Weird Little Kink

As a 15-year-old in 1980, Australian shaper Mick Mackie came across a Surfing World article about Winterstick snowboards, specifically the dramatic split tail and inward-curving rails, dubbed “sidecuts,”
on Wayne Stoveken and Dimitrije Milovich’s design, which were odd enough to make a long-lasting impression on Mackie’s sensibilities. In the ’90s, Mackie began applying Winterstick-like split tails and sidecuts to his surfboard shapes—a kink he’s still into, more than two decades later.

In theory, sidecuts on a surfboard should make transitioning from rail to rail easier by effectively reducing the width between the surfer’s feet. According to Mackie, the sidecut’s hydrodynamics really come to life when combined with a deep swallowtail. “It allows the board’s tail to sink and bite through turns, allowing the sidecut to engage earlier,” he says.

For surfers looking for a smooth, snowboard-like experience on a wave, Mackie’s sidecuts feel intuitive and undemanding, with the conscious weight dispersal opening up flowing turns. When the inside rail engages during a cutback, it acts like a slingshot projecting the rider back into the pocket—a balance of effortless glide and maneuverability. “Once that sidecut digs in,” Mackie says, “everything feels like it just wants to follow that arc.”

Mackie’s obsession with the design was validated by watching Ryan Burch’s high lines and smooth carves down a long left-hand point while riding a self-shaped sidecut fish in the 2015 film Psychic Migrations.

Burch had become curious about sidecuts while surfing with Dane Reynolds, who was riding Hayden Cox’s Psychedelic Germ model. It was the first time Burch had seen sidecuts on a modern high-performance thruster. Watching Reynolds shred on it inspired him to apply the concept to his own shapes.

“By making a sidecut,” Burch says, “you’re making two pivot points. It hips into a narrower tail block, which puts more curve directly underneath where you’re trying to turn the board from.” For Burch, the sidecuts help eliminate the tracky feeling often caused by a fish’s straight rails. He found a sweet spot by stopping the sidecut at the middle of the keel fin.

According to Burch, there’s an important relationship between rocker and sidecuts. On a snowboard, the rider often stands below the sidecut’s beginning, allowing flex and variable rocker to control the turning arc. By adding flex to the tails of his designs, Mackie has brought them closer to the original snow-surf feel. 

“I don’t necessarily feel the same feeling on a snowboard as I do on a surfboard with sidecuts until you’re introducing flex like Mackie has,” Burch says. “Then surfing really starts to correlate with the performance of the snowboard, because you’re manipulating the rocker of the board. Whereas on a surfboard, it’s more rigid.” 

Mackie and Burch both believe big waves are the next testing point for sidecuts. Burch wants to see them on guns, a design surfers have long struggled to keep on rail. Mackie is already carving dramatic sidecuts and deep swallowtails into step-ups and mini-guns—plan shapes not too far off the Winterstick snowboard that caught his eye as a teenager.

[Feature image: Research and design pregaming: Sidecut-devoted shaper Mick Mackie (right), with a pair of his flexible snowboard-inspired sleds. Fellow innovator Simon Anderson (left), with his Thruster—avant-garde in 1980, standard issue ever since. Photo by Andrew Kidman]