Did A 2x World Champ Just Release The Ultimate 1-Board Quiver?

Let’s play a game.

First, you need two things: the volume of the board you ride and how much you weigh. So, dig out the scale. Don’t be shy now.

Got the numbers? Good. Now, do the math.

Multiply your body weight (in kg) by 0.38.

The number you arrive at, assuming you followed the instructions and possess at least a passing relationship with surfing, is your surfboard’s volume, accurate to within 0.5%. This has been empirically tested no fewer than ten times in the Stab office and declared 100% correct.

If it isn’t, I regret to inform you that you are riding the single most universally agreed upon, if endlessly litigated, measurement in surfing incorrectly. Your board’s volume should be to equal 38% of your body weight. More usefully, it allows you to reverse-engineer how fat your friends are based on their litre count. Input volume, divide by 0.38, arrive at truth. 

This bit of maths is borrowed from Harley Ingleby, though he applies it with considerably less malice. He doesn’t treat volume as a meaningful measure of surfboard design so much as a diagnostic tool. A quick cross-check. A way of confirming that whatever he’s building for you isn’t wildly divorced from what you’ve already been riding without complaint.

“I’m not obsessed with volume,” Harley says. “But when I am adjusting customs for different weights, multiplying body weight by 37%-38% consistently put me within half a litre. It became a super practical way to ease my mind when designing a file for a custom shortboard ” 

If you’re not already impressed by Harley, you soon will be. Harley has gone ahead and built a surfboard with six fin plugs.

Six. Fin plugs. A three + three fin cluster.

And he’s not even European. 

Harley, if you haven’t heard, is a multi-time world longboard champion from Australia. But, should you be so foolish as to reduce him to that label, Joel Tudor will fucking drowned you. 

Which is to say, Harley remains thoroughly unconvinced by finality. Sure, he’s got a couple of titles in the elongated-toe-dance department, but that’s just one chapter in a much longer book. He rides whatever the conditions, his mood, or the whims of metaphysics demand, and all of them incredibly well. A technical polyglot with no doctrine to peddle.

A natural progression, then, that Thunderbolt Surfboards has aligned more closely with Tolhurst Surfboards. The two brands are now working in partnership. Thunderbolt manufactures Tolhurst models under licence, with Ol’ Billy Tolhurst continuing to lead the shaping and design direction.

“Billy’s DNA and his knowledge of fucking everything is insane, and it’s all going into this board,” Harely says. “But he’s a one-man show that’s buried in Coffs Harbour. He couldn’t work for anyone else. Shame for anyone that has entered his factory to end up being told to F off. Like, if anyone comes in and goes ‘Oh, I love this board, can you copy this?’ Fuck off.”

“He was an insanely good surfer in his day, like next level good,” Harley continues. “In the longboard world, he was always well known, but he’s always been small scale. I’d put him in a similar category to Timmy Patterson. Super freaking good, super fucking talented, but never really went as big as he should’ve. Guys like Jeff Hackman used to come out to Australia, get six boards off him, and go back to Hawaii.”

They’ve just released what’s likely the most versatile surfboard model in history: a choose-your-own-adventure setup, with a three + three fin cluster that you can fill however you please. Twin, quad, asym, it don’t matter. How many things in life offer the luxury of plugging as you see fit?

It might sound a little gimmicky at first glance, but here’s why the holes work, according to Harley. Oh, and the model’s called the HIBT (Harley Ingleby x Billy Tolhurst).

“I used to ride asyms religiously,” he says. “And I quickly realised that boards with one long rail and a short rail had this stickiness in transition. It got me thinking, how much of what I like about the asym is more about fin configuration than some bizarre outline? So, I started slapping an extra toe-side twin fin onto a bunch of my favourite quad shortboards, and it sort of validated the idea. I thought, yeah, that works.”

Harley shoved the idea aside for a few years, collected some world titles, and in the meantime, ol’ Billy started teaching Harley how to shape, making sure all that wisdom wouldn’t just fade away when he’s gone. 

“A couple of years ago he was like, ‘Are you going to learn this shit off me? I’m not getting any younger,’” says Harley. 

They worked on a few models for Thunderbolt, then one day, the thought hit: Why not fuck around and tackle the problem that’s haunted every surfer before him? Create the ultimate generalist board, the one-board quiver, three boards in one, that works in nearly any condition… with six fin plugs. 

“We were trying to make a new model between the Mid-six and the Mo (other Thunderbolt models),” says Harley. “Those are our good wave and small wave mids. We wanted to take performance up a notch. So we tried a bunch of different rockers. Ended up going with a twin-fin rocker that’s quicker than the others. Most of the R&D was focused on flyers—traditional low flyers, full drop flyers, and we finally landed on a sting-style, chopped-out flyer that just loosened the board up. At some point, I thought, ‘Okay, this is different from what we’ve been doing. It feels better in all these ways.’ And then, the six-plug system was the next logical step.”

To fit make room for the three + three cluster, one might think you’d have to compromise their placement. But according to Harley, there’s no such thing.

“All the plugs are exactly where we want them. The fins have always given me what I like about asyms, and with this board, it’s like, fuck, no compromise. You’ve got a reliable quad, a solid twin, and you can mess with an asym if you feel like it. It’s all up to you. For me, an asym offers the best of a twin fin with more control. It gets rid of the little wobbles a twin has. You get that frictionless speed down the line, but when it’s time, you can lay rail like you’re on a normal board. The release off the lip, if you’re into performance surfing, feels similar to a thruster, but without the drag. Every surf on this board, I just don’t feel like I’m thinking about anything. Just surfing.”

Interested? Repulsed? They might not be the most aesthetic looking board, but they’re built to last. The painted finish means no sun damage, and length options are 5’10”, 6’0″, 6’2″ 6’6″, 6’10”, and 7’2”. 

No custom orders, either. Each blank takes 30 to 40 days to build, thanks to their unique sandwich construction.

For further evidence of this board’s uncanny utility, allow me to introduce a friend, Nick. Nearly 7 feet tall, yet built like a flagpole. He’s got digestive issues that could make a doctor weep, courtesy of drinking some downstream water a decade ago, after a kangaroo had met its end just upstream. Suffice to say, it fucked him up. Faecal transplants, organic diets, week-long fasts, consultations with naturopaths, psychics, and every medical professional imaginable, he still needs to crush up gastro stops every night just to sleep. 

His body can’t hold on to anything long enough to process it. So, he’s about 70kg, a gaunt spectre, and naturally, finding a board that he can turn while accommodating his enormous hooves is rather difficult. I handed him the Thunderbolt HIBT, and after a few surfs, he swears it’s the best board he’s ever ridden. Rides it as a twin, loves it more than his gastro stops.

Oh, and for the record, his model’s a 5’10”, 26 and a half litres. Anyone care to run the numbers?

Shop ’em here.