Well ,that's what i think about this board when a good friend gave it to me just to make some little repairs and cleaning .
The board i'm talking about it's the Naish Sky Pirate TT Directional 4,10" Flash Austin signature model. We have a good talk about and we both are surprised that for such an old board it has some very nice features that come close to the current boards.
In first place,i think the size of the board it 's ahead of it's time ,with a small length and a surprising width of 42 cm combined with a wide tail and rear pad/straps closer to the tail.
An uncommon feature back then when all directional boards,mutants incluided where narrower with thinner tails.
This combined with a set of 4 fins (mutant style),hard edges along the board ,and flat rockerline reminds me in shape a small jumpable version of the actual freerace boards.
Of course,i love the old sandwich construction of directionals boards (similar to windsurf) with no worries landing jumps.
It does also have some some channels in the nose,that we supose are made to ride backwards ocasionally ,so no fins on the nose like the mutants,less drag....because finally nobody tends to ride a Mutant backwards .
I'm sure that with some minnor tweaks as closing the fins cluster , adding a vee at the tail bottom ,and a wider version of 45/48 cm. the board will have a market nowadays.
If Flash was the designer of the board back then he was ahead of it's time
Can't wait to try it out once we find some good combo of mini tuttles fins.
Enjoy some pics of the beauty: