Surfboards in Australia in the late 70s were still challenging to ride. They were primarily single fins, far too thick, had hard rails, and needed more rocker and lift in the nose. 

Lots of home movies from the period shows surfers struggling, nosediving, or catching their rails. Some great surfing was done by Australians during this period, particularly the back foot power surfers who set their surfboards on a rail and let the crude plan shape and limited rocker carve through the full arc of a turn. Guys like Michael Peterson, Wayne ‘Rabbit’ Bartholomew and Terry Fitzgerald. Their American equivalents were the big-wave riders, Jeff Hakman, Barry Kanaiaupuni, and Gerry Lopez.

In 1974, Michael Peterson won every major surfing contest in Australia, five contests in 12 months. He complained: “To tell you the truth, it was boring me because… everyone was just giving up before they got out in the water. So, I was thinking of dropping out… just go to the Islands, have a break from it”. As Rabbit put it: “Michael was the best surfer in the world…he seemed to me invincible. But he had the onset of schizophrenia”. Some Australian surfers wondered whether the surfing world at large might not be toying with the same mental illness.

While 1970 saw the first twin fins being shaped in Australia, they became more popular over the coming decades. Twin fins rode more like skateboards, weaving effortlessly from rail to rail. Surfing and skateboarding were feeding off one another. Some of the most revolutionary surfing at the time was performed on twin fins, much of it by Mark Richards. MR was originally a ‘McCoy’ boy, strictly a twin fin surfer, who also shaped his own surfboards. Famously, he almost never wiped out. MR won most of the contests he went ...