Back in the day the way to make a surfboard was by hand, though there were a couple of pop out type manufactures in the sixties. As a matter of fact, I worked for one of them. It was early in the year of 1967, before I started working at Morey-Pope.

The company was Ventura Plastics and they made the Tiki and Ten Toes surfboards that were sold all over the U.S. When I worked for them they had licensing agreements with a number of big name surfers and mass produced models like the Duke Kahanamoku model, the Joey Cabel model etc. Something similar to what some of the molded board companies are doing today. They had a fairly large shop on Calens Rd. in Ventura and produced boards in mass. 20 or more sides laminated at a time. Which is probably nothing compared to what Thailand and China factories do these days, but none the less plenty of boards.

As surfing grew into the late 60’s some of the big name labels were making large numbers of boards. By 1969 Morey-Pope was pushing close to 200 units a week out of their Saticoy factory with a board some may remember… the Camel. I worked with two other guys in the shaping department doing Camels. One guy would route outlines on special close tolerance blanks. Me and the third guy would rough the boards out, rough sand them and turn the rails. Then they’d go back to the first guy who would then fine sand them and route the fin box. I would usually spend not more than 20 minutes doing my part.

MP was not the only label doing large numbers. My question is… where did all those boards go? And… why couldn’t those labels continue with that kind of production? More questions… Where are all the thousands and thousands of boards going that are being produced in China and Thailand now? And… how long will these companies be able to sustain the numbers being produced? There is a thing called market saturation.

Even though there are some nice mass produced boards, one thing is for sure, the boards that are mass produced don’t have the emotion of the hand crafted high end boards. Why? Because the high end hand crafted boards are being made by artisans. Making surfboards is an art craft. Art has emotion and that emotion is seen and felt in the hand crafted board. Most people call it soul, and that’s fine, but it’s really emotion.

D.R.

The tail of a RP2.
Chocolate and cocoa butter lamination with soft green and yellow pin line.