Single fins are funny beasts. When one watches a person who surfs well on a board with just one skeg, it looks like the easiest thing in the world. Single fins flow. Single fins hold style inside them. Single fins are SOUL. But they’re not any of those things if you don’t know how to surf one. Without experience, they’re awkward and stiff and clunky.
The short you see above is part of Taylor Steele’s new Youtube channel, The Momentum Files. The iconic filmmaker recently came across hours and hours of old lost footage. “Cleaning out my storage I found hours of behind the scenes, secret videos, and lost footage that needs to be seen before the tapes crumble away,” he wrote. “After three decades of documenting progressive surfing, surf travel, and everything that goes with it, there’s a lot to share.”
In this installment of The Momentum Files, Kelly Slater finds himself on an old single fin on Oahu’s North Shore way back in 1992. It was just after he had his first world title under his belt, and he held the final section of Momentum II. As is the case with many surf films, some of the best stuff has to be left on the cutting room floor—but now, thanks to Steele’s cleanup session, we’re able to watch a Slater full of vim and vigor with a head full of hair and riding a single fin.
