Local boy, Brian Hamilton shaped for Lightning Bolt from early on. In the tradition of Bolt’s early shaper/surfers, he was also an excellent surfer, particularily at Ala Moana. His boards are often confused with Billy Hamilton’s because Brian signed with only a B Hamilton, leaving room for confusion.
Who back in the day signed there name with a sharpie pen....that bleed ink? Doesn't it look like the ink has bleed...huhhh...doesn't it. Look at it, am I right.
I thought everybody used inda ink. maybe it is inda ink,...Now I can't tell.
As far as I know Bill H never did boards for the Bolt Shop in Honolulu. That is not to say that he never made any boards with Bolts on them. Bill lived right behind Gerry’s house at Pipe before he moved to Kauai around 1973?? so it is quite possible that he would have done some boards with Bolts on them. I just don’t recall any in particular.
There is a comment on the eBay page about the signature being original. Maybe the bleed is from the restorer trying to save the original or remove it from the original glass or something. Before laminates were common with shapers, signatures were put on with india ink as you noted on the Bolt boards. Laminates were common with larger surfboard companies but not with shapers.
Brian is my first cousin. He grew up on a house boat at the Ala Wai Harbor and Bowls was his front yard.
He was friends with Reno Abelleira and Gerry. He told me that he and Gerry had a falling out about what you had to do to make in professional surfing, and he walked away from a chance at super star status.
He used to make boards for Bolt and did a few for tropical blends. In the early of 70’s he was the king of Ala Moana Bowl, and he surfed Pipe really well.
About a year or 2 ago, he told me he was working on something new and that he felt it would be a break through design, but I haven’t seen him since then. He made me a board in the early 70’s that was way ahead of what other guys were doing. Very thin in the nose and wider in the tail with a design similar to a modern squash tail.
I didn’t know what to think about it when I got it since it was so different from the tear drop bolts of the day. He said he put the meat where I need it, under my body and that the beak noses were not adding anything to the boards performance. He was right, it was a great board, but I rode it until it was just pieces.
billy made several boards with bolts on them...............so did most of the industry at the time.
i remember meeting brian back in the days..........always wondered what became of him.
i had always looked up to brian and billy (not related) as great board builders.
i can remember a conversation back in the very early 70s before the bolt was a trademark.........it went something like this...........
a young herb: gerry why do you put lightiningbolts on the deck of your boards ?( early in the game you never saw a bolt on the bottom)
gerry lopez: while surfing faster breaks like yoks or pipe i would sometimes lose my footing in relation to the sweet spot on the deck of a plain surface.in faster situations you really don't have the time to re-ajust your footing....the bolt is a front foot marker,that's all.
.......funny...... how a major symbol of surfing history..............
........... came from something so simple as a foot placement marker.
Brian started playing music with his friend Derek Elaban. They played for a while in various bars for a while then they started a group called “Hawaii” that recorded one album. Brian married Derek’s sister Abby.
Brian’s dad was the principal at New York Technical Institute and then eventually bought the school. Brian and his father ran the school up until his father passed away, then Brian kept it going. Brian spent a good part of the last decade keeping the school going. About a year after my uncle passed away, the family had a disagreement with how the school should be managed, and things went south.
Just before things got real bad I saw him at the school and he told me about a board design he was working on, and how he and Gerry had a falling out and that’s why he never pursued a pro surfing career. Brian was on his way to becoming the King of Pipeline, but I think Rory Russell wanted it more than he did. The board he made for me did not have a bolt, so the falling out was probably early 70’s. Brian had Ala Moana bowl, and he was the best out there when he lived at the Ala Wai. He was on at least 2 covers of Surfer mag, and is well known to all longtime bowls surfers. I think the coast guard took the house boat from him in the late 80’s and sank it because it was in bad shape. If I recall correctly, he said they used it for gun practice. His parents had moved to a house way before that.
I haven’t seen Brian since he walked away from the school, and he hasn’t been to the most recent family gatherings. Sad how money can destroy a family. He is one of our favorite cousins.
Hi Herb, funny how Brian and Gerry had similar styles, especially at Pipe. If you surfed the Bowl a lot in the late 60’s through the 70’s, you would have met him, or known him. He used to play guitar on the grassy spot in the parking lot near the water. I gathered that when Gerry said that bad things happened in the parking lot at Bowls he was in a way talking about Brian and some of the others who hung out there.
I never surfed Bowls with Brian, but I was out there with friends in the early 70’s during a good swell and Reno was killing it. I always loved the way Reno surfed. Brian and Reno were really good friends and I think Reno had a big influence on him.
Another friend of ours, Brian Higa had bowls wired. Brian Higa was my brother’s HS classmate, and he also worked on Bolt boards. He might have sanded boards for the glassers. He made a boards for my brother, and used to get boards shaped by Lopez for another friend of ours.
The board in the photo is interesting, because Brian mentioned that he was working on something special and it had wings.
Up until about 1978, I didn’t surf town much, and when we did it was either at Ala Moana park, Queens, Publics or Diamond Head cliffs.
I was just talking to a friend who’s surfing country a lot and it’s funny how town is just so mild compared to the country. The exception is when there’s a solid swell, but then town starts closing out. I surfed the west side, country, and shark country mostly. If we travelled it was usually to the west side or up to the country. When the south side gets big, shark country just starts to get good, so we surfed near home when there were south swells. In 1976 I started working across from Ala Moana park, so I started surfing there more, then in 1981 I moved into town and started surfing town a lot.
If Brian is like me then we’d recognize a face or a board, but I don’t even know the names of so many guys I surf with on a regular basis. We just know each other by face and all the time we spend surfing the same places. Then years later I find out someone is a famous surfer or famous for something else.