Thought I would share a picture of the Hobie we just picked up. The story goes:
The guy we bought it from found it at a construction site about 10 years ago. Since then he has had it stored in the bushes behind his house. We ran into him at a surf shop when he was looking for a long board for his daughter. Just last year he drill the hole in the fin to push his daughter (age 10) into waves at the beach. We told him we wanted to look at it and he agreed.
We talked with him the next day but he said he wasn’t going to be home but he would “throw” it in the front yard for us to look at. It turned out that he could meet us at his house. When we arrived he went behind the house and actually dragged it out of the bushes right across the cement driveway, scratching the nose all the way.
He said that since we were interested in it he checked it out on line and found out it was worth a couple of hundred dollars. He said all he wanted was to get a custom board for his daughter. We quickly agreed no charge.
The hobie only has two semi-bad dings, both about 2-3 inches across. The board is a triple stringer with a nose concave about 3 1/2 feet long. Has the original glassed on fin. One cool thing is that it appears to have the original slip check still on the board. Even on the bottom of it has “hobie” sprayed in slip check. It has no numbers that we can see. We want to research it more before we fix anything or remove the slip check (if we do).
Anyone have any idea what the history might be of this board? Worth?
Nice board, in better shape than it deserves to be considering the treatment it’s gotten. I’m kinda surprised to see a reflection from the gloss coat. Might want to take a little ammonia to it to see if it’s Armor-All or something, cos most boards that age don’t really reflect all that well.
A few things - Hobies not being my specialty…
Fin shape and placement plus outline shape leads me to think it’s mid-'60s vintage.
Which is older than slip-chek ( late '60s for the most part) . Though the quality of the slip-chek job has me thinking that it was done by a professional painter or somebody who knew what they were doing.
Look along the center stringer from the decal to the tail, you may see faint pencilled marks someplace where the serial is. Or shaper’s initials, or ‘made for’ or something like that. In which case you might want to see what an infrared or UV photo would tell ya, which would save removing said slipcheck. The Hobies I’ve seen had numbers, but that doesn’t mean they all did. Though a triple stringer board is a bit less likely to be ‘back-doored’ out of the factory.
There is an outside chance it’s a newer ‘factory reproduction’ made to order for somebody who wanted a board just like he had, but it’s unlikely. Though I do know of a couple of Gordon and Smiths that are gonna confuse the hell out of collectors someday…
Thanks for the information. The reason it looks shiny I took the pictures at the guys house and it was raining. I am pretty sure its original looking at the patina of the board but who knows. The only thing that made me think twice was the huge concave on the nose. The concave looks like one of Gene’s current boards. I will look closer to see if I can see any numbers and get back with everyone on that. If I decide to restore it to its original glory with slip check and all can you still get that stuff? If so where?
Ah, rain…that makes sense, cos I was really wondering how you could get slipchek to shine. I don’t think the original slipchek is still available, but I believe they make a similar product for windsurfers: http://www.surfingsports.com/ these guys would know a whole lot better than I would.
I’ll add that I really doubt it’s original, that slipchek. Besides being soak-up-the-heat-and-make-it-delaminate black. Removing it could only help.
Though if you wanted to try to restore it i am given to understand they make a fine acrylic dust of some sort for the nonskid. Basicly, I think slipchek’s an acrylic product Tom Morey came up with. Dunno much else about it other than it wore the bejeezus out of your toes when paddling.
Lots of concave - the 60s was noseriding and statue moves, and they did some very odd things to boards in the hope of making 'em noseride better. You never know.
fat lot of help that was, right? Is that a water leak, that brown corner of the tail?
I have an early Takayama O.M.O. “Our Mother Ocean”, Donald’s first label. It is similar in the tail of your board, as the fin is hanging over the tail a bit. Similar fin template too. The board is really stiff and hard to turn, but goes on angled take off’s in a straight line. This OMO has pretty good rocker and outline, but the fin, literally, sucks. I’d put a fin box in it if I were you. I think those Hobie’s were a dime a dozen, so don’t worry about diminished value. It will serve you better in the small summer surf.
You can get “El Grippo” which is basically the same as “Slipcheck” from Ventura Surf Shop. Supposedly, Bill “Blinky” Hubina, the owner, had a hand in marketing the stuff. Anyway, it comes in a variety of colors black, blue, yellow etc…