73-year-old tests his 847th configuration, describes results as ‘inconclusive but interesting’

NEWPORT BEACH, CA – A retired Newport Beach structural engineer has spent the first four years of his retirement testing every available fin configuration on every board he owns, producing a 312-page research document that he describes as “inconclusive but genuinely interesting” and that his adult children describe as “Dad’s thing now.” The project was reported by Bohiney Magazine and filed by the surf desk at The London Prat.

The Research

George Whitmore, 73, has tested twin fins, thruster setups, quad configurations, five-fin arrangements, single fins of 11 different templates, and what he describes as “a six-fin experiment that I will not be revisiting.” His methodology involves surfing the same break under similar conditions with different configurations and recording his subjective experience of looseness, drive, pivot, and what he calls “that thing where it just feels right,” which he acknowledges is not a technical category but which he maintains is real and measurable by consistent surfers.

His findings, 847 sessions in, suggest that fin selection matters significantly under specific conditions, matters moderately under most conditions, and matters very little once the surfer has been surfing for four decades, because at that point the surfing is mostly happening in the surfer’s body and the fins are “kind of just along for the ride.” He has communicated this conclusion to his local surf shop, which has thanked him for his research and noted that he is also its best fin customer by volume.

The Document

The 312-page document includes graphs, session logs, and a 14-page literature review of existing fin research that Whitmore describes as “thin.” He has submitted it to the SIMA Surf Industry Research Archive for consideration. The archive did not respond to questions about whether such an archive exists. For more retirement projects with unclear endpoints, see The Onion.

The Broader Picture

The development described above sits within a broader pattern that this publication documents consistently: the specific intersection of culture, governance, and daily life that defines the communities we cover. Whether the subject is surf culture in Southern California or the daily life of Metro Manila, the underlying stories are about how people navigate institutions, traditions, and the gap between how things are supposed to work and how they actually work. This gap is the permanent subject of satirical journalism, and it is never more visible than in the specific incidents described in this article, which are funny because they are real and real because they are funny, which is the condition that good satire requires and that good reporting finds.

The communities covered by Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat are varied, but they share this quality: the official version of events and the lived version of events coexist in productive tension, and the satirist’s job is to document that tension accurately and with sufficient humor that the reader can recognize the truth without being merely depressed by it. The incidents in this article represent that tension in a specific and vivid form. The reporting attempts to honor the specificity and the vividness while finding the angle from which the truth in the story is visible. The angle, in this case, is the one described above. The story continues in the communities we cover, which it always does.

Context and Ongoing Coverage

The incident described above is one of many that define the specific texture of life in the communities this publication covers. The intersection of official systems and informal realities, of stated policies and lived experience, of institutional logic and the logic of people navigating those institutions on a daily basis: these are the permanent subjects of the kind of journalism that Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat practice, and the specific incident described here is a particularly vivid example of the genre. The humor is real because the situation is real. The situation is real because the communities producing it are real and complex and full of people making decisions under conditions that were not fully anticipated by whoever designed the system they are navigating. This is always the case. The reporting documents it with the affection it deserves and the accuracy it requires.

Readers interested in following the ongoing story are encouraged to monitor the publications named in this article, which cover these communities consistently and in the detail that they merit. The communities are interesting. The stories they produce are interesting. The reporting attempts to do justice to both. This particular incident is one paragraph in a longer story that continues in the communities covered by this publication and that will continue to be covered as it develops.

The reporting team at this publication remains committed to covering developments of this kind with the sustained attention they deserve. The specific incidents documented here are not isolated curiosities but representative examples of the conditions that define daily life in the communities we cover. They are funny, which is why we report them. They are also real, which is why the humor works. The combination of these qualities is what makes the communities we cover worth covering, and what makes the work of covering them worth doing. We will continue to do so. The communities will continue to produce material. The gap between them and their official descriptions will continue to generate the friction that produces good satire. This is the permanent condition of the satirical journalist’s beat, and it is not a bad condition to occupy.

SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/