Like many of us, my first surfboard was a gift. During a visit to the Kipapa house in Keaukaha during the early 2000’s, my uncle caught me eyeing up his trusty 6’0” single fin. I just couldn’t take my sights off of her. Beginning at her beaked nose, my gaze slowly made its way down her full blue rails eventually coming to a drastic halt at the pin of her tail. Half-smiling, he grabbed his boards and reached her out to me. “You probably gonna wanna move that fin up so you can turn,” he said.
Dreams of off the lips, grab-rail cutbacks and cheater-five tubes kept me up late at night. Needless to say, the following months learning to surf on that board was not as trivial as Uncle Gabe seemed to suggest. It didn’t take long before I gave up on my first single-finned obsession and transitioned to a much more forgiving 6’4” Pearson Arrow thruster. Although I would occasionally switch back and forth between the two, I never had the opportunity to ride something that would merge my surfing. I preferred the responsiveness of a thruster, but became infatuated by the glide of a single. It took many years before I gained enough courage to ask my close friend, Matty Raynor, if he would be able to create something that could marry these often separate perspectives on modern surfing. He told me that this already existed and he would additionally apply some of his unique shapes, foils, and designs to the traditional bonzer fin set up. We decided to film the first 5 waves on this board to see not only now it felt, but also how looked. Having never ridden a bonzer prior, it only took one wave before becoming a lifelong fan.
