tation. The jet propelled introduction of the shortboard transformed the way that everyone looked at surfing, and pretty much converted every surfer to a shortboarder overnight. Between 1968-1970 the average length of the surfboard went from 10 to 6 feet, and lost about eight pounds. Manufacturers could hardly give away the longboards and many ended up shaving off a few feet and reselling them as 6.5 footers. The major advantage over the new shape was its emphasis in speed. Now surfers could not only ride the waves vertically like the longboard, but also ride inside the pipe and carve radical turns in and out of the white water. The flexible fin came into the picture and eventually the shortboard became the basis of the all around performance board of today.The 1970's and 1980'sOne of the best things to happen to surfing did, in 1973, surfer Jack O'Neill invented the leash, or leg rope. This piece of stretchy yet extremely strong surgical tubing enabled the surfboard to be attached to the leg of the surfer, hence keeping the board from washing ashore every time the surfer missed a wave. Another achievement was the introduction of tri fins, which as basically two attachable "stick on" fins made of plastic that could be mounted in various positions outside of the fin that was permanently glassed on. This added greater stability to the rear of the board by enabling greater rail control in the water, and it gave the rider the chance to experiment with different fin arrangement with out committing to a certain one. The early eighties were a quite time in surfboard design, shaper's designs started to focus on certain areas of the board individually. There were a few new experiments in fin design, non of which became socially popular, with the exception of the three fin surfboard, in 1981, which as you can guess had three fins permanently glassed on.The 1990'sIn the 1990's the surfboard design started to refine a little. The longb...
