The Best Fin Free Surfers In The World

We all know that surfing started on fin-free equipment; the ancient Hawaiians rode the Olo and Alaia. In the late 19th Century, these gave way to the solid redwoods of the Duke Kahanamoku era and then cut-down hot curls with a V-tail. It was Tom Blake who added the fin in the 1930s, changing, or stabilizing, surfing forever. And yet in the last decades, the finless surfboard has returned. Frictionless surfing is no fad, and the best proponents, as listed below, have refined it into a fascinating, unique and compelling subset of surfing.

Derek Hynd

We had to start any fins-free chat with Derek Hynd, the friction-free godfather. Hynd’s use of the anti-tech was first widely seen warp speeding at J-Bay in the seminal early 1990s surf flick Litmus . Always ahead of the curve (he also was pivotal in the return of the Fish design) Hynd has been at the forefront of the movement ever since. In a 2011 SURFER profile by Steve Shearer, Hynd described, “The economy of movement at speed does have a rhythm to it. It might be a new form of dance. Maybe it’s just the pursuit of art and not sport.” He’s still dancing to this day. And all on the list below have joined him on the dancefloor.

Jordan Rodin

“People constantly ask how my knees are,” says Perth’s Jordan Rodin. That’s because when Rodin is pushing the boundaries of finless surfing, he seems to also to be pushing the limits of his cruciate ligaments. Yet ironically it was a knee injury that started his finless “journey”. Riding a single fin in the rehab phase, he forgot his fin one surf, rode the board anyway and had a eureka moment. “It’s flat out from start to finish, and it opens a lot of windows to waves that aren’t so good for surfing with fins,” he told The Surfers' Journal recently. “Your toes are like little feeling sensors, little signals to your brain. The low center of gravity is better for control and stability. It’s a weird one.”

Ari “Krooky” Brown

Once described by a surf magazine as “the best frictionless surfer of his generation,” Ari “Krooky” Browne is the perfect poster boy for finless surfing; über-talented, ultra alternative, eccentric and one who gives zero fucks about what anybody thinks about his approach. Initially standing out riding wooden Alaias around his homebreaks of Byron, a move to Ryan Lovelace ’s Rabbits Foot high-performance asymmetrical model accelerated his ascension to a mulleted, finless deity. No one surfers them faster or with the smoothest style, and none have as much fun.

Paul Duvignau

Hossegor local Duvignau remembers being 14 and deciding not to surf with his school friends on thrusters at the crowded spots of Bourdaines or Estagnots. Instead, he’d be careering at high speed down dirt tracks through the local pine forests with his dad in an ancient Renault 2CV. The rattling car was loaded with longboards, single fins, and twin fins. Later that year he made his first board; an Alaia sourced from European-grown Pauwlonia. The shaper, talented longboarder and big wave rider has been shaping and riding them ever since, extending and refining the creative arc of one of Europe’s best free thinkers.

Cam Scott

I was first alerted to the New York-born, Sydney-based finless escapades when earlier this year I saw him ride a solid 10-foot bomb at Ben Buckler, the big wave bombie that breaks off the northern tip of the Bondi headland. The street artist makes his own boards with, “no channels, no contours, and almost no drag as a result.” His boards are designed to glide through slides while surfing backwards. His latest clips during the latest solid run of swells at Bells show he's getting pretty close to his goals.

Bryce Young

The North Coast of NSW might be considered the beating heart, performance HQ and cultural hub of fin-free surfing. Again, Derek Hynd’s influence (he’s been primarily based in Byron for the last few decades) is pivotal, but the next generation has readily taken up the mantle. Dave Rastovich and Laurie Towner are acolytes, but it’s probably

Bryce Young who has put in the most time and the most eye-catching performances over the last 10 years. At his homebreak of Angourie, Young incorporates stylish spins, effortless tail drifts and the odd tube in a rare and effortless mastery of the art.

Related: In the Magazine: Ryan Burch and Bryce Young on the Surfboard Connection