Dirty little (rocker) secrets…
The new technologies will always be embraced by those that do all processes, at least to some degree, by themselves. The early adopters. I loved to draw so I got into advertising and started working on a drawing table with straight edge, inking pen and x-acto knife. The computer came along so…if I wanted to stay, not just competitive, but in that occupation itself, I had to change my ways and learn to use the new tool. Looking back, I spent many hours with an instruction book or on the phone with some tech guy just to get over that one remaining insurmountable hurdle. Never was I presented so clear a view as Bert just handed you!
The industry (After Hobie - AH) has always been a toss-up for control by <design AND/OR production>. Every little design change is incorporated into the production schedule and assimilated by the hypnotized consumer/mass. Every production change is a (hush-hush) industry no-can-tell-ya secret. Special additives, secret formulas, confidential rockers and I won’t tell if you won’t handshake between design and production to get that one-up on the competition. Oh man my brain hurts to see that there has been so little change from Simon’s ripped off original to the modern, disposable thruster.
Now at the current time (After Hobie, Subcontracted to Orient - AH-SO) the corporate producers are running (ruining?) the show. An example or two? Salomon spent a big chunk of change to try to come up with a technique to PRODUCE a strong light surfboard. Surftechs are profit producing machines - pure and simple - It seems their main design is to separate you from the money in your wallet.
Molded surfboards aren’t new. There were a couple in the 70’s (Hollow W.A.V.E. and Unique Nautique come to mind) that pushed into the forefront. BUT, when there is a time of change, like Bert (and Greg) just unleashed, the design side will start to push out so many new concepts that production will be retooling and reconfiguring and all ads in the last issue of Surfer will be outdated before it hits the stands. “Get your foamed-resin internal glue-up/nippy-nappy stringer here - NO, try my Lemon Pledge glued-cedar-veneer, over here!”
Each time a master designer/craftsman like Bert Berger comes along who is equal to the task of moving the industry along in a new and exciting direction there will be roadblocks and hurdles laid down by the fragmented industry.
Why can’t we all just get along? Tom Blake said it (best) - GOD=NATURE - and he published his designs so everybody could be inspired to equally push into the future. The same wave that breaks on my head breaks on yours and on and on… What are you waiting for? Are you going to die with your rocker measurements and curves clutched in your hand like some treasure map for no one else to see until someone in the future invents a special blasting hose to push the layers of sand away to check out your golden doubloons, oh - spare us the drama.
I can see the future (New Original, Bless you Swaylocks - NO-BS). It may not always be clear and concise, but it’s there just up ahead - an inescapable cloud of action and dreams - constantly evolving and reformed by the tinkerers and thinkers. It isn’t populated by people that hold secrets and fight to maintain the status quo…
Yeah, I’m going to make a new blank and maybe even a balsa sandwich board with my friend that I met on Swaylocks - and my son will be there absorbing our actions like Randy French’s first uncovered styrofoam board would of sucked water after the first weeks use by some unaware grom. Will you try it too? You know, get that stoke back instead of feeding in some bezier curves to that poly-u foam gobbling machine that you bow to!
The last hurdle. mp3’s - digital copies perfect in every way of their parent file. Scourge of the corporate-money music industry. I can conceptualize at this minute - as you read this - how to copy your rockers and sacred measurements and translate them to a sheet of eps foam that can be bought at my local home improvement store for benny1 on the dollar and I don’t need a $50,000 shaping machine. I used to think my thoughts were unique to me, but now I know it’s that cloud thingie. If I can dream it - others can and will. But you are going to make pirates out of us just like in the music industry.
If you would consider publishing your designs and rockers so that we could BUY them like they sell plans (suggested retail price $15) in the guitar making industry and every body makes their version of the ________ and best man wins? Actually, there are no losers this way, cause everyone sees the light.
Just my nickel and a 1/2 worth.
