ohhhhkay, it came about like this:
There was a surf shop in Rhode Island, run by a couple of guys, one called Peter Panagiotis ( aka Pete Pan ). They sold Hobies ( aka Stewarts with a different sticker ).
Pan was into surf contests. He got himself named head of the New England division of the Eastern Surfing Association after the death of the late Dr. Colin Couture ( who probably did as much or more for East Coast surfing as any other man ya could mention. )
Funny thing, though. Rather than ( as head of the local governing body ) only acting as an official and judge at the local contests and all, Pan competed in 'em, as did many of his customers at the aforementioned surf shop. And he won most of 'em in every division he entered, with his customers and clique taking most of the others. I won’t deny that the guy can surf adequately, what I have an issue with is the propriety of being both an official and a judge and the head of the sanctioning body.
You sure didn’t see that sort of thing happening when Doc Couture was running the show.Let us say that ESA surf contests in Southern New England lost credibility after Pan like Richard Milhouse Nixon lost credibility after Watergate. With similar hard feelings left on all sides. The New England District winners typically didn’t fare all that well in the ESA East Coast Championships either, where they were up against the winners from the rest of the East Coast districts.
In any event, there were and are two surfboard divisions in said contests; Shortboard and Longboard. Being as shortboards don’t work all that hot in midsummer New England grovelling ‘surf’, Pan had a board made for himself that was a rule-beater: thick, wide, rounded, a board that would behave like a longboard but be allowed in the shortboard class. He could now win both longboard and shortboard classes easily.
Thus, the Peter Pan Slug. Wasn’t glassed heavy ( hey, Pan was a dealer, he didn’t need a durable board) but it was made to do stuff with in tiny ‘waves’.
They found that if ya made one over 9’ it could catch waves waaay outside, jack yer wave count way up… albeit at the expense of anybody and everybody else in the lineup. I know one guy who has a 10’+ version. He shows up with it, everybody else might as well go home, cos he will hog 'em all. He sees nothing wrong with this situation and I guess a strict interpretation of the unwritten rules of surf etiquette allow it, but there’s something kinda rotten about it to me.
Which makes the fin slashes and dings and heel crunches you see in most of 'em a little more explainable.
Leastwise, that’s my take on it. I run a surf shop in the next state over. There’s a lot of other views. Jim Phillips might have a good take on the scene and he most assuredly was around to see some of it.
hope that’s of use
doc…