The late 80′s and early 90′s were busy years for the Bonzer. During visits to California in the mid to late 80′s, Davey Miller began riding 5-fin Bonzers. By 1990, he was riding them on the North Shore making major statements at Pipe, Backdoor and Sunset. Together, Davey and Duncan built strong street cred for the Bonzer on the North Shore. Also during this time, I was collaborating with Max McDonald on the development of the Elevated Wing Bonzer 5-fin; a.k.a. the EB5. Max suggested that we incorporate his Elevated Wing design with the Bonzer Five setup. The combination was an absolute winner, a true gem of a design.
In ’88, we heard that Pat Rawson was making some Thrusters with a double barrel concave through the fin area. We heard they were being referred to as Bonzers in Japanese advertisements, so we contacted Pat right away to find out who was using our name without our permission. Pat had no idea we were still making boards and pushing the Bonzer experience. We got together with him and showed him what we were doing with the Bonzer 5-fin and our single to double concave Thrusters. Pat made a couple of 5-fins. He also made Thrusters with Campbell style Bonzer bottoms for Gary Elkerton, Bobby Owens, Richard Schmidt, and Marty Thomas. The boards worked well. Richard won the’89 Xcel Pro and Gary won the first two ASP events in 1990 and ended up second in the world that year. In the mean time, Bobby was killing it at Sunset and Marty was making a strong showing on the tour. The work we did with Pat Rawson during this time is the foundation that led to the dominance of the single to double concave bottom design. In the winter of ’88-89′, Cheyne Horan borrowed Duncan’s 5’11 Bonzer 5 and absolutely ripped on it. This was our first indication that the ‘crack in the seams’ we had been waiting for might be beginning to appear.
In 1990, George Orbelian did an interview with Duncan and I which was then published in Surfer Magazine. It was entitled, "Back to the Future". It covered basic Bonzer history and focused on the fact that we had been sharing our ideas with many top shapers and were promoting the exchange of ideas.
Around this time I met Mitch Thorsen. He was on the Pro Tour and was periodically spending a bit of time in Ventura. He expressed interest in giving the Bonzer 5 fin a go. We worked together and built a couple of boards that worked really well for him. This led to him riding one in the OP Pro and taking Bonzers on the Pro Tour. Mitch gave the Bonzer 5 its first world wide exposure. To this day he is the only person to ride one in a Pro Tour event.
Also during this time we met Peter St. Pierre of Moonlight Glassing. He came by our booth at the ASR trade show. That meeting has proven to be one of the most important events in the Bonzer journey. Up until that time it was difficult to get glassers to glass on our side fins. Peter said, ‘we’ll do it’. Their history in the industry and legendary top quality work gave the Bonzer an instant rise in credibility.
This period was filled with a frenzy of activity. We shared the Bonzer technology with many big name shapers, as well as many good, but lesser known shapers. This was capped with Rusty inviting me down to his factory. I took some boards, fin templates, etc. and shared all the Bonzer concepts with him and his shapers. A few of the lesser known guys really took to the Bonzer and incorporated it into their repertoire. The big name guys would not touch it with a ten foot pole. Unfortunately, I think the fact that things were going on so swimmingly with Thrusters and removable fin systems, the big boys just did not want to hassle with any new wrinkles. Along with this, I really think we ran up against a wall of ego and a general lack of curiosity about design. Cracking things open was going to require quite a large crowbar.
Davey Miller’s extremely strong showing in the 1992 Excel Pro at Sunset Beach sent a signal that we were by no means going to quietly lay down. Davey masterfully surfed the challenging Sunset conditions all the way to the finals, including winning his heat in the quarters. Unfortunately, with a bit of bad luck he had to settle for third. During the 90′s, Davey was also recognized as one of the top guys at Backdoor and Pipe. He was the first one to really push the Bonzers to the limits at those spots. He showed that the boards were truly something to be reckoned with. In 1998, he made the finals of the H-PAC contest at Pipe. He did it by winning almost every heat and doing it on a Bonzer 5 Fin that he shaped. Then in the year 2000 he headed back to California to pursue raising a family, painting, playing Jazz, and of course, surfing when he gets a chance. To this day there are still sightings of him tearing it up on a Bonzer.
