Remote-Controlled Flight Response

As a photojournalist, producing quality surf imagery has become challenging due to the crowd factor. I’m always cropping surfers out of the frame, waking up in the chilly winter dark to shoot at dawn before humanity fills the break, and avoiding spots where pros paddle out with their entourages. It’s infuriating when people pull up, immediately whip out their phones, and give all their mates a heads-up. If people are too lazy to drag their butts out of bed early, then they don’t deserve to surf great waves that morning.

While pondering solutions, I realized a large, remote-controlled shark fin would solve my crowd problem. I have a longtime friend who’s inventive and can build anything. He shaped his first surfboard in his bedroom at 14, had a career as a builder, and was a carpentry and design tutor. For a hobby, he makes sophisticated remote-controlled boats. Surely he could make my shark fin. Fiendishly, I planned for him to model it after a white shark. Once built, I’d unleash it in the water, sending all of the surfers scrambling toward shore—allowing me to shoot empty lineups at New Zealand’s photo-perfect points. In Australia, I could deploy it at Noosa, Angourie, Kirra, Burleigh, Winkipop, and other overcrowded spots. The project’s code name? Finn.

While refining the concept, it became clear I would need a custom surfboard with Finn’s recessed outline on the bottom. Cool spray art would camouflage it, allowing me to walk past surfers in the car park without attracting attention. After paddling out, concealed by the spray of a passing wave, I could roll the board over and secure Finn into place.

Surfers that I don’t like—greedy, ego-driven, sponsored hot shots, grumpy old bastards on goat boats, and especially individuals who’d given me a hard time for shooting magazine photos in my younger years—could be circled slowly before I made a pass from only inches away. They’d huff and puff in a coronary-inducing scramble toward the beach. If in a particularly dark mood, as I often am, I could ramp up their fear by stealthily bumping their tails to make a menacing bonk. Finn could chase one surfer to the sand before whipping around to terrorize my next victim. If I could have the self-discipline to deploy Finn not too often and at a different break each time, then it would be years before anyone caught on to me. By then, I would have accumulated an unrivaled portfolio of perfect, empty lineups—countless covers and spreads. Finn could even crash Ironman triathlons. Imagine the havoc it would create among the Speedo-clad, sinewy heroes by appearing just as the lead athletes are turning the buoy—poor swim stars reduced to broken, tearful wimps after being chased in. It would be great live TV.

I pestered my inventive friend for years to make Finn, but there was never any progress. “I think I can make Finn,” he told me, not seeming too keen on the project, “but it’s going to take a lot of time and experimentation to get it to behave like a real shark when there’s wind and chop on the water. It will need lots of counterweight so it doesn’t lean over. Also, the material will need to look authentic and not absorb water.”

Finally, after more prompting, he said to me, “To be honest, Logan, I don’t want to make you a shark fin. Knowing you as I do, you’ll get into a lot of trouble with it.”

He’s probably right.

[Feature image by Logan Murray]