As we say here in the USA, I don’t know Dick.
huie was there....
no one had boards like the dickie brothers in those days.........no one.
i was there too.
herb
Not sure if the short board was invented in Hawaii or somewhere else in Polynesia. This photo is from early 1990’s at Waikiki, way before the foam or balsa surfboard was developed.
Your date is off by about 100 years.
I should have said modern shortboard.
I was there too, young , but watched the boards shorten a foot a week. I'm calling Neal Purchase invented the pointy nose at Keyos
then that would be Simon Anderson.
gotta give a nod for first “shorterboard” to Joe Quigg. everybody was riding huge sleds and he made a “women’s” board that ended up changing the direction boards were headed. or something like that.
mid 1967 At Keyo’s it went Neal Purchase(with David Treloar witness as fellow shit
kicker) to Kevin Platt and then Bob McTavish.
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this is a can of worms harry
cheers huie
well it is about surfboard design, get out your favourite can opener and tell us what you know old Mate. I don't think many people know Neal did that, H.
haaa’’ this is not about neil he was just a young fella. its about the other guys role in the pecking order
**anyway i am no expert on what went down at palmy i was far north were it all started
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cheers huie
Joe Quigg had a day job and is boss got peeved when he came to work with surfboards on the roof of his car, Joe’s solution, he made boards that would fit in the car
Jim Foley, in Santa Cruz, Is documented in the original ''Endless Summer'' riding what looks like a 7 foot (or shorter) surfboard, performing some radical for the period maneuvers. When was Endless Summer? 1964? Somewhere around that date. I made a 7' 11'' balsa in 1959, at a time when most boards were in the 9 foot to 10 foot range. Al Nelson made what is now called a ''Mini Simmons'' in 1956/57, 5 feet long, complete with half moon twin fins. Lots of folks explored short surfboard designs.
EDIT: In 1955, Dale Velzy was making 7' 11'' Butterfly Fin boards. In retrospect, quite advanced when compared to ''normal'' boards of that period.
The one time Huie is not so cryptic and is forthright is on the subject of Dick?????
I don’t think Huie knows Dick, but I do, and Dick’s not shy about taking the credit, although it was Randy Rarick who made him chop the couple of feet off the blank. Now there were many who shaped shorter boards before this, but he seems to revel in the credit. KInd of like Stretch claiming the four-fin that Nathan brought him with the grab rails, which was Cole Simler’s, along with the fin systems changing he attack angles of the fins. But there are many in this business ready to take the credit for something they did not invent, but only effectively promote. So the question really should be who effectively promoted the rise of the shortboard revolution? My answer would be it wasn’t one person alone, who can and should take credit for it.
Well Said G.
There, I fixed the thread title so we can get to the point without dancing around. I was 12 years old so I'll defer to the people who were there and of an age that they may have participated. Hope you don't mind, harris...
yup g,
you're correct.
have you ever seen the dickie brother's boards back in the days?
very modern for there time.
herb
[quote="$1"]
KInd of like Stretch claiming the four-fin that Nathan brought him with the grab rails, which was Cole Simler's
[/quote]
i used to think this is what happened too but, i've read accounts from BOTH shapers that pretty much debunk
the whole "Stretch copied Cole" paradigm.
So if it wasn't one person, then was it two? Or three, maybe? Why not five? Why not 500? Pardon me, but I don't think the shortboard and the new approach just sprouted all over the world at the same moment.
It did spread quickly, but I think it started somewhere.