Parents got me this board when I was a teenager back in the 80’s. I started using longboards exclusively shortly after that. This has been in storage ever since and I just am trying to find out what I have. Even if it is junk I will keep it because of sentimental reasons. I am just trying to find out what I have. It is a Sundek 5’8" board. Here are some pictures. Let me know if you know anything about it. Thanks.
Brody
Eh Brody,
Don’t mean to bust your bubble.
But “Sundek” is a sportswear outfit…
Check the Ad.
Maybe a promo or rider’s
The board is a great example of period boards.
Me???
I still love twins.
Much more interesting is…
The 2nd photo.
Kinda looks like a Corky Carroll
Pyramid power deallie.
Eh, not like there EVER was such a thing.
Also last pix is a clue
As to who…
Don’t really know or can say.
Eh,
SammyA
Fill us in
0 guru of surf history, LOL
Balsa Bill Who post here nowand again was The man behind Sundek
Yes. Mr Yerkes can enlighten you. Haven’t seen him 'round here, lately.
Can’t even read the shaper’s name in that pic. Sundek was a clothing company and not a surfboard label. I think this is a promo item and might be one of a kind. Is it from Florida?
Bill had a few Hawaii connections Ken Bradshaw was sponsored by Sundek in the early 80s
Sundeck as mentioned was a clothing company. When I was a kid they had e team of mostly east coasters. Matt Keckele, Charlie Kuhn, Brian Heritage, Ken Bradshaw and this little tiny kid named Kelly.
I still have a pair of Sundeks laying around here, somewhere. Quite sure I posted a pic of them for Bill’s perusal some years ago.
Got at least one Sundek shirt, too.
You got me on this one. Maybe if I could read the other logos it might be a clue. But I can’t make them out. At all.
I’m guessing it was a team rider who got one of our stickers and had it put on his board.
Occasionally I would have boards built for retailers for display purposes and we supplied underglass stickers for team riders to put on their boards. Pete Dooley at Natural Art built a dozen or so boards for me for a European distributor once. So there could be a lot of boards out there with the Sundek logo that I had nothing to do with directly having them made.
And then I helped some of my team riders get into or expand their existing surfboard businesess. Ken Bradshaw. Corky Coolsticks, Matt Kechele, Slater Surfboards. We even built Dewey’s boards as part of this program for awhile. We built those brands at Tony Channin’s factory when he re entered the surfboard business in the 80’s. All of those, except the Corky Coolsticks, had a Sundek logo somewhere on the board. Usually small.
Team riders. Well, I’ve had a few. The first team, before I owned the company, was: Mickey (Miki Dora) Chapin, Mickey Muñoz, Tubesteak Tracy, and J.J. Moon. The first team meeting was at the Beverly Hills Hotel and Dora ordered the wine. Ask Muñoz to tell the story. It’s classic.
While we did have many east coast team riders we had some notable west coast riders. Dale Dobson comes to mind right off the bat, I really enjoyed having Dale on the team. It was always an adventure. One time he sent me a voucher for a free dinner at the Chart House. Hea had won it in a contest and gave it to me to thank me for sponsoring him. He put a note in it to call him before I used it. He said, “You can get two meals out of this if you do it right. First you get a big salad and then an appetizer. For the entree get a surf and turf. After the big salad and the appetizer you’ll be pretty full so ask them to box up the surf and turf. Then order a mud pie for desert. You save the surf and turf and you’ll have a meal for the next night.”
Now that is ultimate surfer style.
Over the years I had sponsored so many surfers through shops and through the ESA and WSA All Star teams. It wasn’t unusual for years later for me to be in a restaurant in San Clemente or a bar in New Smyrna Beach and have a server or bartender tell me that they’d once been on the Sundek team.
Balsa Bill.
You should bring back that clothing line.
Such cool history.
Great name and logo.
Wasn’t the Sundek brand name sold to an Italian company some years ago? I recall seeing ads for some ridiculously priced shorts that came from Italy.
I think these still fit me. Got them some time in the 80s
Yup
Got a pair of those hanging in the shop. Mine don’t fit anymore.
I may still have a pair with the rainbow stripe that runs around the back and down the sides of the legs.
Mine pre-date the rainbow stripe style. Could be early 80s. Not sure.
My Sundeks were my first surf trunks, orange, very plastic-y, and I thought they were the hippest things on the planet.
In lucid moments I remind myself that I was a surf marketing consumer just like the jillions of turkeys today, only on a wobbly 1970s scale.
Hi Balsa Bill! Funny to communicate with you now here as a 52 year old curmudgeon. Sounds like you’ve had a great career.
Early eighties yes. But the rainbow style actually first came out in '76. At first no one liked them they were too flashy. When Fred Schwartz at the Surfline retail store in Hawaii first saw them he said, “No one wants that on their butt.”
Then they gradually got more popular and became our best seller by the early eighties. .
But I was always trying to design something more functional for the hard core guys. Yours, Sammy, came from that approach. Pretty sure the ones you have first came out in '79 or '80 but we made them for several years. They were from a nylon/cotton blend and I came up with a name for the cloth but I can’t remember what it was.
There were thirty or forty styles in the line back then. We would keep styles in the line for years as long as they were selling. Not like today where fashion drives the companies to ditch everything and come out with a new line every season.
I didn’t even know what a season was since our #1 sales territory was Hawaii and the # 2 was Florida.
Thank you. Great to hear from you too. Yes they were the hippest things on the planet if the sales figures were any indication.
