Tom Curren Releases New Board Model

Channel Islands loves a twin fin. It’s the design the company laid its foundation on.

Fifty years after its inception, the best-selling Fishbeard and Twin Pin models are just the latest in a long line of two-pronged prizes coming out of Santa Barbara. But is there room for a third center-fin-less star in CI’s thruster-centric surfboard galaxy?

Tom Curren, who also built his foundation on twins, says yes. Last year, the three-time world champ and surfing’s most underground icon gave the world its first look at CI’s latest twin, the Free Scrubber, in a film of the same name. And damn, the clip was good. Mexican points suit Tom, who looked smoother than a vintage sports car cruising down the main drag on a Fourth of July parade. In the video above, Britt Merrick breaks down how the retro love affair was rekindled.

Tom’s never been one to create something just as a gimmick. He rides a skimboard and surfs with socks on his head because he’s Curren, dammit. At some point before the pandemic, Tom got off the skimboard and told Britt he wanted to run it back on those delightful twins he got from Britt’s father roughly four decades ago. 

What they came up with was a return of a classic design (from Al) with some modern refinements (from Britt). It looks like a throwback, but there are enough tweaks to make it easy to ride if you’re getting off thrusters in search of something looser. And don’t even think about adding a trailer (you can’t). 

“He wanted to blend the old with the new and come up with something high performance,” Britt says of Tom. “The twin fins he rode at that time were thought of as high-performance boards. They weren’t thought of as cruisers. Tom was ripping them. Shaun Tomson was ripping them. MR was ripping. He wanted a performance twin.” 

We all saw what Tom did in Mexico. While there’s no guarantee you’ll fly like he did on those wings, this board looks nothing short of really damn fun. Lively, quick and will hold on a dime. Britt recommends you ride the Free Scrubber 2″ to 4″ shorter and half an inch wider than your normal shortboard. Have fun and start scrubbing.