Summer’s rolling on… The time for Sunday beach barbeques, endless waves and sunburnt faces is well and truly upon us and CM is bringing you another instalment to help you maximise your pleasure on these beautiful Summer days… ___________________ This Issue: Loggin’ – They may hark back to the days before many of us took our first steps on a board, but logs are here to stay… and sometimes the only tool for the job… Fins pt. 2 – We continue our look at fins, this time focussing on quantity, from single skegs to quads and more… Transplant - Neil Randall is CM’s retro board guru, with knowledge the depth of the ocean on all things pre-‘80s. We demythtify the Pommie shaper… (Photo: Parrish Watts)	Newsletter :: February ’09 :: ___________________ Not Just The Realm Of Lumberjacks Many a disparaging remark has been thrown the way of the log: heavy, flat, tricky to turn but with the ability to catch the ripples form a fish’s fart, the classic single-finners haven’t tried too hard to make friends of everyone. But when rolling point breaks are a stone’s throw from your front door you simply have to have one in your quiver, and we, with the multiple point set-up of Noosa’s National Park as our back yard, should know what we’re talking about. In zero-to-three-foot swell, nothing can touch a heavily glassed, soft-railed, flat-rockered plank. Shortboarders flap around when the swell gets gutless and even those on performance longboards struggle to pick up weaker waves, but with a log you’ll be grinning all the way to the beach. Here’s what we have in stock for those times when you need trim…
	The Classic Californian: Borne of an era where trim, style and finesse were the traits of a good surfer, the Classic Californian is exactly that: a classic Californian template with full, parallel rails, wider through the nose and tail and a very flat rocker. Made to surf Californian point waves originally, this model is perfectly suited to the waves of our home breaks here in Noosa Heads. A perfect nose-rider, beautiful in trim and able to glide through flat sections and on the smallest of waves, the Cali is a board that oozes fun and the purest wave-riding pleasure. Developed by Kevin ‘Magic Feet’ Connelly during his three-year sporadic tenure at Classic Malibu, this is the board he won the 2004 Noosa Festival Of Surfing on. Primarily a points board, the Cali can still handle a mellow beach break, as Kevin often has so deftly displayed.
Five-to-One: Last month we showed you the elements of a fin and what makes it work the way it does. Here we continue Fins-101 with a look at set-ups. From one to five, boards come with different sizes and quantities so disparate as to baffle Joe Blow into absolute confusion. So class, let us continue the lesson… - The Single: For an older, more fluid feel to your board, nothing’s finer than the mono. Singles give drawn-out turns on shorter boards or a pivot on mals with increased trim and nose-rideability. - Plus Sides: Side or stabilizer fins create a still fluid feel, but with extra bite at those critical moments. With extra drive out of the turns and greater responsiveness, a box fin with stabilizers give you the edge you need. - The Deuce: Twin-fins are renowned for fun and versatility. Giving great down-the-line hold, they are the perfect set-up for longer point waves and mellower beach breaks. Where twinnies fall short is in critical conditions, losing a lot of speed and sliding out through hard, fast turns. - Since ’81: Simon Anderson created the thruster 28 years ago and shortboarders have never looked back. Drive, release, hold and the generation of speed all come from thrusters. Perfect for progressive shortboards or high-performance longboards, but they need speed, so drawn out turns and mellower waves are not the thruster’s best friend. - Quattro: Where two works well, four works better. Offering a similar feel to a fish, quads give extra drive, added hold and exceptional release, maintaining speed through those more drawn-out turns. On a longboard, the quad creates greater hold down the line and in turns although, according team-rider Grant Thomas, hold the board back a little when going vertical. - …And One Makes 5: Five fins are all about change. With a centre box or FCS plugs, a five-way set-up allows you to go thruster, quad, 2+1 or any manner of combinations. All five in at once can create a little drag, but will increase the pivoting drive of the quad whilst preventing the occasional slide-out suffered in a standard thruster Next Month: To The Core: an insight into the internal workings of your board… Classic Malibu Cnr Gibson & Eumundi Rd Noosaville QLD 4566 Ph: (07) 5474 3122 www.classicmalibu.com.au Email: info@classicmalibu.com		The Vintage: At about the time the Californian model was being refined on the points of Malibu and San Onofre, Australians were making what has now become our Vintage model. We over this side of the Pacific set the hips of our boards further back, in the latter third of the board, trimming the nose down to give increased pivot from the tail, far more suited to the more critical beach breaks of Sydney and the hollow points to the North. A board with little to no rocker, soft rails and a rolled bottom, the Vintage is a board to be surfed with grace and poise. A beautiful down the line board, almost identical to the original template, giving you exceptional glide but the ability to turn on a dime when necessary. If you want an old-school log, it doesn’t get better than the Vintage: all class and a pedigree of well over 40 years.
	Randall: - Australia’s Finest Import - When it comes to retro equipment, be it a classic log, egg, twin-fin fish or any of the many other diverse, pre-mid-70s shapes, few have a knowledge of them more in depth than our shaper Neil Randall. That statement is ironic double-fold, for not only was young Neil not even born when many of the shapes he now creates were being ridden first time ‘round, but he also was born, grew up and began shaping in England’s South-West. (Photo: Parrish Watts) Studying product design at university, Randall always had a creative flair, able to manufacture all manner of objects to a perfectionist’s high level of quality. It wasn’t until this relatively late stage of life that the surfing bug bit the Pomgolian, but when it did it bit hard and deep and Randall immersed himself in every aspect of the lifestyle. Starting out on modern shortboards, Randall became disillusioned with their fickleness, their difficulty in paddling and stability, and began leaning towards the old-school. He began shaping boards for himself and, through skills refined in his university education, soon proved to have an exceptional talent for the job. Orders from friends swelled through word of mouth and soon total strangers were laying down their hard-earned for a Randall shape. From this sprang Randall’s own label, If 6 Was 9 – a successful business but, due to the fact that Randall was shaping, glassing, sanding and polishing, an exhausting exercise. Visits to Australia brought him in contact with Bob McTavish, Dick Van Straalen and Scott Dillon among other revered shapers. But it wasn’t until our own Peter White saw some of Randall’s shapes first-hand that the partnership occurred. Making the trans-continental phone call, Peter invited Randall to come to Classic Malibu as the in-house retro shaper. That was four years ago and Randall has proved himself again and again, expanding his knowledge as well as his already formidable skills with a planer. Randall continues to research, experiment and delve deep into the archives of surfboard design. And, now fully entrenched into the Noosa scene, Randall has not only the perfect testing ground but also a wealth of test pilots to try out his new creations. Next Month: Benoir – Ding-fixer, fin-fitter, a Frenchman with flair. Now indoctrinated into the world of Classic Malibu, Benoir has come to us from the southern reaches of France, via Tahiti, Indonesia and any other surf spot he could find along the way.