The 3x former World Champ is testing his modified skimmer on the North Shore.
Tom Curren has always been a bit of an enigma. The 3x World Champion has also always enjoyed experimenting, even if it means things can get a little weird. But surfing's flourished because of its eccentrics like Curren.
As his longtime fans know, Curren's been experimenting with drastically short boards for a couple decades, first highlighted in Searching For Tom Curren, filmmaker Sonny Miller's legendary ode to one of the greatest surfers ever to slide across a wave. His session in 8-to-10-foot surf in Indonesia on a Tommy Peterson-shaped 5'7" Fireball Fish helped set the stage for a renaissance in alternative boards, especially hybrid fish designs.
Clearly inspired by friction-free stalwarts like Brad Domke and Derek Hynd, the eccentric genius' latest iteration is a 4'6" skimboard-shaped craft with the nose of a traditional board grafted onto the front, and some heavily-raked fins plucked out of a George Greenough time warp.
After Curren straps into two leashes (one for the soft-top "taxi" and one for the micro-board), a curious Shane Dorian drops by to say hello, looking intrigued yet slightly perplexed by the highly experimental wave craft. Takeaways from the session will vary drastically depending on your own personal biases, but one thing is clear -- he is pushing the boundaries of radically short surfboard concepts.
Tom Curren Takes His Mind Vehicle to Hawaii
WSL
Tom Curren has always been a bit of an enigma. The 3x World Champion has also always enjoyed experimenting, even if it means things can get a little weird. But surfing's flourished because of its eccentrics like Curren.
As his longtime fans know, Curren's been experimenting with drastically short boards for a couple decades, first highlighted in Searching For Tom Curren, filmmaker Sonny Miller's legendary ode to one of the greatest surfers ever to slide across a wave. His session in 8-to-10-foot surf in Indonesia on a Tommy Peterson-shaped 5'7" Fireball Fish helped set the stage for a renaissance in alternative boards, especially hybrid fish designs.
Clearly inspired by friction-free stalwarts like Brad Domke and Derek Hynd, the eccentric genius' latest iteration is a 4'6" skimboard-shaped craft with the nose of a traditional board grafted onto the front, and some heavily-raked fins plucked out of a George Greenough time warp.
After Curren straps into two leashes (one for the soft-top "taxi" and one for the micro-board), a curious Shane Dorian drops by to say hello, looking intrigued yet slightly perplexed by the highly experimental wave craft. Takeaways from the session will vary drastically depending on your own personal biases, but one thing is clear -- he is pushing the boundaries of radically short surfboard concepts.
Tom Curren
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