The Rileys gave me another video this week, it’s some footage of Travis riding an Imperial and a Penetrator… or as I’ve been calling it these days the Ventura Classic Wing Nose.

So I looked at the video and realized that there is a story behind it in regards to the Penetrator. I’m kind of a sap when it comes to stuff like this but, even still, this is a cool story.

I made the Penetrator for Dan, Travis’ dad, in 1994. One of the last boards I made in California before I moved to Kauai. As I understand it Dan rode the board for awhile and then hung it on his living room wall. Yeah, even his wife said it looked good in their living room. I guess Dan decided to preserve the board and that it looked so nice he’d put on display.

When Dan first picked up the board in ‘94 his son Travis was just 3 years old. Who’d of thought that some 13 years later that Dan’s two sons would get him to take the board off the wall and let them ride it… as long as they took very good care of it of course.

So both Matt and Travis have been riding their dad’s Penetrator that is like 13 years old. And because Matt is the video guy he took some footage of Travis and they edited a little surf flick. When I watched it I got to thinking how cool it was, Dad first rode the board when his son was only 3 years old and probably never thought one day that little guy would have a great time riding his board when he was 16 some 13 years later. I think that is really cool!

A good board can last through generations. One of the reasons I said back when I first started reissues of some of the old boards I use to shape… like 25 years ago, if it works don’t fix it.

D.R.