Way back when, us beach rats used to love these hollow molded bellyboards with a squirt gun plug on the tip of the nose. We would stand on them on the sand to squeeze air out, then insert the stopper, which made for a concave bottom plus more spoon in the deck.
As I remember, Ziffys had five or so 3/4" ribs down the bottom, so they would hold some traction on a wave face. The handles caused tremendous drag and created a fountain effect. We never did figure out the purpose of the raised aft pontoons.
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Wouldn't the raised section on the tail of the deck be to hold the rider in the middle of the board?
And what about the "Bon Ami" skim board/belly board? Anyone remember those? They had removeable twin fins to change over from skimming to surfing and back.
On our Bon Ami skimboards (no picts on google), if we '60s kids hit the incoming wave at the wrong angle, the brittle plastic would snap in two with a sastifying crack. The nose-half slammed us in the shins with enough force to make gouges. Our Bon Amis had one removeable fin, which we never used, since it defeated the purpose of paipoing, which is that the whole board is a fin. One good feature was a subtle shallow chine under the rails, which made for less edge-catching crashes. The side handles provided little sandy geysers as we skimmed. All in all, another crap design by non-surfers. (Especially the drag-inducing side-handle concept that provided a starting point for catastrophic structural failure.) But hours of good clean fun nonetheless.
Oh, and the rear quarters Ziffy bulges would certainly restrain a neophyte Ziffyist from slipping off the side. However our little egos discarded that as a factor, because with our outstanding prowess, we had no such concerns, and prefered to remain mystified as to the actual purpose of aft deck pontoons.
My salient surfing memory of being a kid in the 60's is that everytime I tried to ride something solid -- like a plywood paipo or a Bon Ami Skimboard/Bellyboard -- I couldn't believe how fun and comfortable and functional my raft was when I got back on it!
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