Old age has set in, For sure. It was Jack Shipley. I met a shaper in FL a few years later named Mike Shipley. Mixed up the names.
Aloha Old Surf Rat,
In the early spring of 1971, I did the first 18 boards for Lightning Bolt, on contract out of Surf Systems. Yellow resin bolt, deck and bottom. No lams. Probably 2/3rds of those first 18 boards were diamond tails. The fins were black, in a fixed position black box. Given the price you paid, you may have gotten one of those very early boards, as I had cut a bare bones ‘‘bro deal’’ with Jack, to get the contract. Jack sent me a drawing of a Captain Marvel style lightning bolt, which I rejected, and replaced it with the Bolt design, that became so widely recognized. All of those early boards were made with my templates, which I still have, to this day. I thought you might like hearing a bit of the back story.
Aloha Bill,
This site is bringing back the memories. And I really appreciate the back story on the boards. Thank you!
I did some ski bumming in VT winter of 69-70. Decided in spring of 71 to get the heck out of the deep freeze. My new wife had done a bit of East Coast surfing for Dewey and was into a move to the islands. We hitchhiked and camped across the US, bought one way tickets from SF to Honolulu for $99 each and landed in Oahu with $400 in our pockets, a friend in Kaimuki put us up in their station wagon in the car port next to H-1. Did some house painting and parking cars, got hold of a few old Surfboards Hawaii sticks and transitioned from snow to surf. Not as easy as I had envisioned. Fell in with some of Randy Raricks team surfers adn got some excellent and needed mentoring. got a few decent rides. got good enuf so I didn’t get hassled too much.
Ride of my life, 1971, SF earthquake created some giant close out sets around 6 am at Diamond Head. Got caught way outside on my Stonebraker and with no one else out started getting scary. finally one came thru that looked make-able so I stroked in. Holy crap is all I can say, I am 6’1’’ and it was double over head and double below me, hit the elevator and somehow held a straight line about halfway down and just in front of the Mack truck behind me! Rode it in (or actually hung on for dear life!) all the way to the cliffs and had so much adrenaline I flew up to the wall in about 2 seconds! So happy to be alive!
A couple of vans roared in and guys unloaded their boards and gave me the “nice ride” greeting! I tried to play it cool but was seriously shaken up. Any how these guys went out there and ripped it up! turns out it was one or both Aiku’s and a few other guys got incredible rides. I had all I could do to just go straight and stay live
It has been a while since then, moved back to the mainland, raised the kids, spent about 30 years in LA, longbarded, now in Florida for the past 15 years, dot get out there any more. time sure does fly.
Mahalo
OSR
Great site, thanks for letting me know about the boards from back then, I wish i had kept that one.