About a month ago, I met Don Harris and Mike Butler at The Huntington State Beach parking lot. That evening we were hoping to to get in a possible surf but the waves were small and blown out. We decided instead to gander at the latest shipment of new boards that Don recieved. Packed in the back of his trusty Jeep Cherokee, he had three of four new Parkseys that were absoblutely beautiful. One that really caught my eye was a 6ft quad rounded pintail. It was bright bumble bee yellow with a 1/4 inch black pinline outling the deck. SWEEET!
I was like ...Jeez, who is this for? Don said this is for Tom Linn.
Well two weeks ago on a Friday afterrnon, Tom and I decided to do a late afternoon session at Lower Trestles. It was hot-n-glassy with overhead and larger rights and lefts reeling off. Tom was all stoked to get the yellow gem in the water for a few turns. I was still drooling over the looks of the board and hoping to ride a few on it myself.
We hit the water and somehow managed to pick off a few sets right away. I asked Tom how the board was working after a few waves. He said good but it's doing some funny things. We chalked it up to the normal adjustment period on a new stick. Tom was surfing well as usual but as the day progressed he seemed to become more and more irratated with his performance.
After battelling the crowds for a long while I took a wave in. Tom soon followed and rode a shapely left to the beach. We talked about the board and how it rode when Tom had realized(who knows at what point in the session it occured?) he had lost one of his front fins! I suppose this had much to do with the way it rode. I asked Tom if he had tightened up the fins in the FCS, he said yes. I walked over to the board to get a feel of the tightness of the fins. Low & behold, I was able to pull ALL three of the remaing fins out with a minor upward tug.
Wow, three loose fins and one missing ANY board would ride funny.
IT GETS WORSE!
The next weekend Tom takes his family down to Baja (Las Gaviotas). Driving home along that long stretch by Baja Malibu, there is no turn- around point for miles. He hears a "SNAPPING" sound up on the roof of the car. "It must be the racks", Tom thinks. He finds a place and pulls over to see that his new Parkes and his sons board have BLOWN off the racks. He frantically looks for a spot to turn around but as you all know it's miles before you can turn around and go back in that area. Finally, he finds a place to turn around to get the boards. The problem now is where exactly did they blow off and are they smashed to bits?
Tom, his son and everyone else will never know! After an hour of searching, the boards were never to be found. Were they smashed? picked up by other travelling surfers? or will we see some kid named Miguel ripping on a bumble bee yellow Parkes quad at Baja Malibu or the points of northern Baja?
