SONS OF THE REVOLUTION

Fifty years ago, the Shortboard Revolution saw the most radical design shifts in the history of surfcraft. Today, that same experimental spirit is alive and well in the surfing and shaping approaches of Torren Martyn and Simon Jones

- ASHTYN DOUGLAS-ROSA

During the winter in the Scottish Highlands, daylight hours are limited. The sun, after it rises at nearly 9 a.m., spends the rest of the day hovering low in the southern sky, casting a warm glow over rolling green farmlands dotted with sheep and the occasional tractor. Beneath this sort of low-lit amphitheater of rugged cliffs and endless farmsteads on a cold, windy morning this past December, Byron Bay native Torren Martyn sat in the water alone over a shallow slab. Waves traveling from the northwest would hit a low shelf and furl over into cavernous shapes before closing out in the shallows on the inside. Martyn had been tucking his long-limbed, 6'1" frame into tube after tube for about 45 minutes—then things went a little sideways.

Standing atop the cliff overlooking the slab, I could see Martyn take off on a particularly diabolical-looking wave. After getting to his feet, he caught a rail and went down hard. When he surfaced, his board—an elegant 6'4" twin fin—was severed in half. Martyn ran back up the cliff, shaking his neoprene-covered head. “Ahhh, I’m so bummed!” he said, before riffling through his big white van in search of a 6'6" with a triple stringer, also a twin. He looked at the beautifully-crafted board, then back at the snarling slab out at sea, doing a quick risk/reward calculation. It was his favorite board. “I’ll be super bummed if something happens to this one,” he said. “But I can’t not get back out there…”