The success of this modern performance twin fin design is as a bridge between the hard-core shred and the anyone-can-ride alternative “crutch” board. A certain type of shred lord for whom the thruster is too jock and the quad too macho will find solace in the twin fin.

You ride a twin fin, your Mom rides a twin-fin, your Mom’s girlfriend rides a twin-fin. The twin-fin is the ubiquitous piece of surfing equipment at this juncture: December twenty-nineteen.

The Dolly Dagger by Panda surfboards gets filed under performance twin, to distinguish from the traditional twin-keeled San Diegan fish and it’s offspring. The performance twin is almost always a direct replica in outline to the Mark Richards twins he rode to four World Titles 79-82. Balanced outline with width in both the chest area and tail block and a single flyer, which both breaks the outline curve at the point of primary fin engagement and helps to reduce planing area in the pod behind the back foot. Swallow-tail mandatory.

To that formula, the Dolly Dagger adds a modern (neutral) rail, compared to the hard down rail with tucked edge of the Richards Twin and a very dynamic bottom contour. Single concave under the front foot with a pronounced vee through the aft area housing concaved panels either side.

I got mine at 5’8”, coming in just under 30 litres, and the very first sensation, after coming off the Slater FRK was one of sweet relief. This is a very fine paddling surfboard, both from A to B in the line-up and into waves. Width under the chest and a relaxed forward rocker means this board moves through the water very nicely.

Do you get trapped by the rigidity of your own thought patterns? I sure do.

For example, I thought I hated twin-fins, and everything about them. My very first wave, in crumbly but longish period high-tide runners, like Bells Beach, so therefore perfect for a twin, ended badly. Squirrely pieces of shit, I thought.

A regular surfing pal on a mid-length twin went straight past, with that release/glide off the top. I always thought twins exerted too much rotational force on the hull, compared to the more hull-centric single or thruster feeling, where there is less rotational force from the side fins. Less pivot around a hypothetical fulcrum. It’s that pivot that always bugged me on the twin.

I was very, very lucky, in that a solution to the problem presented itself.

Chatting to an American chap who had paddled off the rocks and was sitting inside me on a soft-top and I was thinking there was no way he would have the hide to think he was going to paddle straight up the inside and have the next set wave, but he did.

That creates a comfort zone for the non-pro. Not having the back foot placement so critical as a thruster while maintaining the engagement of the fin cluster during turns. Parko copped heat for safety swoops but for a rec surfer not much feels better, and that greased soap around the bath tub high-line is a stoker. Both of which the Dolly Dagger does supremely well. It’s a very relaxing surfboard to ride. Lots of good feels. Compared to the FRK, it does not demand much to be ridden well.

So I took it. Sorry pal, if you are reading.

Which means I had to haul ass, as they say, and in that process I got two big pumps in that were more like top-to-bottom swoops and generated an insane amount of speed. My back foot was a little further forwards than a thruster placement.

That creates a comfort zone for the non-pro. Not having the back foot placement so critical as a thruster while maintaining the engagement of the fin cluster during turns. Parko copped heat for safety swoops but for a rec surfer not much feels better, and that greased soap around the bath tub high-line is a stoker. Both of which the Dolly Dagger does supremely well. It’s a very relaxing surfboard to ride. Lots of good feels. Compared to the FRK, it does not demand much to be ridden well.

I rode it mostly in crappy surf but just as Eskimos have lots of words for snow, Arabs for sand and Polynesian navigators for ocean there an infinite number of types of crap surf, rarely categorised. The type I rode mostly was a seasonal variety consisting of small mid-long period swell, point surf with a counter-vailing devil wind. Hard to ride. Hard to maintain speed, join the dots, find clean corners and do turns. Hence derided and uncrowded.

This Dolly Dagger ate it up. You get the speed and the safety swoops going and crack the corners; the flattish rocker keeps the glide going and the short hull and fin set-up gets the pivot. I think, a lot of waves break like that in the world with, what in ecology is termed, an unexploited niche.

I also rode little beachbreak wedges at Coolum and had a ball smashing closeouts, more typical beachbreak and could glide between sections. Rail-to-rail movements get water flowing through the concaves either side of the vee. It’s a very seductive bottom contour. Very easy speed, nice flow.

The marketing blurb says twin fin, one look at it and I thought twin fin but some minds- Derek Rielly, for example, saw three fin plugs and thought: thruster. I did put some JJF Alphas in the plugs but the board instantly lacked the drive of the big twins.

Back to the OG set-up, which was the Merrick AM-T’s. A big upright twin, with a small trailer.

The trailer might be considered cheating by some, but as a way of softening the rotation on my backhand it worked a charm. My beef with the AM-T’s was the Soviet grey colour. Twins need a beautiful fin. My Irish ranga pal at the Byron Equinor protest rocked a rainbow set in his twin and that looked amazing. Don’t snort Nick Carroll, you’re as prone to petty vanity as the rest of us.

The Mayhem Evil Twin set would also work fine, with a nicer aesthetic.

Cons? Some shred will be left on the table in good waves. A local breakwall turned on a rare day (for this time of year) of overhead wedges. There was resistance from the wider nose to going straight up into the bowl at speed. Hard to lever off the fin cluster to get really vertical.

Don’t get me wrong, still fun, but maybe just a tad restrictive, more lateral. I might add, most of this was backside surfing. Forehand, I think the control and placement of vertical surfing would be much easier, especially for those of an advanced skill set.

The success of this modern performance twin fin design, I believe, is as a bridge between the hard-core shred and the anyone-can-ride alternative “crutch” board. A certain type of shred lord for whom the thruster is too jock and the quad too macho will find solace in the twin fin.

There are many fine examples from Dave Rastovich to Asher Pacey to Torryn Martyn. The non-pro intermediate finds larger margins for error in foot placement, very nice feeling speed swoops and easy pivot surfing that feels better than it looks, in most cases.

Deferring to Dane Reynolds dictum that for the non-pro, if it feels good it is good, is a fair enough punctuation point.

PS. I rode a board with three plugs but the Dolly Dagger has options to fin as a twinzer, which is an enormously appealing prospect.