nida-core honeycomb stringer stiffeners (check out Holly, Greg, and Bert’s little discussion on this before “the post”)
Polypropelene cores and Urethane (Surflight)
Afterburner rails and low rocker peanut outlines (greenough/hulls)
Nida Thermoplastic shells (BIC)
Concave channel finless bottom and soft structures (Dale, Carl, USO)
So I have to ask
what gives?
Is “Y” so far ahead of us that we can’t comprehend what he’s doing or more importantly has been doing over these years?
to me
it seems the most high performance radical surf craft you can buy today(based on what I see them doing) is a sponge and a good pair of fins. Personally I’m not a sponger but what and where they currently can do on a wave is unmatched except for maybe wind assisted kite and sail boarders.
so…
why is it the stuff “Y” has made or is selling always considered more of a joke that the foundation for the cutting edge developments in the so called “visually pleasing” surf craft we seemed to be forever locked in to. Seems like some folk around here have been taking his ideas and sliding them in behind the scenes under the guise of standard designs as some great ingenius performance development.
I can never understand why Morey isn’t given more credit for what he’s doing with composite construction and design…
Tom is a visionary. Consequently, most really can’t relate to his ideas. Most people seek evolution for the comfort it provides. “Y” works outside of that comfort zone.
why is it the stuff “Y” has made or is selling always considered more of a joke that the foundation for the cutting edge developments in the so called “visually pleasing” surf craft we seemed to be forever locked in to I can never understand why Morey isn’t given more credit for what he’s doing with composite construction and design…
Maybe he’s just too weird and doesn’t care?
I suspect the negative or indifferent reactions to Tom Morey from some circles…some really large circles at that…comes from simple fear.
In modern surfing you have literally a handful of people who had major and literally revolutionary impact on surfing equipment…Blakes fin, maybe; Simmons, with his design and material knowledge; Greenough; and Morey…people who came up with things that radically changed surfing equipment and hence changed the way surfing is done. Morey is more along the Simmons line, both Malibu guys, both educated in and heavily exposed to aeronautical science and related hydro theory. Surfing is the most uneducated sport imaginable, maybe in there with pro soccer in Europe…even American football players have the opportunity to go to college for a few years. If you are a good surfer in 2006 and go to college you are dead meat…meaningful sponsorship vanishes and goes to the “grom” who drops out of high school to earn $200k for 3 years.
One could make something of a case that surfing…standup surfing…is turning into a sport of louts and thugs. Morey is an educated person with a philosophic bent. Since that automatically makes him stand apart from the crowd, he gets shunned by them.
This from his website:
Quote:
"Essentially, I'm coming from 1935 - 1965... purer times and feelings
So in everything, we try to bring you what might feel as good as being out there
enjoying a warm summer day, clean salt water fragrance and the exhilaration of speed."
- Tom Morey -
Contrast that world view with people who spell “love” with these five letter…m.o.n.e.y.
But life is spirals and waves. Tom pulled the consulting plug in January of 1999, founded soft-shell surfboard manufacturing company Starwaves and changed his name to Y. “I’ve been More Y all my life,” he explains. “I’m finally going seriously after getting rid of More, so just plain Y does it.”
And he’s been playing a lot of drums.
“When a guy removes smoking, drinking, gambling and chasing women from his life,” says Y,
“there’s a whole lot of time to do other neat stuff.”
– Drew Kampion, October 2000
Kind of says it all
wish we all just paid a little more attention what he’s trying to tell and show us…
there’s a post about finless boards. It seems like “Y” has been looking at this extensively. there might be something to learn there.
I also like the idea of a softskin, could make the board more durable if done right. I wonder if anybody knows of ways to achieve that in a backyard-building kind of setting (meaning no industrial tools).
Tom has been beyond the cutting edge with reguards to materials and designs.He is usually decades ahead of most of his comtempories. It wouldn’t hurt to pay attention.
Tom’s problem may be he looks at boards the way a non american bike company looks at bikes.
An interesting comment, but can you please elaborate?
Although I’m not sure Morey has a problem…he seems to do what interests him, has an amazingly positive outlook, family, etc. In fact from what I recall reading the actual success of the Morey Boogie may have been one of the few things that seems to have caused him some angst. And nobody in the surf world has created one item as successful as the Boogie…
he wouldnt want to tweek a harley…he would trash it and build a japanese style bike.
Ah, yes…although now that Japanese bikes exist he would probably probably ignore them as well to work on Something Completely Different…
What did he say in an interview once? “Good ideas are like Kleenex, keep pulling them out until you get a great one!”
Sports Illustrated did a profile of him once in the years following the Boogie. I recall in the photo he had some kind of round anti-gravity machine project…very flying saucer-like. The tag line for the article was something to the effect that if the future looks like something Morey dreamed up, be sure to duck. Perhaps the runaway success of the Boogie made him rethink personal flight craft.
he wouldnt want to tweek a harley…he would trash it and build a japanese style bike.
Well, I guess that’s enough to make him worthy: He would trash an inefficient, obsolete (although “romantic”, “Cool” and Iconic) piece of junk to build something that actually performs.
sounds like an innovator to me. And a good one too.
sorry if i came off as bashing Tom.the world is a better place because of his type of person.forget the harley for a second.the point is the v.w.bug and ford mustang came back even better than the first production.i am sure those styles are not the most efficient futuristic design some new guy could come up with.
I think maybe the niche he’s created . . . everything thinks its just for boogie boards and softtops which have a ‘bigger’s’ reputation.
’
They had a surfermag / twsurf of the softtop like INT and his shortboards of pro surfers going off on his stuff.
Then the surfermagites said yeah, until one of them said, “Dude its Brad Gerlach on them. Of course he’s going to surf and pop airs n stuff. It may work for Brad . . .” … . then it was off to the next big thing . . .
As I surf more I’m starting to realize its more the surfer, not the board he/she buys . . . that said, right boards for right variable (conditions, skill, expectations etc) do make a difference.
If you check out the history of surfing, you’ll find that Tom Morey was one of the better surfers of his day. He rode for many of the best shapers in the early days of surfing.
During the 70’s, he did so many weird experiments on boards to get them to go faster and glide better. Oneula used to idolize the guy, and I remember my brother doing all these really weird things to his boards that he read in surfer mag.
The morey boogie is an incredible wave riding machine. No fin, extremely fast and manuverable. I bet the swizzles are good boards too.
I wanted to make a board with rails similar to a boogie, I may try it one day. Maybe a fish style with really straight rails in the tail, I think that might actually work.
If you check out the history of surfing, you’ll find that Tom Morey was one of the better surfers of his day. He rode for many of the best shapers in the early days of surfing.
During the 70’s, he did so many weird experiments on boards to get them to go faster and glide better. Oneula used to idolize the guy, and I remember my brother doing all these really weird things to his boards that he read in surfer mag.
The morey boogie is an incredible wave riding machine. No fin, extremely fast and manuverable. I bet the swizzles are good boards too.
I wanted to make a board with rails similar to a boogie, I may try it one day. Maybe a fish style with really straight rails in the tail, I think that might actually work.
I recall that I actually tried one of those Surfer mag experiments: running a narrow, hollowed bead of silicone caulk down the bottom stringer on the back half of the board, on the theory that it could significantly reduce the wetted area at speed. I didn’t notice a real difference, but it could have been lack of wave speed (EC) or that my board didn’t have a surplus of wetted area to begin with, but it sure seemed like an interesting idea. Do you know if that was one of Morey’s?