Retro – THE DOM

Posted in: Models Retro

Late 1970’s – The Dominic Wybrow Inspired Channel Twin Fin

70’s CHANNEL TWIN FIN

5.10 x 20 ½ x 2 5/8 double flyer channel swallow twin fin.
This board appeared on my door step not long ago with an old friend Jason who had been riding it on and off for years. He was talking it up so much I decided to make a very close copy of it.

As I got into it I realized what era this board had evolved from and it all led back to Dominic Wybrow or Zappa- his labelled nick name. To cut a long story short an old friend from Bondi, the late Wayne Williams encouraged me to look after this kid so I bought him up from Sydney and taught him how to shape.

The kid ripped and was winning all the contests around the place and not before too long was shaping a half decent board and I reckon this was one of them.

The shape is chunky wide and short not unlike most boards of that time. It has a slightly rolled bottom as this was way before the concave revolution and the rocker is flat as it was in the day also.  Actually I have not modernized this design much because it is as loose as it needs to be even for this time – after all it is a twin fin.

Most modifications I have done on my retro’ s are to basically loosen them up, since modern surfers have ambitions on the face of a wave their fathers never even thought of.

The channels come out the rail like they still do and the centre one fades out before the swallow so as not to lock up the board too much.

I have added a stabilizer centre fin to give the board a little more versatility in bigger stuff, but really this board is relatively unchanged.