[img_assist|nid=1048469|title=Dora|desc=|link=none|align=left|width=100|height=40]
Can anyone tell me anything about the board Miki is ridding in this shot. Who shaped it, type of fin etc… It’s the famous shot from Leroy Grannis where he is kicking his board at the guy.
It’s an intersting shape, wide up front but then with a long pulled in tail. WHO SHAPED IT?
Wilken would be my guess. But, as others said he was good at “massaging” (his term) things out of people. So, he could have gotten a freebie off nearly anyone.
I found that same sequence, in color.
In the last pic it looks like there’s a logo on the deck, but I can’t make it out. Best scan I could come up with given the original as printed in a book (“Dora Lives”).
More evidence that it may well be a Wilken. Ad from early 1969 where Dora is listed as part of the Wilken team.
a robbie dick shaped board perhaps?
It looks like a Yater logo (maybe)(sort of)
Miki did ride Yaters
Miki rode a lot of Yaters. Even when he was on the Greg Noll team he would very frequently ride Yaters. it looks about 7’6"-8’ long pint tail, a lot of belly.
It’s a good idea to post photos that are large enough to see. Not sure what he’s riding.
The guy in the white trunks showed up in a Woody with 5 of his best friends, boards on top, --all longboarders.
Thanks… I was trying to find a larger photo! (Who shaped it?)
Justice was swift in those days..... Now you'd get threatened with arrest or lawsuit.
Board is a transition-era pintail. Students of that particular secret spot might know who shaped it.
delete double post
One thing for sure. Whoever shaped it did it for free.
OK, Bill, we're 17 days into 2010 and you've firmly established yourself as frontrunner for ''funniest comment of the year''.
Might be a Chris Green or maybe a Wilken. Dora was always working a scam and was in talks with Wilken to do a new Dora model in 1968-69.
But for sure he probably scammed someone out of it.
When did Mickey become Miki?
Hi:
The board Miki was riding was a WIlken pintail that was shaped in the old Wilken factory in Santa Monica on Euclid Street. Miki was in the shaping room as Robbie Dick (my team rider and assistant shaper in training at the time) and I listened to his comments and we shaped the board for him. Robbie was more a regular a Malbiu than I and had a bettor rapport with Miki. I had known Miki from years of surfing at State Beach at the foot of Santa Monica Canyon (actually Pacific Palisades), his real home break. The board was some what based on the Marty Sugarman “Meth Model” with specific modifications. The design was a fairly wide baby gun shape with a drawn out pin-tail with down edges at the back, softening to a rounded 50/50 rails in the middle and up-turned rails with a rounded bottom toward the nose. I don’t remember if the fin was a WaveSet box with an injected molded plastic fin, but it looks like it from the photos. As I remember it, Miki did his own color work on the bottom - can’t you tell. I think he had us laminate a tab of acid under the fiberglass of the deck. Details are a little foggy after all these years.
It wasn’t long after this photo was taken that he tried to extort money from me.
How much did he want to keep your secret?
That's the real deal there. Thanks for joining, Rich.
Rich-----------Thanks for the info. Always wondered about that picture and that board. Figured it was one of yours. Heard Robbie Dick is up at the Gorge? Lowel
Check out the book about surfboards by Guy Motil. There’s lots of examples of those early pin tail “gun” shapes.
On the spearing with board… that’s how it was here in Hawaii when I started surfing in the mid-late 60’s all the way up to the early 70’s. You drop in on someone and you can expect to get a board coming at you. If you really piss someone off they’d take your board and push it in with a set. Then you can swim in and think about paddling back out or not.
In some ways I think that’s what is lacking now. There are too many beginners where they shouldn’t be. If they were forced to learn the way we did, there wouldn’t be many beginners out at the peak trying to catch the wave of the day.
Might sound harsh, but a good friend almost died last year when a beginner’s board came down on his neck. Luckily everyone responded immediately and he got to the hospital ASAP. A couple months and $1000 later, he is fine and back out surfing.
