How Chops Brought The Thruster’s Three Fins To Britain
By 1981, British surfing was well enough established and connected to keep apace of international developments in the sport and surfboard design. One key conduit through which those developments and connections flowed, was Cord’s own Chops Lascelles.
As an Aussie expat settled in St Agnes, Chops returned to Australia regularly to visit family and friends and to keep his finger on the pulse of the vibrant Aussie surf culture and industry and its opportunities.
In early 1981 Chops was down under, and visiting friends and factories in Sydney where he came across Simon Anderson’s tri-fin Thruster design, a couple of months before Anderson would prove its place in the world of performance surfing at the Easter contest at Bells Beach. A concept travelling half way across the world is one thing, but Chops brought back first hand experience and examples. At the end of August, coinciding with the Gul Alder pro-am contest at Fistral, the first issue of Wavelength Magazine was published featuring an article penned by Chops all about the transition to thrusters.
"What’s it all about with these tri fins? Well it goes like this: Big Simon Anderson just could not get it together with a twin fin and was having limited success on his single fin due to varying conditions. So after a couple of dozen tinnies so to speak, he came up with this three fin thruster idea and a six foot hangover, but it was there in theory and off to the Energy factory he did stroll to put it into practice and thus create one of the most unique designs in modern day surfing. The thruster tri-fin design. A new era – who knows?"
The concept made perfect sense to Chops. He was all-in. He took the concept, made a few adjustments for personal preference, and headed back up to Queensland where it was roundly disregarded…
“…and there I was with a wife and three fins. So off I goes to Noosa National Park, 8 ft. cyclone swell, hot from the boiling pot to Johnsons and 'brah' that little 5'9" machine was just cooking, off the lips were just so much more controlled and vertical. I was stoked with my new 'red- eye' special.”
As Chops rightly points out, new designs must be proven before they are accepted. Simon Anderson did just that through the Aussie autumn, winning both the Bells Beach Classic and the Coke/2SM Surfabout in Sydney.
"Like I say tri-fins are real and are a definite advancement or alternative of contemporary surfboard design. As they become more popular, which I am sure they will do, only then will we be able to discover the full potential of them as they will be surfed in so many different conditions, from high performance waves to three foot on shore slop and that's where the feedback is critical to the shaper."
During that visit Chops got heavily involved in putting together Hot Stuff Surfboards in order to bring that brand back to the UK and Europe, and Chops’ article features input from both Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholomew (“Bugs”) and one of Hot Stuff’s shapers Alan Byrnes – a name synonymous with channel bottom surfboards. These Hot Stuff designs were still single fins – at this stage the world of high performance surfing was still divided between single and twin fins, and the design that combined the two had yet to get a firm foot hold. It was only a matter of time, though.
“As for me, I'm already into them and my fourth place in this year's English titles helped my confidence in this design no end. I've also heard that there are many pros at the moment switching over. 'Rabbit' and Alan Byrnes are in there with a small wave version in their quivers of channels and square tails.”
By the time issue one of Wavelength hit newsagents at the end of August thrusters were a hot topic and Chops and Mary were hosting Bugs and Cheyne Horan who were in the UK to compete in the Gul Alder pro-am.
Chops’ deep connection back to Australia and also with friends in California no doubt meant that surfing in the UK – the designs and brands, and the culture that they fostered – had a head start, and the introduction of the thruster design to British waves is a great example of that.
Cord’s been shaping surfing since 1965, and you couldn’t have a longer history of designing and shaping high performance thrusters in this country than the family firm of the man who brought it back from Australia like a book in his hand luggage in 1981.
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