The RNF-’96… Having shaped multiple variations of “fish” from fall 1994 – 1995, we had created a bit of momentum with the designs. Leading into Winter ’95/’96, we had refined a basic design where we were able fine tune, replicate and re-size the original RNF (by hand) with some consistency. We continued to build small quivers for both Chris Ward and Cory Lopez and sent them everywhere, with Cory taking various versions to each stop on WQS tour.
These 1996 Fish were all hand shaped and not the most consistent creations, but they became the basis and the building blocks towards offering the design to people outside our own circle of friends. They were the boards that teenaged Chris n Cory took to the North Shore and essentially made their indelible mark on the surfing universe.
FEATURES
- Rocker curves: Remain engrained to the original proven curves.
- Outline curves: Both nose and tail were usually the same width at 12” and remain true, but with more precision, including added curve and width around 6” from the tail. One “secret” about the original’s success was that, unlike most all other “fish” the tail width on ours was closer to that of a typical HP Shortboard. This allows much more control off the tail than typical fish designs.
- Bottom Contours: The classic single concave to double concave, accelerating vee combination are defining design elements and hold true to adherence.
- The Thickness Flow, Deckline, Rails, and Tail Foil: They were all over the map in those rudimentary hand shape days. Each board was different, with most of them having noticeably different curves and thickness from one rail to the other.