Tom Curren J Bay Quad

In 1992 Tom Curren made his first trip to Jeffreys Bay South Africa.
He appeared in the Rip Curl videos 'Search 2' and 'Searching for Tom Curren' and in the majority of the footage of the larger size wave sessions he was riding a 6'11" x 18 x 2-5/15", McKee Quattro, four-fin, swallowtail, gun.
The fin set-up consisted of the rear fins being larger than the front fins. The fin cluster was fairly spread apart with the rear fins being close together and quite far back. The fins all had a medium flex and were glassed on. The bottom shape was a light forward Vee in the middle to a deep Vee with deep double concave in the tail. This helped give the board it's amazing speed and control.
The fact that he was riding a four-fin or 'quad' was amazingly never mentioned.
He also appeared in the video 'Ultmate Sessions', section shown here, where all of his J-Bay performance was on the McKee Quattro board. The commentator even incorrectly states he was on a 7'3" pintail when a close look at Tom running up the beach with the board, clearly shows him carrying a quad fin swallowtail.
In another sound track the commentators even incorrectly claim the name of the supposed shaper..
It is a mystery why this surf-industry changing truth was never revealed to the public.
Tom's next session riding a fish in Indonesia, did though, launch a revival of the fish style board..

Maybe one day, someone will tell us why, or who, decided to keep the technological nature of this momentous day at Jeffrey's in 1992 a secret.

The result allowed shaper-designer and inventor Bruce Mckee to continue his 'Mission Quattro' which finally resulted in the 2001 launch of his website containing fin position formulas and relevant detail that has become the reference point for high performance quad fin enthusiasts.

• Category

  Sports

[Samuel Montero]

You guys f*cked up the flow of the video w/ that pause @ 1:59. Idiots! Otherwise, great footage.

[marleySux]

the quad trend woulda really caught on sooner had it been shown at the time...

[hiflyinjangus]

Tom Curren is theee Pioneer!

[pencilbooktv]

dont hate on dane! hes just as good as curren they just have two different styles. A lot of toms style you can see in danes but hes more relaxed and progressive with aerials that didnt exist back then.

[rlocke1027]

Already saw that post on Sways - was one of the reasons I started sippin' the quad koolaid!

[IKillGoliath]

Perfect!



[Christopher Song]

geez louise, so casual....so FAST!

[rnneto2]

so inspiring... dane, jordy etc etc can perform great moves but they dont have the most important thing in surf: class

tom curren is so cool to watch in any era

[jonno69098887776766]

beautiful!!! would kill for style like that, forget dane and jordy. currens where its at

[Ericsouthswell2001]

: Its on itunes...