36 more days left in the year! So what does that mean? The year is 90 % over…. wish I could say I’ve completed 90% of the stuff I wanted to accomplish.

This year had a bumpy start. We… me and my two partners.. signed the lease on a small shop last November to start a high end laminating shop. We didn’t start any work in the place until the end of January. But as the weeks and months moved on we settled into the place and work began to grow until we are now about at capacity. That’s a good thing.

Now that the shop is running good I can get back to more shaping. Since I’ve been working hard in the laminating shop it’s been hard to keep a good schedule in my shaping bay, but things are beginning to change. The new year is coming and I’ve got a number of new boards I’ll be bringing out.

The Quad Long Board is tested enough now, so I’ll be making that available as a new model and I hope to be making a new short board available too. Actually this is what should be called an alternative short board. A stubby built around one of my Greenough outlines with a contemporary bottom shape and multiple fins. The board has been in the water now for a couple months, ridden as a tri and then quad. I made the board convertible so we could test it with the different fin set ups and determine which way gave better performance.

Well, I’m happy to say the board is going off! Similar to a fish in size and foam volume but will draw a good line with excellent maneuverability and down the line speed. About the only thing I need to do now with the board is come up with a name for it and start making them. I’m stoked!

D.R.

The short board alternative

I’m no saint in the water and no doubt bother some because I do go after plenty waves but, sometimes things happen I just don’t understand…I wrote this after surfing one day in the late summer or early fall of 2006.

What is it about some guys? Is it so necessary to be competitive and aggressive all the time?

Today there was a nice fairly consistent SW swell with sets head high + a little. About 2:00 p.m. I went down for a surf at the point and after about 30 minutes in the water the crowed thinned out and there was enough surf to keep the people in the water in a good rotation.

I was paddling back out to the lineup when a set wave bowled up in front of me. I was in perfect position to turn around and drop in but I let it go because there was a kid just above me that started to stroke into the wave. Well he didn’t get over the edge, a good one got by. Oh well, happens all the time.

I get out to the lineup just when another set starts through. The first wave me and another guy are in position and the other guy looks at me and says go ahead. I take a few strokes and who hustles across in front of me to get position and drop in from behind is the kid that had just missed that other wave.

‘What? Do you not take notice who’s in the water’? I may be old but paddle strong. Kooks aren’t strong paddlers. I may have been on a tanker but I don’t wear a leash. Guys that don’t ware leashes in head high plus surf usually know what’s up and can surf. Pay attention…..Think.
So the kid and I both drop in shoulder to shoulder. Just as I’m about to set my edge I turn to the guy and say, “to bad you missed the last one.” I turn off the bottom giving him enough room, he turns up behind and above me so I slow down and straighten out a bit so he can go behind me and I can get him in front. Well when he turned off the top behind me, he fell, the nose of his board dropped inches from my legs. No harm no foul…I continued on... a nice ride.

I paddle back out to the lineup and after about a 5 minute lull get the second wave of a new set, one of the bigger waves of the day. Because of the chop I get hung up and ended up making a late drop that puts me a little behind. Fight through a couple sections, slide under some white water and just get back in the green when that same kid drops in on me. Don’t know if he heard me but I said “what.. again?” He squirted out in front, turned back, while I watched, squirted out again and then finally pulled out.

Do you think if a guy has gone that far without falling that he most likely is not going to fall at all and would like to have the wave to himself? Do you think that if you wait your turn there just might be a few slides for you?

Be nice, be courteous in the water. Save your aggression and competitive attitude for contests. If you have to be competitive then be competitive with your friends. Not strangers in the water.

I still remember the surf that day and the episode... good fun surf, funny how some things just get stuck in your head.

D.R.

My story post 23

The beginning days of William Dennis for me were tough. It was the fall of ’67. I went from making pretty good money at MP to making very little overnight. I had also left the room I had been renting so really didn’t have a place to live.

For a time I stayed at Blinkie's place in the Marina area, but eventually left that scene for my van. Yeah! Like a homeless guy I lived in my VW bus for a short time. I don’t remember who the other guys were now, but three of us with our vans would round up at night at the point in Ventura and sleep. There was nothing there but dirt, and no people around, was not patrolled, so it worked.

Then I hooked up with two guys and we found ourselves a small place in mid town. Nice, halfway between the beach and Calens Rd. where the shop was. Though things looked promising with the new surfboard venture, because we had to redo some of the improvements we made to the industrial bay we got, I pretty much ran out of money. Had to sell my van to make ends meet. Started walking to the shop… maybe a couple miles or so… then didn’t have my share of the rent money for the place I had with the guys so ended up back living with my parents. It was a dark time that didn’t turn around until spring ’68.

Morey worked a deal early in ’68 with Bob Mctavish to start making the Mctavish tracker. I went looking for a shaping job and Morey put me back to work shaping. It was me and Richard Deese. As production ramped up into the season, between the two of us we shaped close to 100 boards a week. We used full templates for outlining with a router, hogged the blanks as fast as we could with our planers, used a grinder to sand them out before dialing in the rails and final screening.

It’s all a blur of foam dust now, but an interesting time no less. I found a place to rent right around the corner from the Front St. shop. Had a bicycle for transportation, and was just a short walk to the point for surf. Plus, my friend Peter worked in the MP sales room and had a car so we’d go off and surf wherever after work. It was work and surf, work and surf… with the weekends off to surf.

D.R.

The Quad Journal

I’ve been riding my 8’0 that I refitted with a quad fin set up for the past couple weeks now. Surfed it again this afternoon in some shoulder high waves at the point. I’ve gotten enough time on it to compare the way the 8’0 works opposed to my 9’1 quad.

The tails of both boards are very similar in shape and size. The one thing that is different is the fin system. The 9’1 is fitted with the O’fish’l fin system… my standard or go to system with 4 9/16” side fins and 3” back fins. The 8’0, which was built before I started using the O’fish’l system and is fitted with FCS and has their S4 quad set in it… 4.48” side fins and 3.88” back fins. The FCS fins are made with that newer material, are stiff and the side fins have the concave inside shaped to them. The O’fish’l fins are made of nylon and the side fins are single foiled or asymmetrical.

Initially, and before I actually surfed the 9’1, I was thinking the nylon fins would have to much soft flex to them. However after riding the board I was amazed at how fluid the turns were and how much drive I was getting from the fin set up. Honestly I had never experienced anything like it. I was so excited about how the 9’1 was working I thought I’d make a new 8’0 with the same fin set up. But, I’ve been so busy and my old 8’0 could be retro fitted easy enough I did the refit instead.

Now, the results I’m getting from the 8’0 refit are good enough. A week ago I surfed that board in some really good surf one day until I literally couldn’t stand up anymore, I got pretty worn out. That board was just going off… flying on some excellent down the line racy waves. However the board overall does not have the same feel as the 9’1. The turns and turn backs are good but not as fluid and driving as the 9’1. As well the 9’1 is pretty stable in white water and chop where the 8’0 is squirrelly with little positive movement in white water and tentative in chop. At this point I’ve got to say it’s the fins. My O’fish’l setup is working beyond what I expected, the FCS set is not performing near as well.

I’ve got to make myself a new 8’0 with my O’fish’l set up… more to come.

D.R.