Bonzer Bonanza

Weren’t you at one point converting people’s Thrusters into Bonzers?

We’ve done it every once in a while. Moonlight Glassing [EDITOR'S NOTE: CLICK HERE TO TAKE A TOUR INSIDE THE MOONLIGHT GLASSING FACTORY ] has done a few conversion and Duncan’s done some in Hawaii. The interesting thing about that is that it’s a pretty objective test. You have an existing board that someone’s used to, and then you knock out the Thruster fins and put the five fin system on there. There’s not any grey area. All you’ve done is change the fins. They go faster immediately — that’s not even a question — and the turning, that’s usually better too.

Back in the ‘70s, when people had single fins, we would just stick on our two side fins and immediately the board goes faster. So that put an end to the idea that more fins equal more drag and make you go slower.

Why do more fins make the board go faster?

Because of how they water’s organized as it passes underneath the bottom of the board. When you’re turning, water travels diagonally across the bottom of your board. So, if you picture the board going on its rail, and you have those outside fins — they’re tilted out at about 18 degrees — so when your board goes on rail, the two side fins are basically vertical in the water, so the water being directed across the bottom of the board during the turn gets deflected down and back through the tail of the board. So, all that spray that’s coming off the outside of a board is wasted energy. If you can harness that energy and force generated through a turn and put that back through the tail, it gives the board a lot more efficiency in terms of thrust and drive through the turns. So, it increases the speed by virtue of organizing the water flow past the fins more efficiently.

If the boards work so well, how come they aren’t being ridden by more pros?

Taylor Knox may not be riding a bonzer in this shot, but with his experimentation
and power, the future of bonzer surfing seems endless

That’s the question people have asked for years and years. A lot of pros do ride them, but only recreationally. The reason they don’t ride them in contests is that their shapers won’t make them for them. I know that from personal experience. I would have even helped these shapers. But they won’t do it. That’s number one. So, all the sponsored guys, they don’t really have the opportunity to test the boards and see if they would work well in a contest situation. And the other thing is just that people are a bit afraid to do something different because the judging system might not see them the same. But surfing’s going a bit more in a power direction anyway, so I think the Bonzer would actually benefit these guys. But Taylor gets boards here and there, but obviously he doesn’t surf them in contests. And Rob’s got boards. The Malloys have some boards. Lots of guys.

Have you dabbled with new materials, like epoxies?

A little bit. We’ve done EPS epoxy; I’ve done some with the Point Blanks guys and their extruded foam. We’re still predominantly polyester, but I’m sitting back and letting everyone else do the work on that stuff. As it develops, we’re into using whatever we can.

Seems like there’s a growing interest in Bonzers these days.

Well, that’s the good thing about the whole retro movement. It really opened people up to just getting out to riding things to have fun and not worrying if I looked right on every turn on the present paradigm. It did open things up for us.

And now people are applying modern concepts to retro shapes.

Yes, but that’s a double-edged swords, ’cause there’s only a certain point where you can make thin Fish. There are certain characteristics on those old boards that are important to carry through. You can modernize them a little bit, but if you stray a little too far, you get a mutant, and they work kinda funny. On a fish, you gotta keep something in the rail, cause that what keeps ‘em going.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT MALCOLM CAMPBELL AND HIS BONZERS AT: www.Bonzer5.com

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