I was body surfing there one day when we were having both a north and a west at the same time, things were sloppy so we decided to leave the boards on the beach. I took off on this one and ended up going over the falls. As I was swirling around in the white water I suddenly found myself wrapped around one of the mushrooms, pinned there until the wave subsided. Came up with scapes all over my arms and chest. Place definately thumps.
Spent many days sitting in the backyard watching guys take gas. Always amazed me that few people would get hurt when the wipeouts looked so bad.
josh, a couple f years ago i spend my vacacion in anglet/france and every day this guy showed up with one of those blue soft boards, a small thick fish. watching him i felt pretty lost with my lost. in ancle high summersurf he was winning the fun game far in front of everybody else.
coral heads …my worst scrapes…lost most of the skin on back,arms and head…3’ sunset point,paddled too far inside to the boneyard ,had too long a leash,pulled into a barrell didn’t come out popped my head up and felt like I was pulled under by a shark,bloody legrope was rapped around a coral head and I was stuck until I swam down to try and unwrap the leggie of course as the waves kept breaking on me I got smashed into the coral head ,scraping every part of me…upon entering back on the beach I was covered in blood,but when you looked at the ocean it was barely breaking…embarassing to underestimate the ocean! Rockpiles…too old and wise now…igts a horror!
hi, years ago when my two kids were younger i had to tie all the boards on the roof of the car, sort out the wet suits etc, well we get to the beach which was about 20 mile away and found i had/nt put my wet suit in ,
the waves were perfect 4ft ,if i go back for the suit i will miss the best part of the tide so decide to go in suitless ,
i have no shorts only my cotton y fronts which once they got wet went all baggy and i had to keep pulling them back up from around my knees every time i jumped to my feet, had some strange looks but enjoyed it and still makes me smile when i think about it , pete
We’ve been making those soft flexi fins for soft surfboards ever since the first Doyles
Well, I can probably horrify most of you with this confession…and it concerns one of the early Doyles.
I actually rented an 8’ Doyle to try, and then bought one…9 years after I started standing up on surfboards…in 1979. Why? With the entire world poised to convert to the thruster?
At the time I was having a wiggins about crowds, and places like California Street in Ventura were starting to “clog”…and longboards by this time were really non-existant. That was the direction I was heading, although I don’t know if I could have articulated it. But there were tons of places in the area without people at that time, and I spent time in San Clemente every summer for warm water, and I had hard boards for good surf. Plus the materials were beyond fun: a surfboard that didn’t need wax, didn’t really ding, didn’t hurt, was comfortable to paddle. I kept that board in rotation for the next 8-9 years, rode it maybe 40% of the time, 60% in summer. It had the single fin, and they had I believe a fiberglass mat stringer flat down the board. I broke the fin off once and Morey/Kransco sent a repair instruction sheet…screw it back in with screws of a certain dimension at a certain angle…and that worked.
Over the years the square tail tweaked a bit, making cutbacks a fun exercise in throwing sheets of glass. The foam also had another property that I could never really get a handle on…I thought maybe it was some kind of flex but that doesn’t really seem correct…the best description of the feeling was from that old Surfer article Leonard Brady wrote about riding an old wood board in Hawaii…something to the effect of “it blew through chop”…the weight of the wood board blowing through roughness on water…but with the Doyle it was maybe the foam absorbed chop shock…whatever it was there was no bouncy “slap slap slap” hardboards could have.
By 1987 longboards were popping up, the Doyle was soaking water, and I got an 8’7" BC 2 + 1 finned board that became the total workhorse for me. The Doyle took a place in the rafters of my father’s garage, next to the 7’2" William Dennis swallowtail. My friend Steve Lee from Lompoc bought a Scott softboard somewhere in there, three fins, and I didn’t think it surfed well at all compared to memories of the Doyle. And really I haven’t heard much good at all about soft boards performance wise since they all went to three fins. Did safety concerns design the soul out of the boards? Soft materials are just that: soft materials. Any design or shape can be made out of them. It’s one of the “semi-mysteries” of surfing for me that they have not been fully explored, but I didn’t do it beyond that either.
Two final things: I way jumped the gun on thinking things were getting crowded…live and learn. The other is softboards don’t age very well. I still have that old Doyle, sitting in the rafters next to the WD. Anytime I touch or jostle it I get a rain of blue plastic foam flakes. It’s just rotting away. The WD catches dust but otherwise is as solid as the day it went up there.
Had the original Morey Doyle and bought a new one last year for my daughter.
I always though part of the fun of riding these boards was that you’re not always in control. The bouyancy often makes it impossible to be sure where you’ll go when the whitewater hits you. At least the board is soft, so when you do hit someone, it’s not as bad as a glassed board would be.
Here’s my fun story… I’m out on the south shore on the biggest day of the year, with a board I hadn’t ridden for quite a while. I forgot to bring wax, so the board is extra slick after sitting around for a couple of years.
Anyway, I catch a set wave outside of everyone and as I try to stand up I slide off the board and land on my stomach. I end up bodysurfing down the face of this wave that’s easily 10-12’ high. I can’t penetrate through cause I have too much speed and then my shorts start coming off. So now I have one hand trying to keep my pants from going past my knees and all this occurs in front of everyone.
well if you were dressed like Grant (Hicksy) you wouldn’t have had a problem…
Grant…
I really think you need to start wearing your respirator more often…
nothing like a doyle softie…
if you didn’t take the drop at an angle you were doomed
cause they don’t square off the bottom like a normal board.
being able to control and rip on something totally out of control is what those things were made for other than banging rails and heads in the line up without worries…
of course our one and only blane must be feeling the same way on this beeg bugga…
