info on eastern surfboards ???

General Discussion
221

Steve!

 

Thanks for commenting. Pretty sure the last time i saw you was at the Shore Christian Center (not that anymore). I think I recall hearing that they cracked your chest open and did some rearranging in there. Hope all is well.

I see Butchy (now pretty much exclusively refered to as Carl, his mom being the last holdout on the Butchy thing) from time to time in the store in Manasquan. Both of his parents are gone now, and he sits in the spot his dad use to occupy. He still owns the house on Surf where blessedly his dad use to let us keep the boards, wetsuits, and othe annoying crap we use to leave there on the side of the garage.  Also a blessing that your brother Gary never got into surfing which left him with funds to own a car (Herbbie) the black and yellow oil eater, which was the first car i recall having the privilege of hanging out in.

All the best,

Hartson

 

 

222

hey challenger... thx for responding, i checked another thread and there was an add that said eastern never used pigments..thats why i was wondering if there was a special reason for this board or a reason to remember it...anyway i seem to be beating a dead horse here.. i appreciate all the input..oh yah no serial # or shaper sig etc...but there is a scratch in the glass by the skeg...thought it was the owners personal name... but who knows it says..SCHUR....thx again. Glenn

223

Glenn,

There was a Sue Schur that rode a Challenger Eastern. She was in a car accident. We went to visit her and took her board to her hospital room. She later died from what I understand.

later,

Randy

224

Color was used but only a tranparent lay up. You know like our government

225

Uh-oh, there had been a “gathering” at Tinkers house in Shark River Hills, Sue and her girl friend get sloshed, went driving and wasted the car, they had me go get it and dump it in the woods in Wall Township, then they reported it stolen.

The next day the cops come to me at work and ask if I had driven the car, I said no, but had asked if I could use it to get pizza, they never came back, later on that year the girls are wasted again, so much Sue is steering and her friend in operating the pedals, they crash and Sue suffers a broken back, she died a year later on her birth day, don’t drink and drive !

226

Hi Chicks and Guys! What a great site...thank you!...transports me right back into "the day". Could not even count the hours spent hanging out at 8th Ave, Manatee, Ribles, the parties with you long haired hippie dope smoking surfers, etc.....ahhhhhhhhhhhhh. What ever happened to Linda McDonald?..great parties and a nice gal.

Sorry to hear about Turtle. Was he named that because he looked like one or because his green car looked like one?

Sorry to hear about Mom, JIm. Hope she is up there riding the big one in your honor!

As Hartson said, I went to school in Jax Fl and a guy there personally made me a board as a gift. It was an Allen, with a big T. H. on it ( for my tiny hiny nickname which sadly does not still apply!). The shop was HUGE! I cannot remember the guys name (shame on me). What Hartson did not tell you was, that when I moved back from Miami and went looking for the board, it was gone. It had been sold! Who sold it Harts, hum? ( Love You) I would love to find that board.

Hi Steve, Gary and All!

Lynda

227

I sort of remember a “gathering” at Tinker’s house and some Red Mountain…but mostly Red Mountain.

228

PLC,

 

We followed the creed “Stay Thirsty My Friends” … (In my young mind it was a lot better than a dry hole) … :wink: …

 

Super Chick, I would like to say hello to Linda McDonald too … foxy lady …

 

later,

Randy

229

This is still one of my favorite threads, all of the classic stories, and the reunion of old friends...

I was just talking with Gary Philhower and told him about this thread. Being an artist, G doesn't own or look at a computer. Someday I'm going to sit him down and let him read through this whole thing on my machine. But in the meantime he says ''hi'', being from NJ he remembers a lot of you. He's been in Florida for the last 40 years or so, airbrushing surfboards and doing other art. He's got a zillion good stories too. Just for instance, about 10 years ago I went to Cat Island (Bahamas) on a fishing trip. One of the larger ''out islands'', but very sparsely populated. Considerable surf potential on exposed side, but difficult access most areas. I thought I'd found something. I forget how Gary and I got on the subject, but I mentioned the reef set-ups I'd seen and Gary goes, ''Oh yeah, I went there in '67 with Dewey Webber''. So much for my ''discovery'', LOL.

230

This is like reading a comedy novel. I have really enjoyed it. Board building on the east coast has been one of my favorite subjects and this stuff needs to archived before we are all gone. My story starts in 1965 but it’s for another thread (maybe). All of these surf factories were classic…it was part of the culture. I think velzy was the Father of it all. My first real gig in a real factory was with Jim at the Phillips factory in Rhode Island.it was the year of Woodstock and magic was in the air. After a summer with him I was actually shaping straight boards and my life was changed forever.

  I guess my point is the legacy continues…from Tinker to Jim…from Jim to me…and on and on. It’s still going on. Thanks to all of you for the fun read. keep it up.

 

231

The journey that started on the East coast was just the begining of the people that I met and who helped me launch my career to be a professional surfboard craftsman. Some of them have passed to the great beyond, but I still respect and relate how they helped get a leg up when no one knew me.

Bill Wise of the Eastern Surfer in Oceancity, Md. gave me my first East coast job in the summer of '65, I didn’t last long with his partner, but it was a step in the right coast direction.

The original Nauset Surf Shop on Old Packet Landing put me to work patching dings on the rental fleet, it kept me in gas money and my search for surf and work.

Lou Evangelist on Long Island hired me on the word of Carl Herman, publisher of Eastern Surf magazine, that was a chance to build as many boards as I could single handedly for 2 seasons, but…

it was my foray into the contests and beaches of New Jersey that truely set things into motion, first it was meeting up with Bob Rible, I had met Bob on the road in South Carolina during a surfari with the Eastern Surfer crew, a year later I would be in his employ.

At Bob’s I also got to build as many boards as one man can do, but at the end of the summer of '66 my meeting with Tinker at Challenger Eastern would definitely being my pivotal occurance that could have easily slipped right through my fingers.

But, it was like getting a scholarship at MIT or Harvard, an advanced studies program.

I had “learned” from the others who took the time to teach me what they knew, but, Tinker was the professor, it was his syllabus that I went by, if it wasn’t up to his expectations, I went back and made it right, no letting it slip by, never the thought of " I can’t see it from my house".

It was lessons well earned and learned, I never lost sight of the prize, the prize being, pride in a job well done, 42 years later the culmination of all those years of keeping the course, entering my work in the Billabong Art of Shaping and having my peers be the judge.

Goals may not be met next week, or next year, but if you stay the course, keep true to yourself, they are attainable with considerable sacrifice to do the best job God gave you the ablity to do.

Every day I try to learn something new, besting what I did the day before and aim for a better job tomorrow, but…

none of this is possible without people that offered that hand to help and I thank each and every one of you, living and passed

232

 

Small correction Jim. That would be Surfing East Magazine. The co-publisher was Richard Van Winkle.

A few years after all the east coast mags (Atlantic Surfig, Surfing East, Competition Surf) had stopped publishing, I met a girl in a tavern (sounds nicer than bar, eh?) named Bogeys on the upper East side of NY. Turns out she used to work with Carl Hermann in the graphic design department of a printing company on Long Island. That got the conversation going. Hermann was a competitor and I had never met the guy.

Long story short: I married that girl and our 40th anniversary is this October.

 

BTW, Lou Evangelist? That name sounds familiar.

 

 

233

Paul, Lou owned a small shop in Greenlawn, he had built boats first, then branched into surfboards, the lable was Micris, a mix of Mike & Chris, his nephews.

The second season I went back to work for him, he had grown to a larger factory in E. Islip and hired on Bob Hawkins also.

Lou was a TWA pilot, marraige on the skids, looked like Howard Hughes and kept a bottle of Scotch in his desk, the writing was on the wall, New Jersey was calling.

Carl designed a number of his cartoon style ads for Micris and sevaral photo media ones too. Carl came to my shaping room several years ago and had just done a series of stamps for the USPS and the state duck hunt stamp, he had also done a series of classic cars stamps

234

Mike… I was chatting with a local guy on the beach last night in Monmouth Beach, who told me there was, at one time, a surf shop on the beachfront here, where there was a Dewey Weber surf team… right one the border of Long Branch and Monmouth Beach, now the North end of Seven Presidents Oceanfront Park. But the whole area has always been known as North End, Long Branch. There are condos there now, but he said at the time there were some serious pro contests held right there, with some pretty big names that showed up… Reno Abellira being one of the most memorable for him. He said at a contest there one summer during a solid hurricane swell, Reno paddled out for his heat and totally ripped, not even getting his head wet… barrels and all! Said he dunked under just before getting out of the water just to get wet. The crowd was absolutely amazed.

235

That was the USO beach.  I think the shop was a USO club in the 40’s and 50’s. After Weber shop closed it became Pedaler Bike Shop. Then knocked down.

236

I can't believe I misspelled Weber in my prvious post, arrrgh.... Can't edit post after responses..... more arrrgh.....

I'm sure some of the other guys on here can fill  in a lot more about the area you're referring to; and I should also ask Philhower what he remembers. ''Re-development'' with high-rise condos has squashed the character of a lot of beach towns here in Florida also.

Re the contests, etc. - Anyone who wasn't around surfing in the 60s surf boom doesn't really understand how ''big'' surfing was then. That may also be why old-timers view the last 10 years as a (maybe) short-term event that can/will be followed by surfing going back ''underground''.

Back on topic, I should mention that when I told Gary Philhower about this Challenger Eastern thread, the first words out of his mouth were, ''Those guys built the best boards!''. Another thing he mentioned was that he had started doing airbrush work on boards in the late 60s before he moved to Florida. I'm not sure when others started doing airbrush, but he had to be one of the first, from what I know...

237

That was Monmouth Surf Shop. Weber dealer with a hot team.

I think the owner was Bill Minder.

Great location.

238

Bill, what shop did Vince “Peanuts” Tronic have in Longbranch ?

239

Islander Surf Shop. They were a big Sunset dealer. I think Vince manages Spellbinders Surf Shop in Allenhurst now.

240

Can’t remember the name of Peanut’s store, Islander sounds right (not to be confused with the Islander stores in Bay Head and LBI). I think he had some of our
(G&S) product in there. I think it was the Inter Islands. That was
later. Around '71 or '2.

I think Peanuts surfed for Minder )Monmouth Surf Shop the Weber dealer). Then opened his own store. That was the trend in the late sixties early seventies. Teamriders opening their own stores. Another one of the Weber riders opened a Greek shop. This started to cooincide with boards getting shorter. Dennis Doyle, Keller’s team rider opened Surfer’s Union in 1970 or so.

At one of the early Surf Expos in the late seventies Hobie remarked to Larry Gordon. “Well, I know what happened now, my old team riders are now board builders and they’re in competition with me”.