The Evo Design is a refinement of one of the very first boards I did back in 1968 whilst working in John Arnold’s Surf Shop in South Australia where I first began seriously shaping. When I was very young, there was a board called a Teardrop. One of my friends had one. That board had a specific design. It had a very wide tail combined with a tapering plan-shape right to the nose which was pointy and if you had grabbed it by the nose, held it up, it looked like a drop of water. At the time I was riding early balsa wood, thick railed, heavy longboard that had nothing refined about it. Whenever I swapped boards with my friend, I was amazed by how free it was and how different it felt to my board. Another influence which really got me thinking about design was Bob Mctavish with his plastic machine. Bob had shaped me one and I loved it. It didn’t have an extreme vee on that board like most of the others he was shaping at the time. It was quite a subtle shape. I really loved that board. One of the first boards I shaped was off the plastic machine that was only 7’ and that was in spring of 67’. It was quite a radical design and had quite a ridiculous amount of vee. The idea of doing 360 degree turns and barrel rolls in mind, it ended up being too extreme. After that board, I began to make boards with more subtle elements. The vee got trimmed right back down so the boards were much more reliable and really felt fantastic for that period. I wanted to create a board that I didn't have to use the whole rail to turn. I wanted to be able to plant my back foot and push the board so that I only use a little part of the rail or a certain part of the rail. This in turn,would allow me to come off the bottom and go up the face instead of traversing horizontally along the wave, which was pretty much the standard way of surfing back then. Hence the Evo was born. I’d shaped 2 Evo designs before the one that appeared on the Evolution poster of the film by the same name. Everything I've done with these boards is a refinement of that basic idea. The rockers are different but the plan-shape on the 7’10 for example is the exact template I had back then. The current Evo design has a modern bottom contour of single to double concave, with fin options for a single, 2+1 or in the smaller versions, thruster setup. With flow and speed in mind for the longer and performance in the shorter, the Evo will provide a powerful rail engaging style of surfing that I’ve enjoyed and been addicted to for over 50 years. Wayne.
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