Rusty

Congratulations to Marlon Gerber for claiming this month's cover shot of Waves Magazine (Australia).

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...

Nate Yeomans is coming back from his 2010 WCT break and plans to unleash the fury...

Rusty is pleased to welcome Ivan Rivado to its skateboarding team.

Ivan has been on the European skateboard scene for years now and is still motivated to ride any kind of spots, from vert to street without forgetting about bowls, Ivan is always on.

Recently back from a huge trip in South America and placed third at the Txotx European mini ramp contest, Ivan feels loaded by his new partnership with Rusty. Many plans are in the loop including the Euro Bowls contests and finishing his part for the upcoming Jart video as well as some more shooting and filming for Rusty.

“I’m really happy to be part of tight team as the Rusty skate team is…. Also it is cool to be team mate with Bastien because our styles are very complementary and we are getting along well together…” announced Ivan….

Rusty Chile's Christian Merell along with Ramon Navarro, Diego Medina, and Khol Christenson go head to head with a uncharted Chilean super slab... Have a look at a few bombs from Merello below and to check out more waves from this day visit Surfline.com:

All photos: Alfredo Escobar

Holly Beck wrote an article about Haiti for the upcoming issue of Cooler Magazine, which is to be released, but in the mean time have a look at this interview Cooler did with Holly:

She’s stunningly beautiful, travels the world surfing and helps underprivileged people where ever she can. A combination you could very easily be incredibly jealous of. But we managed to overcome our smaller self and caught up with this hugely interesting woman, who also wrote the Haiti travel story for our last issue, to chat about waves, beauty and her surf camp in Nicaragua.

Interview by Anna Langer

Hey Holly, what are you up to at the moment?

Right this moment I’m hanging out on the porch at my house in Nicaragua watching the rain pour down while enjoying a steamy cup of coffee and some time catching up online without worrying about the surf today.  Less specifically, I’m at the end of a three month trip down here and starting to think about heading back to California. I definitely do not want to leave what I’ve started to consider as “home” but it will be good to catch up with friends and family for 10 days before heading off to Fiji to film a surf and dive documentary with Body Glove.

You wrote the story on surfing in Haiti for one of the last issues of Cooler. Have you been there since the earthquake?

I haven’t been back. It seems like there is a lot of rebuilding to be done before Haiti can start accepting surf tourism once again, but at that point I’d love to revisit and do some more exploration.

Are you involved in the help effort?

I am not. All my energy has been focused on Nicaragua. The good thing (if you can find a silver lining) is that disasters in places that need help like Haiti end up shining the global spotlight on the situation and people from around the world rush to help. Hopefully when infrastructure is rebuilt it will be more functioning than it was before.

Can you tell us a little more about your surf camp in Nicaragua?

Nicaragua is my fav place on Earth. It has warm water, excellent surf, incredibly friendly people, and is really undeveloped – no McDonalds or Starbucks or big chain hotels. I wanted to be able to spend more time here and show others how wonderful it is. I had always thought that after pro surfing I would like to run womens surf retreats, so it all fit together really nicely. I can bring groups of ladies down, help inspire them to improve their skills in the water, introduce them to the magic of this place, and also help them to do some volunteer work with people that need a little help. We do week long retreats at a beautiful private home right on the beach that include daily surfing, yoga, and adventure plus a few opportunities to give back such as bringing food and clothing to kids that scavenge at the town dump. I’m only doing a couple retreat weeks this summer but starting in November will do many more.

You work with non profit organisations there to help the local community. What kind of projects do you support and how does that work?

SYRV.org is run by a friend of mine and focuses specifically in the area of Nicaragua where I have my house. They have built water purification systems for schools and families without other access to clean water. Their current project is turning a shipping container into a community center where local people can access computers, sewing machines, clean water, and after-school tutoring.

There’s also a nurse that runs her own health clinic and sponsors school kids and another hostel nearby that runs an after-school program. Those things combined with a church group that feeds the kids at the dump create plenty of opportunities to plug in smiling volunteers and do some good.

You have travelled the whole world as a surfer. What other exciting places have you been too?

I’ve been incredibly lucky. Whenever I try to list off all the countries I’ve visited thanks to surfing, I always end up forgetting a few, but here’s the ones that come to the top of my head: Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Brazil, Australia, Fiji, Tonga, Tahiti, Indonesia, India, Andaman Islands, Maldives, Sao Tome, Haiti, Seychelles, Portugal, England, France, South Africa, Gabon, Hawaii, New Zealand.

What/where impressed you the most?

Well, Nicaragua is my favorite and I love all the latin American countries too. I would have to say that the Seychelles were the most jaw-dropping beautiful, Haiti had the most interesting culture, in Australia I made the most friends, Sao Tome had the most memorable single surfing experience, but I would most like to return to New Zealand.

How did you get into surfing in the first place?

I wanted to learn to surf when I was 13, but my mom said no. “Surfing is for boys. You should be sitting on the beach looking cute in your bikini not out competing with them, you’ll never get a boyfriend that way!” She was super old fashioned and never approved of her tomboyish daughter, but by the time I was 14 I had saved up enough babysitting money to buy a surfboard and wetsuit at a garage sale and by the time I was 15 I had friends that could drive me to the beach so she couldn’t stop me. I was so determined to prove her wrong about surfing being just for boys that I picked it up really quickly.

You also competed professionally for a while, is that right?

I turned pro in 2001 after graduating from college and did the WQS for 7 years. It was really fun. I’m a very competitive person and I made a ton of friends from all over the world. But the tour isn’t all glitz and glamour. You go to the same exact place every single year. You are there for 10 days and don’t really get to go explore because you have to practice at the contest beach. But there are 200 of the best guy surfers and 72 of the best girls from all over the world all trying to practice at that same beach too, so it’s really crowded. I’ve been to Durban South Africa 8 times but never been on safari or really done much exploring. It got to the point where I was spending so much money to do a contest that I’d end up getting frustrated and then flying home without seeing the place or interacting with the people much at all. Now when I travel I go to more interesting places and the whole purpose is exploration and interaction. It’s a lot more fun and rewarding.

You also modelled quite a bit in your life, how do you like that part of your job?

The modelling part is the “work” part of being a pro surfer. I don’t particularly like it, but being able to do the modelling and surfing is a big part of how I’m 29 and still getting paid to surf while a lot of my peers that didn’t do the modelling part are now “retired” from pro surfing. Sometimes it’s fun. If the people you’re working with are awesome, that makes all the difference.

There’s a quite a debate about girl surfer being sponsored for their looks rather than their skills. How do you see that?

It happens a lot. I was just on a trip with a girl who can surf ok in small waves and is really beautiful. She is in a ton of ads and a lot of American surf mags because she’s hot but she would only surf for 40 minutes at a time and then go lay on the beach. The days the surf was bigger she was only taking the little inside waves, and she calls herself a pro surfer! But, the truth of marketing is that pro surfing exists to sell product. If you aren’t attractive you aren’t going to sell any product so sponsors aren’t interested. I have a Masters in marketing but you don’t need that to understand the situation.

Did people ever give you hard feelings for being a pro surfer and a model at the same time?

I’ve done a lot of modelling and in the beginning of my career I felt a lot of pressure to prove that I wasn’t one of those girls just sponsored because I was tall with blonde hair and blue eyes and could pose in a bikini. Some of the older girls doing the contests definitely gave me a hard time at first because a lot of the ads that were run of me in the beginning just showed me standing there with my surfboard not actually surfing. It took some time to get past that image.

Right now there are a lot of young girls coming up in the sport who totally rip and are also super beautiful like Alana Blanchard, so hopefully that will help settle the debate. Ideally, if you want to make money in surfing especially over a long time, you have to have both: looks and skills.

How do you think girls should deal with situations like that in general?

If you model and want to call yourself a surfer, you’d better work on surfing as well as you can or else you’ll have the same problem. But no one should be ashamed of looking good and getting paid better for it. Use what you’ve got to get what you want!

What do you do to stay fit?

I’m one of those annoying people with good genes that can eat anything and doesn’t have to work out to look fit. Fitness is still important for surfing though. I HATE the gym and have never had a gym membership in my life. I play! I surf, chase my dogs on the beach, go for a hike or a paddle, etc. Living in Nicaragua without electricity, I have to pump a well to get water, carry that water to the toilet to flush it, wash clothes on a washboard, etc. I actually end up losing all body fat living down here! Just taking care of the chores necessary to live is a full on core body workout!

What goals do you have you still wanna reach?

I want to be able to sustain myself financially while living in Nicaragua, so getting that women’s surf retreat going and keeping it up is a big short term goal. Longer term, I’ve been working on writing a novel based on my experiences learning to surf and going on tour for about 2 years. I spend a couple months working on it and then forget about it for 6 months. I want to put in some more time and finish that.

What’s up next for you?

I’m headed to Fiji next month to film a dive and surf documentary with Body Glove. We are going to be surfing all over the place and diving with tiger sharks. I can't wait!

Wow, we wish you great times then!

Intrigued? Find out more about Holly and her surf and yoga retreat on surfwithhollybeck.com and hollybecksurfs.blogspot.com

For more from Cooler click here.