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Shortboard Surfboards
Wave Range: Knee High - Double Overhead
Wave Type: Beach Break, Points, Hollow Reefs
Fin Setup: Thruster/Quad/Five Fin
Best in Class: Lost, Rusty, Channel Islands, Firewire, DHD, JS, Xanadu
“The greatest conceptual shift in surfing history.”
- Drew Kampion, Surfer Magazine
While the shortboard revolution wasn’t necessarily televised, it did play out in front of the surfing world from Australia’s Bondi Beach to the infamous Banzai Pipeline. In the late 1960s, surfboard design saw a drastic reduction in overall length and weight. This reduction allowed surfers to approach waves in a whole new light, becoming increasingly vertical and shifting the main approach of wave riding from elegant to radical.
Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, surfboards continued to lose foam as the template for what is now the modern shortboard was refined. In 1981, Simon Anderson crushed the competition at 10-15 foot Bells on what would become commonly referred to as “The Thruster”, further legitimizing the shortboard revolution and allowing surfboards to reach their minimalist peak.
Three finned shortboards would become the performance board of choice for the next two decades and would allow surfers to pump deep in the barrel and bust head high airs above the lip of waves. Everyone from surfers on the World Tour to the best of the best free surfers leaned on the modern Thruster to showcase their best surfing.
In the mid 2000s, professional free surfers, primarily lead by the seemingly superhuman surfing of Dane Reynolds, started to experiment with volume and fin configurations, allowing shapers to deviate from the standard shortboard dimensions and three fin setup and adding a wide array of shortboard shapes to their lineup.
For 2016, Hansen’s is offering a huge selection of shortboards from today’s top manufactures. From grovelers that will perform during those knee high summer days to high performance thrusters that will hold in heaving overhead barrels, we have something for everyone.