Case Study Surfboard #3: 6’5″ e-wing Bonzer5

Malcolm Campbell shaped this 5 fin Bonzer surfboard for Peter St Pierre in 1989/1990, during the early days of the Campbell Brothers/Moonlight Glassing relationship.

Note this logo features the template of the original Bonzer siderunner fins.

Logos were BIG back then!

Dims: 6’5″ x 19 7/8″ x 2 7/8″ with 11 1/2″ nose and 15″ tail.

The airbrush has that cool Future Primitive handpainted vibe that was popular at the time.

Features: beak nose, red glass-on siderunners by Jack Jensen and the radical Elevated Wing (e-wing) invented by Mac McDonald and adopted to good use by Malcolm Campbell. When these boards first started showing up in production sander Kenny Mann nearly had a heart attack.

I think the story on this is that Jimmy Jazz chunked the route job for the box because the old jig wouldn’t fit on the deep double concaves properly, so it got a little logo art to cover the repair.

The rails are thick with a hard edge. I had ridden this board several times in my 20’s when I weighed 135 lbs and it was always too much foam for me. It paddled great and surfed loose when my back foot was behind the e-wing. I actually softened up the edge with some 400 grit recently. Now that I am over 40 and 155 lbs+ I am stoked to ride this again.

The first time I saw the e-wing I was struck by how beautifully futuristic it looked and was really impressed with Malcolm’s detailed shaping skills. Gary Stuber did a great job figuring out how to glass them too. The e-wing loosens up the tail without making it wiggly waggly. And it gives it highline lift down the line, and excellent control in cutbacks.

Back then leashes didn’t have rail savers, looks like the string pulled thru the tail on a big day.

Airbrusher Peter St Pierre was probably airbrushing some boards for Eric “Bird” Huffman at the time and decided use the leftover paint for his board.

Great tail outline.

This is a good, solid surfboard ready to paddle over the ledge, stay steady under your feet and carve up sections. Not too many people had seen 5 fin Bonzers around San Diego county at the time and it always got a lot of attention in the parking lot, on the beach and in the lineup.

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