Pardon the ignorance, but did Skip shape a noserider? A friend and I were yapping away in the water this AM. I figured some one on here would know.
Thank you.
BTW… I did the “search” thing.
wasn’t the G&S Stretch a Skip design?
That wouild have been my guess.
I checked three different sources, and they all say that the Stretch was designed by Hynson. They also list Frye and Bill Hamilton as ‘test riders’. So, chances are Frye never
designed a ‘stock’ noserider. Though, I’m sure if you ordered one from him, he could do it justice.
Skip and Hynson were both team riders for Gordon & Smith, and as many riders did, they evolved into shaping. Unlike many who took this path back then, those particular guys became good and well known as shapers. Hynson is widely credited for creating the “Red Fin”, but I was told they were both involved in that and many other designs ( 1961 -63 +/-). The Red Fin model was the board the G & S San Diego boys rode a lot at contest up and down the coast. All the boards back then were noseriders, but there was just not a widely accepted model called a “noserider” at the time. Hynson took some grief when he “defected” G & S by using a Hobie during the filming of “Endless Summer”. Skip is widely known for his rounded tails and pin-tails. Most of the soon to evolve classic noserider models had wide squared tails. Though Skip’s boards weren’t “noseriders” guys rode the nose on them all the time. Thrailkill and a few others can chime in here, as he was cruisin there at the time and will remember some facts on Skip.
Richard McCormick
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All the boards back then were noseriders,
Nonsense!! How old are you?
Aloha TonyM,
You no doubt know more than the rest of us, but no nonsense here mate. A rather personal question you ask, but you are invited to my 59th B-day party this Sunday.
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Aloha TonyM,
no nonsense here mate…you are invited to my 59th B-day party this Sunday.
Thanks for the invite. I’ll have to decline due to a busy schedule, though.
You’re about 1-1/2 years older than I am. So, if you were surfing back in the mid Sixties, you should know that not “all” boards were noseriders, back then. That’s the kind of ridiculous blanket statement I’d expect from the likes of a guy who wears an orange wetsuit and a helmet.
Sorry to hear you are almost as old as me. At the risk of sounding like a name-dropper or a know-it-all (and I’ll state assuredly that I get a lot more surfboard shaping information from this site than I could possibly give in knowledge), it was Mike Hynson who suggested to me in a personal conversation just a couple of years ago that the boards of the day were noseriders. I agree and therefore I stated such. Though he may not be as knowledgeable as some here (you?), he is more so than I.
The point I THINK most would take from my comment about boards back then being noseriders, and certainly my intention in saying so, was to convey the fact that while there were not yet popular known formally branded “noserider” models, the very vast majority of all boards back in the day (being heavy, rounded rails, and 9’6" or so in length) could be ridden on the nose if the rider could perform the act. Not all guys could noseride, but most all boards could be noseridden. Hope that helps you.
Maybe give the guy down south in the orange wetsuit and helmet a break, as though most who wear such would be considered a little off the traveled path, perhaps those who wear such may not “all” give ridiculous blanket statements as you state. Let’s move on.
Aloha!,
Richard
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So, if you were surfing back in the mid Sixties, you should know that not “all” boards were noseriders, back then. That’s the kind of ridiculous blanket statement I’d expect from the likes of a guy who wears an orange wetsuit and a helmet.
sorry, tony…but i’m going to have to agree with richard. what makes a noserider? – soft rails, flat rocker. can you name or board or two from 1965 that didn’t ride well from the tip?
My older brother had one of those Skip Frye V-bottoms in the Summer of 68. An 8’2" short board with lots of nose lift. Had a wide, round, down-railer nose that was very flat on the bottom. Not conacave…very subtle if it was. So it wasn’t your usual V-bottom transitional board. I don’t recall if it was advertised as a V-bottom with nose-riding ability. Who has a good magazine collection from the Spring/Summer of 1968? Please look that up. Also worth noting that the board was purchased new with a wet-sanded finish.
come on, all longboards back then where ridden on the tip, irregardles if they were designated “nose riders” or not.wasn’t it hobie and munoz who came up with the concave nose concept for the moery contest inventura back then??
make that morey in ventura…(a little typo error in previous post)
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Quote:what makes a noserider? – soft rails, flat rocker. can you name or board or two from 1965 that didn’t ride well from the tip?
Yes. Lots of them. For instance, the 9’5" Hansen I had, back then. The 9’6" Crestwood that’s out in the garage, right now.
When a board is called a “noserider”, that infers it was designed for riding the tip. Prior to Morey’s contest, about the only board purpose-built for noseriding was the Con Wing Nose. Sure, virtually everyone was obsessed with noseriding in that era, but not ALL boards were noseriders.
Shit, you could paddle out at Waimea on a 5’11" Lis fish, catch a wave, and maybe even make the drop. Does that make it a “big wave gun” ?
Soft rails and flat rocker do not a “noserider” make. A lot more goes into the concept, than that. Remind me never to pay you to shape a noserider for me.
You all can name drop and generalize all you want. I’m sticking to the fact that not ALL mid Sixties boards were “noseriders”.
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When a board is called a “noserider”, that infers…
oh, i see. so you’re basing your notion that the boards of the mid-60s weren’t “noseriders”, aside from the fact that everyone was riding them from the nose, that the name “noserider” should be limited to boards that can’t do much anything else? please… that’s a pretty ill-founded inference. hmmm…inference…sounds a lot like an “assumption”. wanna know something about what happens when you “assume” things?!
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you could paddle out at Waimea on a 5’11" Lis fish, catch a wave, and maybe even make the drop. Does that make it a “big wave gun” ?
consider the design elements of a big wave gun, and juxtapose that with a lis fish. just because you can ride the fishy at big Bay doesn’t make it a gun, but mid-60s longboards, for the most part, had the same basic design elements.
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I’m sticking to the fact that not ALL mid Sixties boards were “noseriders”.
don’t confuse fact and opinion. opinions are like assholes…everybody’s got one…and most of the time they stink. surely, there must’ve been some progressive-thinker tucked away in his garage who built a board that was ahead of its time. but back then, any board you’d see in the lineup had those same noseriding elements. noseriding wasn’t about seeing how long you can keep your toes hanging off the end the way it is now. it was all about control. nowadays, people ride waves WITH their boards; but back then, waves were ridden THROUGH your board. now, a little pump and you’re flying down the line, like the board is an extension of yourself; but 40 years ago, the board was more of an intermediary. only way to pick up speed is to trim it up right. noseriding is supposed to be done in the curl – something everyone but Alex Knost and CJ Nelson seem to have forgotten.
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Soft rails and flat rocker do not a “noserider” make. A lot more goes into the concept, than that. Remind me never to pay you to shape a noserider for me.
sure, there’s more to it than that. but if you get those two things right, not much else really matters all that much. the board will ride the nose, and ride it well. i’ve contributed quite a bit over the past few years to this forum’s library of noserider design…feel free to give it a browse. and for what it’s worth, if ever you did come knocking at my door looking for me to shape you a board, i wouldn’t do it for a million bucks…but i might hand you my planer and help you make your own.
i might be able to throw in a little help with this one. Yes, Skip has a noserider model. now before the details, we all know that skip is not about noseriding, becuase its a stalling manuver and slows you down, but he is one of the best at it ever. his involvment with the stretch model back for the morey invitational and the 66 world championships (the one nat won) skip said it was one of the worst boards he was ever involved with. and that it didn’t really work. present day. I’ve had skip make me various versions of his noserider model, fuller outline, square tail, round nose, and they do just that. ( 2-10’2 squaretail noseriders and a 9’6 diamond tail noserider, which was more of a winter/comp board he came up with for me) but take it to account here, that just becuase it has all those qualitites, its not a full-on, point style, nuuhiwa ish nose rider. at all. its fast, slim and turns better than most noseriders out there, pay attention to the fast part. true to his style there is no added tail kick for increased nose trim and there is not some big honking 20 inch nose on it to slow you down. His board is built to go fast, turn well, and noseride in full trim. i’m currently in possesion of two original frye models, one an original eagle, and one the standard squaretail, wide-point back style board. the latter i ride ever year at the OMBAC old board contest and tend to do pretty well. while i can’t get the killer noserides of one mr sommers on his original nuuhiwa, the boards does it all and is a great all around old board. really fast, turnable, high performance board for back then. lets not forget that skip was one/if not the first in the san diego area to experiment with a reduced fin area.
s0 yes, you can get a skip noserider, just don’t expect it to look like a tudor or nuuhiwa or bing or donald.
hope that helps your answer. by the way both of the old boards will be on display at my new showroom towards the end of summer.
right on, josh. i was hoping you’d chime in here!
no worries man. hey can yo make it out here in october? gonnabe opening up a retail shop out of my factory and will be having a little gathering of everyone, hopefully. if it goes right.
All this “hub-bub”! I’ve got to chime in because I was living and surfing in SD in '69 and ‘70. I watched Skip surf Crystal Pier or the Point almost every day. I also surfed Blacks once or twice a week, which was Michael’s hang out. The stretch was a Hynson design and was short for longboards at 8-9’. Mike and Skip brought these boards up to Ventura for the first Morey/Pope contest. I can’t remember '64 or '65. I was at that contest. If the judges had been paying attention Michael would have won that contest as his best nose ride far out distanced Munoz’s best ride. Michael traveled up and down the Calif. Coast and was able to finagle his way into factories from SD to Santa Cruz, gleaning info from numerous shapers and boardbuilders. He would shape a few and then take what ever design info he could get out of shapers in the area. Guys like Yater and Phil. He seemed to really look up to Phil, and defected from G&S to Hobie and became a team rider shortly before the filming of “Endless Summer”. The board he rode in that film was a Hobie. I don’t have any idea how many boards he may have shaped for Hobie during that period. Hobie Surfboards has long been credited with the first modern concave nose. They basically took a stock blank and carved a pretty noticeable concave into the nose. It looked pretty much the same as any stock Hobie (rail, tail and old school “big-ass” fin). Whether or not other board builders were doing something similar at the same time or not I can only say “probably and more than likely”. In No. SD Hansen really came on strong with some great noseriders in the late '60’s. So we can ask the question was Thrailkill influenced by his time at Hobie and then carried that over to Hansen. That’s a question left to Bill to answer. I think the most over looked contribution to surfboard design by Skip Frye Is the “Egg”. I first saw this shape in SD around '68 thru '69. They were much copied by other SD shapers( Hank Warner, Ron Cunningham etc.). They were very “hullish” in my opinion. I had a 7’10 shaped by Ron that I wish I still had. Hynson for all his personal failings has always had an eye for design.
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Quote:the name “noserider” should be limited to boards that can’t do much anything else?
I never said any such thing. Consider that a number of manufacturers chose to include a shape in their lines specifically called a “noserider”. Hobie, Jacobs, Bing, Dave Sweet, Surfboards Hawaii, Yater, Windansea, Con, and many more. Maybe they should have just put out models called “The Redundant”?