Mike's comment got me to thinking (dangerous). It seems like the super short "revolution" is cyclical. Simmons did it in the 50's from what I understand, the late 60's early 70's got a bunch of people going sub 6', same thing in the late 70's early 80's. Curren goes "fishing" in the mid 90's and 5-5 by 19.25 is born. Here we go again with all these 5-2's and such. Cool stuff, keeps each generation moving and learning. Do the super shorties get more refined each time around? I like to think they do.
No Mike it's fine by me, I don't mind at all. I agree some one had to get it really going, not the guy who rode a belly board for a couple of weeks or the ancients riding a plank of wood. Who really got the wildfire burning, that changed it once and for all? With the thruster we have a definate answer. I had a 3 fin board in 70' but I didn't do the thruster, same with the modern shortboard, someone had to get it going and both Bob and Dick will take credit, I'm happy to be a grommet on the subject and there are plenty here that know more than me about it, once it's defined, cheers H.
When considering the shortboard revolution one also should consider the economic conditions of the early '70’s, for board lengths directly shortened as the price of raw materials increased. Consider the article written by Harold Walker about the skyrocketing costs of materials during the Arab oil embargo, and the impact it had on surfboard production. That’s when most of the dinosaurs died off the first time.
Kind of interesting how this stuff parallels the “new” mini style boards and the new backyard guys that are making a go right now. Has anyone before this brought up economics as the cause of the super shortboard revolution. Nat’s short board was 9’4’', now that does not qualify by any standards as a shortboard, and Mctavish’s vees died ephemerally, and Brewer was experimenting with other mind altering substances besides surfboards. I suggest that economics were just as important in the shortboard revolution as the contributions of any one human in Australia, Hawaii, or California.
Yeah you guys can quote me on this, but consider the source and don’t plagerise my original thought… You can challenge my thesis, but please back up your arguments with concise, cogent, and clear thought expressed academically, as well as, factually.
‘Oh the Ghetto got himself one of dem history degrees, maybe dat and he’s been making boards for that long makes him sound so uppity’. 'I heard he was a ‘sniffen on da styrene’.
I disagree. Boards had dropped to below 6’ by 1971. The economic downturn and the oil crisis didn’t hit til a couple of years later. I do not see a correlation between the ‘revolution’ and materials costs. It was about performance and progression, with maybe some controlled substances added into the mix (RB, etc)
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...Boards had dropped to below 6' by 1971. The economic downturn and the oil crisis didn't hit til a couple of years later. I do not see a correlation between the 'revolution' and materials costs. It was about performance and progression...
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SammyA, you are bang on! In 1971 I was shocked to get orders for boards that were 5'6'', 5' 8'', and 5' 10'' in length. But, I got over it, and made the boards.
Your correct in ‘71 I was riding a 5’10’', and Rolf Aurness was blowing everyone’s mind, and the disaffect with the status quo, which was highlighted by the hippies also played an important role. Wasn’t really a watershed day where everyone just changed. The impact of the surf media played as important role as anything.
Howzit Sammy I had a 6'10" William Dennis in 68' and I know they were going short before that but I was in the Marines so I went from a 9'6" to the 6'10". Aloha,Kokua
Six foot ten, in 1968? now THAT is being progressive! So, you're the guy that started the revolution, eh? You were way ahead of the curve.
The disaffect that youth culture had toward the status quo also helped to question and challenge the accepted norms, and this was applied even to surfboards. 9 to 5, Vietnam, civil rights, rock and roll, and drugs also played a role. Everything was called in and challenged. Greenough’s influence cannot be underestimated earlier, but he has always been considered eclectic, and never mainstream. My argument is still it wasn’t one person, in one place. Harold Walker had a term he used about things happening in different places at the same times, and I wish I could remember it. “Oh Lord, put me in the grave”. Well I remember him saying that a few thousand times though.
Terry Fitz shaped me a 4'9" twinfin in 69' when he was working at Shanes before he started Hot Buttered. I was 14 and small. I had gone from 8'9" balsa up to 9'3" then down through the sizes, that's as far as it got , thank goodness. George's influence went to Bob's corner and it's totally reasonable to think that there were other pockets of evolution happening, but I don't think it all happened at once, it had to come from somewhere. The substances had an effect on two of the fronts mentioned, that's for sure. It's an enjoyable thread so far and I'm wondering why it hasn't been on here before or has it? cheers H.
haaaaaa’’ absolutly wrong the real shortboard began around early 68 and was all over and rising by 1970
and it has many authors east coast aus.
the v bottom went its own merry way but gets confused with other revalations.
cheers huie
Yes I agree, only going by my own boards, 4'9" in 69, 5'6" in 70', 5'9" in 71", 6'3" in 72 ,6'6" in 73", 6'9" in 74, 7'0" in 75 and then it turns again 6'9" in 76, 6'6" in 77' down to 6'1" in 78'and down to some 5'10"s and 6'0"s. Now a lot of times I would have had more than one board at a time or in a year, but I absolutely remember those boards and years, so maybe there were a couple of size change times. I started shaping in 70' but didn't ride my own boards till 74 or 5', because I had a smorgasboard of top shapers. The 1st boards I shaped myself were in the 6'11" 7'0" range, then they came right back down again, cheers H.
The media probably had a lot of influence on who was responsible for developing the shortboard. A 1968 Surfer Mag centerfold of Nat carving across a backlit Honolua Bay wall on a Plastic Machine had a big effect on this 12 yr. old grem than any other pic I had seen up to that point. It was'nt until a few months later when I watched slack jawed as a guy climbed and dropped right past me at my local beach on an 8 foot Brewer shaped Hanapepe Surf Design mini gun, that I realized that my 9'8" Wardy was obsolete. Later that year, the 1968 World Contest was the landmark event that sealed the deal that the shortboard revolution was in full swing. My take is that back then, McTavish influenced small wave boards and Brewer, big wave boards.
I'd go with that, because they were designing for different waves. There is no comparison from the north shore to the north coast. It would be a shame for it to be as simplfied as that, though it could well be, cheers H. okay when did it join, close enough to what we have now?
Then why was it that you could not find a board over 6’ in a shop in 1971 ?
That year, I bought a Dewey Weber “Pig”. I had to wait to get a 5’10" because they had nothing that long in stock at the local dealer. Most guys I knew were on 5’4 to 5’8. They struggled. Same story as today. The surf media convinced them to go that short. These boards were virtually useless in East Coast US waves.
All due respect Sammy, you are talking about shops in the USA? Whatever were in the shops there I wouldn't know, but I do know boards were climbing back up in a big way in 71' in Brookvale, Sydney, Australia, where it all was happening, I was small and had come back up to a 5'9" 3 fins too, cheers H.
Certainly. That’s why huie and others should not speak in absolutes. From '67 to the mid 70s, things were in a constant state of change throughout the world of surfing. Different places had their own scene and designs. Not everyone was on the same page at the same time.
For some folks on here, myopia clouds their replies.
In the study of history there are different ways of viewing an event. For example, in the “great man” in history one considers the impact that one man has in history, such as; Abraham Lincoln’s emancipation proclamation in 1863, which freed no slaves, for the South had already left the union in 1861, and more importantly, Kentucky still part of the Union - kept its slaves. \
So really more egalitarian view, from the “bottom rail” explains the slaves freed themselves. If we apply a similar bottom up view here, one can at least see that the shortboard revolution, was not causally motivated by one board, one shaper or one guy at one time in history. For if that was the case, we would be either riding spoons, vee bottoms, or mini guns.
Surfboard length and design changes are much more fluid, and dynamic than the machinations of a singular enlightened one, albeit there is no shortage of those who claim credit to be the first. And guess what, its not over yet, now get to shaping, And be free…
A good read related to this thread… the Transitions article by Paul Gross
http://www.surfersjournal.com/node/712
Rogelio
I want to know what huie saw in '66 and '67, because by early '68 the ''invention'' was over and the revolution was in full swing. I was just a magazine-reading grom, given the time lag the mags ran on back then, it had to start before '68 to make it into print by that spring. Sammy, you've got the magazines - look for the first rumblings of ''shortboards'' and date it for us. Of course, the real innovation probably took place outside the view of the California-based magazines, so that date isn't the ''beginning''. That's just when it came onto the radar of the mag-reading public.
Here's what I can say with certainty regarding how fast things had spread: My first board of my own was purchased around June 1, 1968, in Daytona Beach, Florida. It was a 6'10'' and it was a used board.