PIO MARASCO

Pio Marasco moved to Maui at the end of 1989 because of his passion for the ocean and for water sports. This passion inevitably led him to work in the watersports industry. MFC HAWAII (established in 1986) was his first connection into the industry and from there he started his adventure as a “fin maker”. Marasco’s life revolves around the ocean, and Hawaii is the perfect place for Pio to express his creativity and ideas in every form. His vision is to contribute the best fins to the market. He meticulously takes his time to personally connect with every surfer at the beach or at the MFC HAWAII Headquarters, located in the Pawela Cannery in Haiku, Maui. He personally tests all of the MFC fins going on the market together with the MFC team.

In 1991 the “fin man” got his start and began to produce the first CNC shaped fins with MFC. From that year to date MFC holds 18 Windsurfing World Championship titles, 7 SUP World Titles with Kai Lenny and the reputation of the best XXL Big Wave fins; MFC has had on team such athletes as David Kalama, Anders Bringdal, Rush Randle and Josh Stone. Today’s generation Team Riders include Levi Siver, Kauli Seadi, Ricardo Campello, Marcilio “Brawzinho” Browne, Victor Fernandez, Kevin Pritchard, Francisco Goya, Boujmaa Guilloul, Francisco Porcella, Camille Juban, and the most innovative board shaper and rider, Keith Teboul, head designer of “KT Surfing”.

He designed the first Windsurf “short fin” for Windsurfing Freestyle in 1999 as well as the well known <STYLE MASTER> together with Josh Stone. This presented a real change to the freestyle discipline which allowed riders to work on new maneuvers while having a very short and powerful fin that was not getting in the way during spinning moves. He still fondly remembers that test day at Sprecks Beach, on Maui, with Josh Stone and Brian Talma. Right away they knew another bar had been raised for Freestyle and therefore the sport was able to move further in the discipline. In 1999 Josh Stone became Freestyle Word champion using the STYLE MASTER.

MFC also works very closely with several windsurfing brands such as QUATRO, GOYA, NAISH, RRD, FANATIC and STARBOARD developing fins to equip their board lines. It has been very challenging to design a fin that works well in every condition, with every board, in gusty wind, and which is adaptable to every level of sailor. It has definitely not been easy, but working closely with these board manufactures has brought so much to each brand and to MFC itself as far as knowledge and experience. It should also be said that Fanatic was the first company to believe in MFC in 1996. They still continue to collaborate.

In the mid 90’s, MFC started working on Tow Fins development for Jaws, with Dave Kalama, Laird Hamilton, Darrick Doerner, Rush Rundle  and the Strapped team. MFC was also the first to develop the aluminum tow fins for Pe’ahi (Jaws). The Tow Surfing and strapped team “era” stopped around 2003-2004 when everyone started to paddle out. In 2001 he signed a 3 year exclusive design deal with the biggest surfing fin company. Since then he has developed a full Prepreg technology, RTM Technology with high precision metal moulds.

Right now MFC is developing the best XXL fins with Kai Lenny and the Pe’ahi team involving other Big Wave chargers like Anthony Tashnick, Francisco Porcella, Yuri Soledade, DK and Shaun Walsh and many more. Surfing is becoming a solid part of the MFC fin design, collaborating with many influential world surfers. The introduction of a new different RTM technology into the surfing fin has been a great success for MFC.

Surfing and big wave fin development with  Kai Lenny is a part of the daily routine. For MFC and Pio, R&D never stops — #worldfastestfins #passiondriven.