me and some pals are trying to replicate one of doras board da cat greg noll used to make. having a hard time finding the length width thickness nose tail rocker he used. weve been trying to get a hold of greg to ask him personally but its proved pretty difficult. so if anyone has any info to on that board or any other he used to ride to pass along that would be rad.thaks
Greenlight has the templet plan shape on their site.
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me and some pals are trying to replicate one of doras board da cat greg noll used to make. having a hard time finding the length width thickness nose tail rocker he used. weve been trying to get a hold of greg to ask him personally but its proved pretty difficult. so if anyone has any info to on that board or any other he used to ride to pass along that would be rad.thaks
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Miki Dora's Da Cat? You really expect someone to just give it too you? Just order one from Jed Noll he has the templates and knows how to make them just like his dad. You can get a hold of him through the Water Man's Guild!
I'd be happy to send a paper template I scaled up from a photo of a counterfeit DaCat which was exactly the same as an original DaCat.... which was exactly the same as a Yater outline on one of my boards. My 'Felix' template - possibly a rip of a rip of a rip.
I've heard different stories on the origins of Da Cat. One rumor has it that Dora, after being denied a personal 'model' from Yater, took a Yater Spoon to Noll. They scooped the nose a little different and.... DaCat was born.
FWIW there were different versions of DaCat (round pin and square tails) along with other subtle details depending on which shaper at Noll's factory did the work. He has claimed that a discerning examiner can tell them apart.
A local shop owner has one of Dora's personal boards that wasn't made by Noll yet it has a 'Da Cat' logo clipped from a magazine ad. You can see the print from the other side of the page showing through. That board is nothing like Da Cat model, rather it is a pointy nose pin tail with no nose scoop or step deck.
Anyway, PM me your address and I'll see what I can do.
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... or any other he used to ride to pass along that would be rad.thaks
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g'day, I've met Miki Dora, and had the opportunity to surf alongside him in 1985 in fine point break waves, offshore winds, secluded location, no crowds. He wasn't on a noserider if thats the design you are after. It was what I would describe as a pointed nose longboard, not a gun due to the longboard back end. I'm sorry I can't give you more info than that, I think he had two of them, but I'm not absolutely sure about that. At that point in my surfing development I had seen no good longboarding so my memory may be slightly distorted on his riding style. But I can say he did no noseriding and I think what he was doing was not the classic longboarding that I have since witnessed in contemporary California.
I would describe his surfing as positional in the sense that he would dramatically reposition himself on the wave by lifting the front of the board out of the water and placing it somewhere else. I don't remember him getting tubes although that point break is the sort of wave that tubes a bit. I was on a 5' 11 1/2" self-built twin fin.
circumstances to this encounter are as follows:
In the summer of 1985 I found myself with 10 days to spend before starting a new job in the south coast of england. I was in my hometown in Wales and the surf was flat or near flat, but a deep low was brewing in the northwest atlantic. If you get a map of the UK you can see that Ireland blocks swell from this direction. My restless mate Vaughan was always ready to drop his self-employed job and we started to do some homework on catching this swell. By that time stories of incredible waves in the northern tip of Scotland were emerging. However Vaughan's brother in law, ex european champion surfer PJ persuaded us that it was just too far for my underpowered 600cc Citroen car. So the obvious alternative of the northwest republic of Ireland was considered and one other mate Aled recruited for the trip. We left that day with backpacks, tents and no car. Train to Fishguard, overnight ferry to Dublin, train across Ireland and arrived just in time for an evening surf the next day.
Prevailing wind in the UK and Ireland is SW, although it is erratic. The rivermouth/rockreef left Irish spot is offshore on a southwest wind, and is exposed to a NW swell, and there is plenty from that direction. We caught magnificent waves that evening to ourselves and camped out in front of this location. A short walk away is "the point", although this needs a SSW or S wind to be offshore, this wind direction is still frequent and during my stay there the point did its stuff on a number of occassions and thats when Dora surfed. I remember my mate Aled saying to me as we were paddling out in between waves "these waves are incredible".
Miki Dora was with a female companion, an Irish longboarder who kneepaddled. They lived in a camper van on the point. I made a return visit to this spot a few years later. Mike Dora had gone, but the Irish lady who kneepaddled was still there.
I had one brief conversation with Dora when he stood in front of the rockreef left. It went something like this:
Mr J - are you going in?
Dora - no, it has no guts.
the left has plenty of power, not barrelling or really long walled like the point, but still a very fun wave and at times challenging for us, so I conclude that Mr Dora didn't like going backhand.
The Noll/Dora Cat was not a “noserider” in the classic sense of the design. More of a stepdeck/flexer. To my knowledge, Miki was never really concerned with tip riding, per se. His style was more of a forward trim with hard turns right off the tail. All that was enhanced by his ability to sideslip and work subtle rail changes. To a casual observer with limited experience, much of what he did was too subtle to appreciate. His ability to “read” a wave was like a sixth sense. Something you either have, or don’t. It cannot be learned.
Of no special interest, except maybe historical, is this: while in France in 1968/69, Miki Dora was riding a Bing Lotus that was later bought from him by one of my friends. I have some photos of the board but they are very small.
That was probably Linda Cuy. An American woman from N Hollywood that Miki met at Malibu in the mid 70s. She was pretty much his girlfriend and traveling companion for about a decade or so. It was on that trip to Ireland that Miki acquired his King Charles spaniel, “Scooter Boy”.
I also have some photos of Da Cat model surfboards snagged from various websites including eBay...
Back to the original question, I just found some dimensions for a Da Cat that I probably got from this site a while ago.
9-3
N 16 3/4
W 22 1/4
T 15 3/4
thickness 3 3/4
Apparently the dims have changed throught out it’s production period
1966-1967
9-8
N 17
W 22 1/2
T 16
thickness 3 1/2
1967-1968
9-8
N 17
W 21
T 15
they also started making the rails a lot thinner and some of the later ones had a slot or channel (one each side) in tail section on bottom.