August 21st 11am-1pm EST... Give it a look!

xo Anastasia

Photo: Robertson

Fly weight mega grom, Ryland Rubens, just returned from his first stint in Indo and rumor has it he was stepping it up with the big boys and surfing well beyond his years. Go get 'em grom...

Photos: Paul Rubens

Congratulations to Anastasia Ashley for claiming the cover of West Jet (Canadian Airline) In-Flight Magazine! If you are flying in the British Columbia region, keep your eyes peeled...

The Rusty Board House team harbors some of the best young up and coming surfers in the La Jolla region and these groms were foaming at the mouth at the opportunity to surf Trestles. The RBH Team put on an impressive display at the world renowned cobble stone break and put a plethora of Rusty Surfboard models to the test. Check out the images below to see what ensued:

The wrong side of the tracks

Owen, fish out of water

RBH Groms frothing

Lucas throwing shuv-its on his SCREAMER

Blow tail by Jacob on the GTR Squash

Fano was doing these all day on his Redline Squash

Tristen lets loose on his all new Dozer

Will on rail riding the Redline Round

Owen gouging on his GTR Round

RBH Team Manager, Ryan Schnell, shows the groms how it's done on his new Hustler

RBH Shop Manager, Garret Scurr, won't let the groms have all the fun. Scurr on the Dozer.

Text and Photos: Brody

Support Josh Kerr and Damien Farhenfort on their quest to claim bragging rights for the ultimate blog... Click to VOTE!

The last few blogs I've covered Bob Simmon's influences on modern design, and an overview on rocker. A natural segue would be a little history and discourse on bottoms.

Here's a short list of some bottom contours that have been utilized over the last 40 years: Vee bottom. Spiral vee. Hulls. Tri-Hulls. Tri-plane Hulls. Bonzers. Venturis. Double-barrel vee. Clinker bottoms. Channel bottom. Six-deep channels. Four-deep channels. Belly channels. Curved-belly channels. Phazer bottoms. Micro Grooves. Triple con. Double concave. Reverse vee. Step tails. Hydro hulls. Hydrofoil. Jet bottom. Slot bottom. Double-deep concave.

And...the single concave. Why single concave?

A little background: Concaves in surfboard bottoms have been around since Bob Simmons introduced them in approximately 1946. Some big-wave guns from the late '50s and early '60s have concave in the bottoms, all the way through the tails.

But for the most part, surfboards up until the late '60s had convex bottoms. Sure, there were plenty of nose concave designs for noseriding, but concave in the back half of the board was more the exception than the rule. In 1966, 1967, longboards started to shorten up a little and vee bottoms were introduced. The panels on either side of the stringer were relatively flat.

Bob McTavish circa 1968; pretty futuristic looking board: double concave entry feeding into a vee bottom.

Vee helped these still relatively high-volume, wide boards, to tip over, and carve a shorter arc on rail. The problem was, in more powerful surf, when turning these deep vee bottom boards, they had a propensity to tip over, run on one rail, and lift or climb right out of the water. They would spin out.

Bottom turn or spinning out? '70s SURFER cover.

As the boards evolved over the next couple of years, they got shorter, and eventually narrower, and the deep vees became passé. The late '60s shortboards still had some genetic residue from the longboard era: slightly rolled noses with a lifted rail up front, but the rails were firming up in the middle, laterally a little flatter, and the tails were down railed with shallow vees. Hulls still enjoy a strong and loyal following with the folks who frequent lined-up pointbreaks with almond-shaped pockets

Classic '70s single-fin bottom. Photo: Brody

By '70 and '71, rails are down all the way; nose-to-tail, bottoms are much flatter, and the vees are starting to get dished out into something called "spiral vees." The elevated spine of the vee still helped to initiate turns and provided drive and direction. By dishing out or hollowing out the vee panels towards the rail, more bite, or hold, was created. Water was routed through the troughs and spiraled out through the tail. These types of bottoms were the norm for a few years. There was lots of experimentation with wings, stings, and other types of template breaks in conjunction with smaller, secondary concaves exiting through the outline breaks.

Aussie shaping legend Terry Fitzgerald was a major proponent of these "Flyers".

Fitzy explains: "The jump came in the winter of '72. My Hawaiian influenced boards just didn't have enough tail area to skate over the flat spots at Narrabeen. So, I ADDED wings (or what we called flyers). The idea was that by adding the wing to the rail it would add more planing area, but you'd still have a narrow tail for in the pocket and bigger waves. The 'wing/flyer' had to be pinched to allow the rail to stay in the wave and run you higher as well (á la Bunker's idea). But, the wing also gave you a break point for snapping out of the lip. So, three pure benefits: More planing area to get across the flats; pinched wing to stick in the face and ride high on; a break point in the rail to snap off the lip on. [Tested in Hawaii that year and then launched in December '72, January '73 in Australia.]

Fitzy's ad from Tracks magazine.

Fitzy continues: "Wings were not something you created by cutting a piece out of the tail of your board. They were ADDED to the rail line/foil and planshape, and pinched to have minimum effect of rail-line entry but maximum effect on planning area when flat -- plus, the increased ability to run high and hold a high line.

"I've always been a concave addict (right back to an 8'9" that had a concave from nose to tail that I had custom built in 1967), so when the pinwings I was riding started to get stuck in the lip, I went back to an old trick off putting a concave in the pin behind the fin. You still had rail line, but a vacuum when flat (almost a swallowtail effect) so going rail-to-rail was a damn sight easier. The vees were always spiraled (rolled and curved), so changing the panels back to concave was an easy feed."

Before the shift to multiple fins, some of the best single-fin surfing was being done on channel bottoms. Six deep channels. And during the '70s, there was a lot of tinkering with bottoms, trying to gain speed and traction. Short, wide boards were loose but required longer, deeper fins to keep them in the water. The longer fins had a lot of frontal drag -- they slowed the board down. Narrower boards were quicker and required less fin but were somewhat impractical for most average surfers in average conditions. So, unless you were a very light surfer, or riding good, hollow waves all the time, the narrower boards were liking owning a Ferrari but being stuck in city streets most of the time.

The early '80s saw fairly short, wide boards with bottoms that still had remnant features from twin-fins and single-fins. Fairly flat under the front foot with vee running through the back third of the board.

Late 70's Canyon double wing, double barrel twinnie

With the advent of the three-fin surfboard, the search for increased traction and drive, while minimizing drag, was put on the back burner. Bottoms started to change. Check back next week for part two...

Last week, Rusty was proud to present PEKING DUCK, featuring the debut of Rhys Gordon’s’ book, Freestyle Tattoo Australia. Held in the depths of Surry Hills at LOW302 Bar, the night saw a mish mash of the Rusty family come together with Sydney’s finest. Here are a few photos from the night…..

To see more images from the event click here!

Rusty Chilean team rider Cristian Merello won the Quiksilver Big Wave Invitational in Punta De Lobos, Chile yesterday. The event was held in huge 15 – 20ft waves at the famous big wave spot Punta De Lobos, Chile.

Cristian overcome a world class field including Mark Healy, Grant Baker, Peter Mel, Greg Long (who won last years “In Memory of Eddie Aikau” event at Waimea Bay, Hawaii), and Rusty's own Jamie Sterling to take the win.

Also, a big congratulations to Jamie for taking to the podium in this prestigious, invitation only event. To see more from the event check out here.

The Coca-Cola Saquarema Pro 2010 had another great day of surfing with the Brazilian, Willian Cardoso, being crowned as the new king of Saquarema after a thrilling heat against Marco Polo, both from the south of Brazil.

Marco Polo decided to start early in the heat surfing as many waves as possible, while William opted to wait for the best waves as he did in his previous heats. He was rewarded in the last ten minutes with a 9.0 and 7.73 to take the win.

"I have no words. Winning here at Saquarema with the beach packed seeming like a stadium, it's an indescribable feeling," said Willian Cardoso. "I did not start the heat well, I was anxious, doing wrong moves...When I found nine points, I saw that I already turned the heat situation and when I was paddling back I got another good wave and only then began believing in the win."

With the 3000 points earned, Willian is now the sixth Brazilian among the ten who qualified for the 2011 ASP World Tour. He rose up twenty positions, jumping from 52 to 32 after the 19th stop completed in the Coca-Cola Saquarema Pro 2010.

The California kid, Nathaniel Curran, was the other surfer defeated by Willian in his winning campaign. He had a very tough heat against Willian, needing 14.17 points to overcome the Brazilian 17.20 pts.

"I started well and had good expectations, but he (Willian) had the best waves to make the highest-scores of the heat. I had to wait for a good wave, but it didn't happen", lamented Nathaniel Curran, who jumped from 72 to 54 in the ASP World Ranking. "I'm happy with my result, it was exciting surfing here. It is a place with great waves and this makes the tour much more exciting."

FINAL RESULTS OF COCA-COLA SAQUAREMA PRO 2010:
1 - Willian Cardoso (BRA) - scores 9.00 + 7.73 - US$ 20.000 e 3.000 pts
2 - Marco Polo (BRA) - scores 7.33 + 6.33 - US$ 10.000 e 2.250 pts

SEMIFINALS:
SF 1: Willian Cardoso (BRA) 17.20 x 14.17 Nathaniel Curran (USA)
SF 2: Marco Polo (BRA) 14.46 x 11.43 Travis Logie (ZAF)

QUARTERFINALS:
QF 1: Nathaniel Curran (USA) 13.66 x 10.86 Ricardo dos Santos (BRA)
QF 2: Willian Cardoso (BRA) 11.53 x 9.07 Heitor Alves (BRA)
QF 3: Marco Polo (BRA) 12.83 x 10.97 Jeronimo Vargas (BRA)