Mark Richards

No other surfer-shaper has won a world title on their own hand-shaped creations, let alone the four MR racked up from 1979 to 1983. MR’s greatest contribution to surfboard design was, of course, the twin fin.

“Around this time he also had both a silver Porsche and a silver wetsuit, and still managed not to look like a dick”

“Two fins changed my life,” Mark Richards told Surf Europe. MR had adapted a Reno Abellira two-fin design, itself modeled on a Steve Lis Fish, and the transformation from the stiff confines of a single fin to the loose-hipped twin-fin transformed surfing.

Around this time he also had both a silver Porsche and a silver wetsuit, and still managed not to look like a dick. MR retired in 1984, with back injuries and the advent of the tri-fin meaning he quit at his competitive peak.

For the next 20 years he went back to shaping out of his Dad’s surf shop in Newcastle. It is only in the last decade that surfers have again realized the potential of the twin fin and fish, and now a Mark Richards board is rightly seen as a prized possession. There are surfer-shapers, and shaper-surfers, and Mark Richards has a decent claim to be the best of them all.

Ryan Burch

The San Diego native is one of surfing’s best current out-of-the-box thinkers, and is literally carving himself a name as one of the hottest, weirdest and most in-demand shapers on the planet.

While he makes beautiful fish-type boards and longboards for a growing waiting list, he is perhaps best known for his asymmetrical boards. “Surfing and shaping are pretty much all I do so I’m going to have to continue to reinvent myself to keep it fun and interesting,” he said recently.

If you’ve seen footage of Burch surfing grinding G-Land or perfect Peru, I defy you to name anyone that makes wave riding look more interesting than Burch right now. And in that I include the Surf Europe Editor, whose surfing on a Burch-inspired asymmetrical at Mundaka is also interesting, but for all the wrong reasons. With shaping inspiration from Carl Ekstrom, Rich Pavel, Skip Frye and Joel Tudor, and a rare, silky-smooth progressive style, Burch is the modern template for the millennial surfer-shaper.

“And in that I include the Editor, whose surfing on a Burch-inspired asymmetrical at Mundaka is also interesting, but for all the wrong reasons”

Daniel Thomson

Daniel “Tomo” Thomson is one of the more talented surfers from Australia’s Lennox Head, a historical breeding ground for shit-hot surfers and surfboard-design influencers. At a young age Thomson turned his back on a potential professional career to follow in his shaper dad’s footsteps and dedicate himself to making surfboards under his Tomo label.

He relocated to California and his unique wakeboard-like designs, which were significantly shorter, wider, and weirder than most on the market, were initially treated with general disdain, despite his own clips, which were consistently revelatory. However after Stu Kennedy’s performance on a Tomo “Sci-Fi” at the Quik Pro in 2016 the masses finally twigged that Tomo might just be on to something.

When Kelly Slater became an acolyte, Tomo designs became suddenly part of the mainstream. His philosophy reads “preserve the past, define the future.” He seems to be making a pretty good fist of it.