Speaking of Dora, I heard that he sold most every Da Cat model he was given, before it even hit the water.
I also heard he was into riding the Wilken Wonderboard. Is that true?
i totaly beleive he sold most of his boards he was given for what ever he was raw… im not to sure bout the wonder board deal… ima check it out tho…
wow- mention of tom hale. never thought i'd see that name on sways! actually, i believe the winner of the first morey nose contes at c-street was local terry jones on a tom hale board designed for the contest...
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There was a lot of design/model energy raging in '64, '65, 66' & '67.....right up and into the 'short board revolution':
There is a whole host of East Coast stepdecks that were made during '65-'67, but being a west coaster i'd have to defer to Mike Daniels, Gary Propper, Bruce Valluzi, Flea Sharpe, Peter Pan, or Matt Keschle, or some other EC'er to fill in that gap.
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I hadn't really looked at this thread - thanks for including me on your list of east coast luminaries, DS. But I didn't really start surfing until '68, and the revolution was underway. I was only interested in the ''new'' stuff, so I ignored some good longboard history that was all around me. Stupid kid! Jim Phillips would be a good reference for that '64-'67 period, I believe he came east from Hawaii in '64. Balsa Bill Yerkes also, but he might have been in Cali part of that time.
Anyway, as for the history of very thin longboards, Gordon Clark always talks about the Phil Edwards Model being much thinner than it's contemporaries. He uses it as an example of how multiple and/or heavy stringers won't really increase break strength very much (apparently the Phil boards snapped with regularity in spite of all kinds of wood), but that's a whole 'nother subject...
The BOSS boards do look like a lot of fun. I'm a firm believer in slicin' and dicin' instead of floating around on a cork.
You can’t just jump on here and goon Balsa (one of the most respected guys on this forum)… try it on the surfermag.com forum… they love that stuff.
y? not he had nothing good to say and im not gonna take his shit… i really dont care who he is to tell you the truth… miki dora could of said it to me and i would of responded the same…
my turn for a spam bump
they look like good boards for kooks. especially the stubby
if you think that surfboard is attractive id hate to see your girlfriend,(or boyfriend most likely)
still it might allow for bit more space in the lineup owing to everyone else getting worried about being bummed up the arse by the rider. if you find people looking scared and paddling away from you its because you are most likely an arsehole ripper, not a wave ripper.
to surfers everywhere…if your wondering why there is a bloke staring at you whilst getting changed out of your wetsuit, check what they are holding under there arm. its most likely a boss surfboard
Well… Miki Dora was an Arsehole!!!
miki dora was run out of mahia new zealand by the locals
hah and ive 420 points so it must be true
the boss seems a unique board that really needs to be designed with the wave and rider more than just in mind. Like a tailor made suit. I wouldnt own a ferrari just to drive it in the drive way and Id give that stub a go surely without looking for any silly ass with it.
Imagine dialing in a boss style board in the flex respect for a particular consistent wave and rider, thats what design should be all about, everyone knows this anyway. The stub could be sold off the rack, implementing sales for a custom designer but my question is who can show a vid of someone rippin on that wide nosed stub?? A deep fin and some wall n that big nose crouched kamikaze, sounds like surfing to my heart.
update; http://magicseaweed.com/video/flvplayer.php?id=104
the whiskey wasnt my idea.
Thanks for the honest correction about your personal timeline in the biz…and my apologies for always sticking an “S” on the end of your name. Also I mispelled Matt K’s last name…ah well. Bill Yerkes…creator of Sundek eh? Sold a lot of his shorts and trunks back in the day at Surf n Wear. I think John Kelley who did the ‘Scorpion Tail’ design back east (RIP) could’ve weighed in on this plus a whole bunch of right coast guys I haven’t met.
Who shaped for Wave Riding Vehicles back in the day…of course Richard Price musta been around. Lotsa guys, lots of unsung heroes that didn’t get their 15 minutes of fame in da mag. Funny how those magazines immortalized people…sometimes worthy of the nod and sometimes not…some were media whores. We’ve reached unprecedented heights in that nowadays.
Whattaya gonna be when YOU grow up?
I’m gonna be famous.
Famous for what?
For nothing…just famous!
Hey, that would be a good bit of trivia for someone to look up…I was unaware that there was more than one MP noseriding contest at Stables in that era. I was pretty sure the teardrop concave that won was most likely shaped by Martin and I can’t recall who was riding it…someone on here knows.
My bitch with all the closed teardrop concaves, like Bing’s Nuuhiwa and others were that they were slow as all get out. We had a friend that bought one and we ridiculed him for it. We were Spoon guys…yeah we had attitude, expousing the philosophy that surfers capable of proper trim knew how to really noseride. I got on that Bing Nuuhiwa at mushy Deveraux Point and it was obvious any dumb f-ck could get on the nose. We were all smitten with David’s feline grace while on the nose, but that’s because he had made it an art form…all that weighting and unweighting…he was a very good surfer and even made quite a decent showing at Pipeline. Just when we were all out there at our local beachbreaks, with stop watches clocking each other, Nat shows up with “Sam” and Witzig calls us out for being posers and pussies!
Remember: “Were Tops Now”?..or “The Hot Generation”??
The war between Oz and the Yanks had begun…Seppos eh?
Munoz won the first Morey Invitational in July '65. The design, as I recall, was a collaboration between Munoz and Edwards. Sam Ryan’s collectors guide says the production versions were shaped by Edwards and Brewer. Was Martin working at Hobie’s in '65?
Here’s a quote from Edwards about the original board that Munoz rode: “The best way I can describe our board is a Simmons board with the nose cut off.” He credits many of Simmons’ design theories as the inspiration for the shape. I think it’s a safe bet that Edwards shaped the board ridden by Munoz.
Just checked a Hobie ad from late '65. It lists their main shapers as Edwards, Brewer, Martin, and Ralph Parker.
Right on…I almost ventured it was Munoz that rode it. Of course Munoz also shaped but Martin has always been the workhorse shaper with little public acclaim…a shaper’s shaper to be exact. I’m not aware of Ralph Parker’s history at all.
The comment that Matt made about never expecting to see Tom Hale’s name in Sway’s goes to show how shapers now and then can make an indelible mark in time. Like music, surfboards can be attached to fond memories of a certain day and age in one’s personal history. A flavor of the times so to speak. Hale was a good shaper that provided some design interpretations during that pivotal time we were chopping two feet off the end of perfectly good longboards in a quest for heightened performance. Hence the McTavish V Bottom and the cleaner more streamlined Brewer 'Mini guns aka Baby Teardrop Pintails.
Bono was asked if he thought he would be remembered for his humanitarian efforts in Africa 100 years from now, to which he replied, “no, but they will remember my music”.
Surfboards are like that, yeah they are…at least the ones created by men versus computers…using software to facilitate design is a moot point now, but the ability to conceive and incept brilliant design will never go out of fashion.
To have the future, one must have a past, the only thing that is tenuous is now…DS
SammyA,
During my short period at Hobie in spring 1965, before moving on to Hansen, my shaping rack was between Terry on the right, Phil to the left, and Parker next to him. Even then Phil would frequently have Terry shape his models, if he was involved in a project on his catamaran ''El Gato'' that he did not want to break away from.
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I'm not aware of Ralph Parker's history at all.
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At the time I was there Ralph Parker was THE power shaper at Hobie, as well as the industry for that matter. Terry was right there too. I seem to recall that at that time, Parkers' board count was already over 10,000. Terry has outlasted just about everyone, both in time, and certainly in board count.
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Terry has outlasted just about everyone, both in time, and certainly in board count.
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That's because even after all these years he's still totally stoked about shaping surfboards .........
And I say amen to that!