Parmenter On Widowmakers

6'6" Parmenter Widowmaker 'Book Of The Sea'. Calligraphy by Dina Abou Salem, Glassed by Waterman's Guild 

'Crush' Channeled Widowmaker by Andrew Kidman

Kidman surfing The Crush

Widowmaker by Neal Purchase Jnr.

'The ‘Widow-maker’ model stemmed from my ongoing fixation on riding single-fins. I couldn’t stay away from them. My surfing felt stale after a few years on the circuit, and in my off time I spent more and more time collecting or building single-fins. The modified single-fin design that became the Widow-maker was inspired by my frustration with thrusters on large-framework waves like J-Bay and Sunset. I wanted something that had the neutral feel of a single and could handle high speeds without maxing out, but with a little bit more bite or cornering traction off the top, so voila! The ‘Widow-maker’ was born. I rode the first one I shaped during a 6-week stay at J-Bay in 1988 and suddenly I was surfing less like an ASP clone and more like myself.'

Dave Parmenter interviewed by Michelle Lockwood