The RNF-’96 (Round Nose Fish 1996) is based with reverence, but not 100% compliance, to the original “fish" Matt Biolos developed for Chris Ward and Cory Lopez in the year leading up to the 1997 seminal surf film, 5’5” x 19 1/4”. Having shaped multiple variations of “fish” from fall 1994 though 1995, that crew had created a bit of momentum with the designs.
Leading into Winter ’95/’96, Matt had refined a basic design where he was able fine tune, replicate and re-size the original RNF (by hand) with some consistency. He continued to build small quivers for both Chris Ward and Cory Lopez and sent them everywhere, with Cory taking various versions to each stop on WQS tour. These 1996 Fish were all hand shaped and not the most consistent creations, but they became the basis and the building blocks towards offering the design to people outside his own circle of friends.
"I've always felt the key difference between our RNF and the majority of others, from the 90’s and beyond, is the fact that our outline was always more based off of MR inspired, high performance, competitive minded, twin fins of the late 70’s/early 80’s. Relatively pulled in tails, developed through trial and error, for maximum performance and control…not just in small surf, but in all size and shape of waves. Our fish was always about performance, not just a crutch to go fast on in small surf" Matt Biolos
The RNF-’96 brings the best of both worlds together: Reverence for its early vanguard pedigree, while enlightenedly enhanced with 25 years of fun/pro-formance enlightenment.
• Rocker curves: Remain engrained to the original proven curves.
• Outline curves: Both nose and tail were usually the same width at 12” and remain true, but with more precision, including added curve and width around 6” from the tail. One “secret” about the original’s success was that, unlike most all other “fish” the tail width on Matt's was closer to that of a typical HP Shortboard. This allows much more control off the tail than typical fish designs.
• Bottom Contours: The classic single concave to double concave, accelerating vee combination are defining design elements and hold true to adherence.
• The Thickness Flow, Deckline, Rails, and Tail Foil: They were all over the map in those rudimentary hand shape days. Each board was different, with most of them having noticeably different curves and thickness from one rail to the other. In re-creating these boards, which one is correct? In the end, Matt went with gut feeling on what would work best.
NOTE : Price starts at $949 for a plain white PU board. Some sizes in stock will be seen as Spray. If you would like to check what colour is available in the size marked Spray, please contact us via email or phone and we can check for you PRIOR to making your purchase online.
