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Thundercats Are F*ckin Cool Man!

That’s right the work “Fuck” is in this blog posts title. I just feel I should point this out before someone else does and we can get into this weeks topic.

Thundercats! Do you even know what that is?

FC blog

In short they are small inflatable race boats made to handle surf. They are South African designed and as far as I’m aware will handle pretty much anything you can throw at them.

Having seen coverage on TV in my younger years, I remember thinking how fun it looks but like most things in life that’s where the interest ended. Having paid a little bit of interest in them over the last few years and suggesting to friends about three years ago that the fastest and easiest way to get to Great Barrier Island (where we were at the time) was by the way of a Thundercat, they only laughed. I was serious.

I looked into it a little bit with a couple of friends suggesting that I would get an absolute beating in it. Well excuse me pussies but when has that ever stopped me?

Fast forward to a little while later and having picked up an ex surf club IRB I was close…. But not close enough.

One Sunday evening I was down snapping some pics of a Thundercat on the beach. It turns out it was a local boat and the co pilot was a family friend who we’d known each other for 20 or so years. In short we had a couple of discussions, a few phone calls and it was now up to me to cover the National events. No real direction, just full creative control. Just the way I like it.

So here we are at present day with four national events down and some understanding of what is going on. As with everything I do there is always room for improvement so I’m going to go a little off topic with this next part.

In 2008 I started making skimboards. Before you think of round pieces of wood please realise things have changed in 30 years and we hit rails like skating and shorebreak like surfing. Slowly at first but this grew to where my little company was getting noticed from the other side of the world. We had riders, we were competitive and this is where my interest in getting things on film came from. I wanted to do rider profiles, long videos, shorts videos, interviews, trips away to film and most of all create epic stuff.

Then late 2011 came and it practically died and not slowly. Pretty much over the course of a couple of months skimboarding in New Zealand died and I don’t even know why. I was so close to getting there. So close.

Mid 2016 came along and with my accumulation of too much camera equipment, fun toys that no one uses and my own Thundercat it was time to really work towards something cool. Thundercat Racing in New Zealand was at it’s peak a few years back. I really have no idea of the specifics but my approach to this is like my approach to anything. Simply put I want to put out better content than anyone else in the world so here’s where I stand.

I want to cover all the ins and outs of racing. Think interviews, boat set up, predictions, race recaps, bullshit, banter and of course the action. The action is what brings people in but I believe it’s the personalities and information that keeps them hanging around and sells the sport.

From Waipu next weekend I intend to get a lot more in depth which quite honestly sounds exhausting but that is the way forward. I would love to say bring the glory days back but I would like to surpass that. Plus if they ever get a chopper back in to film I want to be the one hanging out of it!

Here’s the last video from the Mount

Thundercats are fuckin cool man!

See you at the beach!

-Sam