Back in the mid ‘90s, surfboard design looked a bit different.
The standard shortboard had the rocker of a banana, the width of a toothpick, and the thickness of a potato chip. Oh yeah, and forget about volume. Nobody cared about that.
But change was brewing.
A young Chris Ward called up (an also young) Matt Biolos, and asked him to shape a fish. It was radical, at the time, yet so commonplace in any quiver today – so much so that now, nearly 30 years since the iconic 5’5” x 19 ¼ (or RNF) debuted, people are still riding ‘em…and ripping.
In a new series from …Lost Surfboards, the resilient surfboard shape lives on, honoring the board and the classic lates 1990s film 5’5” x 19 ¼, with Kolohe Andino taking it for a spin in Australia, Mason Ho pushing its limits in Indo and Hawaii, and Griffin Colapinto ripping it to bits at home at Trestles.
For more on a little history behind the board, here’s Biolos:
There was very little talk of fish, in the surfing world.
It was the fall of 1994 and there was this little blip of
Tom Curren, surfing in New York, on a knee board.
Oh! Tom Curren riding a fish!
It was a little spark.
No one (on the surface…at least) was really making them (fish) at the time.
Chris (Ward) was…I don’t know, 14 or 15? He was a little Curren disciple. Chris calls and says: “Make me a fish!
Like Tom Curren!”
And i didn’t really know…what the fuck. What’s a fish supposed to look like?
So I went to BC (Surfshop, in San Clemente) and just stood there, looking at the old board collection, up on the ceiling. You got to remember, I was young, like 24…25 years old.
Ok, there’s an outline.
That’s a fish.
A swallow tail, twin fin.
I just stared up at the walls and then came in here
(shaping room) and cranked out a fish.
A little twin fin,
about 5’5” x 19 1/4.
I randomly made the nose and the tail the same width.
Both nose and tail about 14” wide.
I just didn’t have much to go off of and just went for it.
Chris flew to Hawaii, and stated ripping on it.
This little board with glassed on twin fins.
We started making more.
Cory Lopez, more for Chris, then Andy Irons.
We were all riding them.
But they rode them a lot and they rode them well.
Cameras are rolling. A second season in Hawaii, a couple trips. Before long we ended up with all this footage.
Someone said, “Let’s make a movie about them. Just fish boards”.
So we did.
5’5” X 19 1/4”
It caught like wild fire.
Within a couple of years, If you were building boards, you had to have some sort of a fish in your line.
Just this one humble board, made by a shitty shaper, and two stoney kids.
I think they work in damn near anything.
More than 25 years later,
an entirely new crew, along with a couple of OG’s, have combined to make a solid case of just that….except maybe not Sunset Beach.
5’5” X 19 1/4”…Century
Now, 25+ years later,
comes an all new, sprawling,
6 episode series, chronicling the past couple years of modern day, free surfing,
on primarily that same humble fish.
…by that same shitty shaper.
Stay tuned for episode two, “Old Guys Rule,” dropping soon.
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