Randy, I think the glasser was Bruce Babcock, he was from Carmel and his parents had a place on the 17 mile drive, he bought a garbage truck and parked it in front of the house, did that ever piss off some upper crust types.
Bruce got a house in Neptune with some of the other guys, it was on a dirt road surrounded by 8 foot tall reeds, Bruce got so drunk one night that he bare foot walked off the road and into the reeds, only to be walking on nothing but broken beer bottles.
The broken off bottoms of the bottle had nearly cut off his toes, he did NOT even know he was cut, what a mess, I think Perrin bandaged him up.
He would wear hip boots waders when he was laminating, barefooted inside, when he took them off at the end of the day they had to be quarantined for the sake of the rest of the factory crew, they smelled like dead possums
I’m hoping you can help me with something. I have what I understand is the last board that CES made. I came up to the factory with John Frawley, who basically took over from Billy Sautner as the Rockaway Beach, NY rep, to pickup some boards that were ready. When we arrived, the surfbboard area was cleared out and the studio was full tilt. I wanted to get one more board, but was told there were no more blanks. After looking around, we found half a blank. So the board had to be under 5’ tall. I detailed out a 4’10" twin fin, but another catch came up-there were no decals left! So I said use a marker or something with whoever had the best handwriting. So I ended up with a red top/purple bottom with black pinstriping, witth Challenger Eastern written in script real neat at the bottom of the nose. I was a tadpole when I ordered the board and grew six inches that summer, so the board never got much use. I’ve kept it as a keepsake while moving all around the world. My question is: do you know who signed the board? I’d appreciate any insight you might have. Thanks.
Say, if I have you pegged right, you are one of three brothers - all firemen. I was a resident of Fitzgeralds Hotel who you used to occasionally work for. I have been out of Rockaway for years, but like to keep up on things when possible. Let me know if I’ve got the right guy…
After the winter of '67 trip to “Cali” with the Challenger Belmar Team, Deane Yamane, Bob Bernokietz, Rick Barry and myself, that was the official end of my involvement with Challenger Eastern.
I had been shaping for Surfboards East in Freehold and this very much pissed off Tinker, when we wound up getting busted at Swami’s New Years Day, Tinker felt all the blame lay on me, so this became a war of attrition after that, ultimately ending with me running my mouth on what I was going to do to Tinker and he kicking my ass in the end.
But, I was there when Steve Bigler and Bob McTavish came to Rincon straight off the flight from Oz, this gave me a front row seat to where surfing was going to go from that day on. I was only 20 years old, already a champion surfer and got right on board with the “shortboard revolution”, Tinker already in his mid 30’s, an OK surfer at best, had not seen these new boards and was still months behind the curve.
When he did get onboard to start shaping V bottoms and shorter boards, they all looked like just short longboards, this was the start of the end for Challenger Eastern. The Soul era had started and surfboard prices were hovering under 100 dollars, Tinker said this was the major deciding factor in choosing to toss in the towel when the money and numbers were gone from the industry.
ID of groupe Frankie Stamp early Rockaway surfer, Billy Sautner Rockaway Surfer Rep, I think the rest have been discusssed. All freinds and good people all!
WOW!! I remember the “Surf Board Shop”! I grew up on 8th Ave in Neptune, and would go over there and watch now & then. I do not remember anyone specifically, but I do remember some of the guys showing me around, and I would watch them forming & sanding the boards. I was only about 10 at the time. But the smell of fiberlass takes me back there every time! Thanks for the memories!!
I just stumbled on to this site----some great stories.
The Challenger photo, if I remember correctly, was taken by Deane K. Yamane. Billy Sautner, last I had touch with him, was living in Orlando and is a psychologist.
Stamp, Schreifels, Voss and Sautner were Rockaway locals.
Anyone know the location of two other Rockaway locals from the same time period (1964-1968): Geri Vartan and Mark Dornan? They both did work for for Atlantic Surfing Magazine (where the Challenger photo was published). Vartan designed and laid out all the Challenger Eastern ads. He deserted from the US Army and then got pardoned during the Carter years. Last I knew he was living in Australia.
Sammy, I don’t even have all the issues. Gunderson has had my hard-cover, bound set for almost 15 years and I have to get that back. They are in mint condition. Dornan did cartoons and made many spelling mistakes. His classic was “Peefact Tubs.”
We published one special cartoon magazine called “Surf Humor” and I guess it’s very, very difficult to get a copy. That’s not even in the bound set.
Some people might recognize the name on this cartoon from the “Surf Humor” book. This guy was involved with the US Postal Service project that created the Duke Kahanamoku stamp back a few years ago. I think he was the art director.
Sammy, Yeah Carl T Hermann from Long Island. He was also the co-publisher of Surfing East. He did the cover of Surf Humor for us. He moved to Carlsbad, CA and became a major designer of postage stamps. Gunderson (who I just spoke to a few weeks ago after many years) ran into him out here. Weird (remember how often Tinker said “weird”) as I found out so many years later that my wife used to work with Hermann in a printing company back on LI.
Randy W–Thanks–I guess we’re at an age where that shit happens. I remember you very well–glad things are good.
When Wally Schreifels moved out here back around 1988 or so we used to surf together and I saw Kenny also a few times. Wally lived in Carlsbad (I lived in Leucadia–same house for 27 years) and now I hear he’s living in Cabo. I used to see Sautner all the time when he was living on Oahu.
Although my collection of Atlantic Surfings are pretty crappy (until Gunderson returns my bound set) I do have hard-bound copies of all the issues of Surfing Magazine I worked on. One day that will be worth something…I hope.
Yes, I was trying to recall which mag Herrman worked on. I think I have just one copy of Surfing East. Of course, I think they had a shorter run than ASM.
I was trying to find some kind of online article about the Duke stamp by using Carl’s name as part of the query. If you do that you’ll find a website called “carlsbadistan” or something similar. He’s mentioned there in regard to some other stamps he did that have a Carlsbad connection.
