The simplest tools tend to stick around the longest.
They do one job well, without extra features getting in the way.
A knife has worked for thousands of years. Email is still here despite every platform trying to replace it. The things my kids play with the longest? A Ball, a stick, a cardboard box.
Simple usually wins.
Surfing has its version of this too — the single fin.
For close to a century, it’s remained useful while designs around it constantly change. I’ve owned single fins ranging from 5'6 to 10'2 and they all share the same trait: clean tracking through the water and a release of speed when you load up a bottom turn.
That’s probably why they never really go away.
The Joy falls into that category for me. A pin-tail single fin mid-length isn’t trying to do everything — it just does a few things very well. Enough length to let glide do the work, enough hold to trust it when the wave stands up.
The elliptical outline and drawn-out pin tail favor smooth, sweeping turns instead of constant correction from the rider. You set a line and the board carries through it.
The kind of clean utility that ensures it will stay around for a long, long time.
