A few weeks back, John Potter sent me photos of his prized Energy Thruster from 1981. According to John, this board was the very first Thruster to be ordered over the counter, making it the shop’s first Thruster sale and a world first purchase for John.

Here’s how John explains it… It happens that I own the first custom “Three Fin Thruster” surfboard made by Simon Anderson, for someone other than himself, which was still very much in its conceptual development phase. This particular board, when ordered by myself from Energy Surfboards in Waterloo Street, Narrabeen, invoked the naming of this model type. Hence, the regular “Three Fin Thruster” logo was in fact hand painted (ie sprayed) on this board, as the printed decal had not been created. I’ve attached some photos (the whites in the eyes of the characters ‘R’ are the original drops of pigmented resin – hence, no aging).

The story stands up according to Damion Fuller of boardcollector, who confirms that Simon Anderson shaped several Thrusters for himself and Energy Team riders (and fellow surfers) before orders were taken over the counter. (via email)

The same spray-stenciled logo, complete with chunky lettering, appeared on the early crop of Thrusters, including this board – Thruster number one – beautifully photographed below by Andrew Kidman for Simon Anderson and Tim Baker’s book Thrust 2011.

Thruster number one – photo courtesy and copyright Andrew Kidman

Here’s another early Thruster with the fat-lettered logo, posted on the great boardcollector blog recently.