Just like the proverbial bus, when Richard from St Ives saw the blog post from a couple of weeks ago about the very rare Stuart, he sent in photos and history about his. So after years of never having seen one of these we can now see two. It was shaped by Mooney McAllum in St Ives, and its among the first boards he shaped on coming to Cornwall from New Zealand. At this time he was staying in the party house of Tris Cokes up the valley from Porthtowan. This board looks slightly later and more refined than the other Stuart with less width at the tail, and it has a yellow tint on rails and underside with black pinlines - the cornish colours. Its 8'1 x 23 x 2 3/4, a nice shape with 50/50 rails with not too much volume, check out the fin, obviously made on site and pretty basic although a good shape. The unusual diamond pattern on the underside is the old trick of hiding cavities in the blank.
Compared to the other Stuart this is in amazing condition, so well done to Richard for looking after it. He says he got it 2nd hand from his friend in 1968, and used to surf Gwithian on it in the late 60s. He says he remembers Mooney shaping them up near where the Atlantic boards were being made. Then it went into storage and was surfed on and off till the early 90s. It was stolen in the mid 90s and Richard tracked it down to the store room of a shop in Penzance, and seems to have paid some money to get it back.
Richard was happy to sell it on to me as he says he's not as energetic as he used to be. The board will be well looked after and surfed at Gwithian again just as it was doing in the 60s.
This is a cool Simon Anderson thruster, -well actually a twin fin with fin box, from the early 80s with a very bright stripey spray. Its owned by Wayne, who dug it out from under his house (not literally) while he was getting the Ted Deerhurst by Nev out to show me. This is another Country Rhythm made one - the production of these is not well documented but I think they were made under licence in South Africa. I featured another of these recently which is in South Wales, and apparently Damion of Boardcollector fame is trying to acquire it during a 3 hr stopover in Heathrow on the way from California to a business trip in Germany ! Now thats a level of dedication and forward planning that leaves us Brit collectors falling by the wayside.
This one has some nice features as well as the spray, such as channels, which are always nice to see . They died out by the late 80s, probably because shapers and sanders were sick of spending the extra time to make them. This board also has jet fins, which were used in a very short time around '83/'84, and are basically inspired by the tail fins on a fighter jet. They look great, but obviously weren't quite as successful in the water. I always thought Simon Anderson himself designed them, but Surf Research says Nat Young.
Simon at Bells Beach, late 70s. mindblowing positioning.
Winner of the Bell's pro in '77 on a singlefin. Once he hopped on a thruster there was no stopping him
