
Introducing Free Scrubber Excess Baggage starring Tom Curren on The Search
Surfboard design is woven into Curren’s DNA. His dad famously built some of the most sought after big-wave guns of the early North Shore pioneering era. Meanwhile, the three-time world champ, a consummate searcher, came of age in a period of profound design upheaval. Single-fins, twins and the earliest Al Merrick thrusters had all been under his feet by the time he was old enough to drive.
“I don't know if watching MR that winter had a direct impact on my approach because things were starting to change so fast at that time, but it's like anytime you watch somebody that's good at what they do, there's an appreciation for it,” Curren continues.
These new "Excess Baggage" bonus clips from the film show the “shred goat” in his natural environment, free to take a grinder to fins or make up a song about Instagram, is a telling look into what makes one of surfing’s most enigmatic characters tick.
Over the years, Curren’s fascination with pushing design theories forward has both intrigued and inspired his fans to follow along on their own search for the perfect ride. Perhaps most notable is his act on the Tommy Peterson Fireball Fish at Bawa from “Searching For Tom Curren.” Nobody was riding highly foiled, high-performance micro fishes in kegging conditions before that.


The board was a 5’7” with thick, square, boxy rails. It’s signature feature was a set of channels carved through the belly, but rather than running throughout the board, the channels abruptly end with a step in front of the fins before the tail goes flat. Curren shatter barriers and inspired a generation on it back in 1994.
“Tommy ended up making me one in three days,” Mason adds. It was fully done in three days. It has a lot of sentimental value.”
Of course, before the Fireball Fish there was the 7’8” Maurice Cole-shaped reverse vee that Curren rode on the turn seen around the world. With nary a sticker to be seen on the board, that searing arc at Backdoor photographed by Tom Servais has come to epitomize the perfect turn.
In 1991, Cole shaped a 7’3” and 7’8” for Curren while at home in France. With the resin still curing, he packaged them up and shipped them to his protege, who was waiting on the North Shore. Over the course of the season, the reverse vee design had featured prominently in Curren’s “trials to title” run, in which he won a record seven contests enroute to his third world title, but it was the yellow railed, logoless boards that he rode in Hawaii that caught everyone’s attention. It actually all started with the contest at Haleiwa.


“I came screaming back into the car park, hopped the curb, pulled right up to the scaffolding, and there’s Tom, just waiting. His heat’s already out in the water and he’s just standing there, patiently waiting like a kid who’s mom told him not to move,” Cole laughs. “So I give him the board and tell him to get out there. He looks at me, and asks, ‘Got any wax?’”
Curren’s quest for the perfect quiver continues, and thanks to these new unearthed lost reels from Free Scrubber, we get to enjoy a little more of the man’s magic and mystique.
Kicking off August 10, 2022, we will be dropping one new "Free Scrubber: Excess Baggage" clip every week for the next eight weeks. Follow along on this exclusive Rip Curl YouTube playlist for the latest drops.
Watch All Free Scrubber Episodes
Free Scrubber Excess Baggage Part 1
Free Scrubber Excess Baggage Part 2
Free Scrubber Excess Baggage Part 3
Free Scrubber Excess Baggage Part 4
Free Scrubber Excess Baggage Part 5
Free Scrubber Excess Baggage Part 6

