I’m not here to pick a bone with Dave Parmenter as I respect his shaping and surfing abilities. Anybody around long enough goes through plenty of changes. A case in point might be Dave’s article “Raiders of the Lost Coast” in which he ridicules the “myopic” surfer with the black wetsuit and longboard. This was during Dave’s day glow paint jobs and flashy wetsuit period. Interestingly, he called BS on that same scene soon after in the contest moment Kenz describes. By the way, didn’t Miki Dora call BS on the contest scene in a similar fashion by dropping his trunks in a contest heat at Malibu, walking away and never looking back?
It’s easy to find yourself frustrated when you look back at your personal pro career and realize that there are kids today that have much less talent and are pulling down six figure contracts. Dave obviously feels this. I go back even further, had even less opportunity. But that’s how it was. Looking back now I realize that surfing uncrowded waves, enjoying the simplicity of surfing, the media, and the industry at that time was worth at least six figures. I wouldn’t trade the freedom I had for the corporate sponsored lifestyle of today’s pros.
Greg, Yeah there is a lot of Gordon Clark in what Dave said in his “manifesto”, but that wasn’t written for general public reading, although I’m glad it got out. He was replying to an ignorant/arrogant e-mail accidently sent to him from a bunch of media kooks. 1st off, the view on epoxy boards from the past are pretty right on. Most of them did suck. Also, you have said more than once that there are a lot of toxic epoxies out there, especially a few years ago. I think you might miss part of Gordon’s point on the toxicity issue. Although your epoxy is safe, glass shops suck at using saftey measures and guys will basically use what is cheapest. easiest to use and makes a clear board. With that said, back in the 80’s if Epoxies would of gone big, there would of been some health issues related to using epoxies. At least with S249A you know what your dealing with. And I’m not saying polyesters are safe, just not as toxic as some of the nastier epoxies out there. There are a lot of Sailboard guys from the late 80’s and early 90’s that were sensitised (?)to epoxies. Sluggo
Sluggo, Frustrating part for me is that I was selling epoxies even then and your right there was (is) some extremely nasty stuff. Clyde Beatty had problems, switched to our stuff and has never had a problem since. And that switch was back in the 80’s. So there was a system available and most of the West Coast just couldn’t see buying something from Fl. You have to face the fact that even after Kelly, the West Coast is still a bit blind in the right eye. This is to their detriment. Grubby knew about our system and instead of steering folks our way, he bad mouthed something that could have solved a lot of issues for this indusstry. As I said above, there would be no Surftech.