I had another birthday this past week.  Because of the holiday and all we had a little get together at the house this afternoon.  While the family was here my 10 year old granddaughter secretly made a birthday card for me that my wife found it on my pillow on our bed after everyone had gone home.

Of all the things she could have put in her drawing as the theme she chose surfing. 

She knows I surf, and make surfboards. She knows her dad surfs and makes surfboards, stuff that was past from me to her dad. Her dad takes her to the beach to teach her how to surf, just like I took her dad to the beach.

No small wonder that she would choose surfing as a theme.

D.R.

Now days we have performance long boards, high performance long boards.  Before surfboards started to get short there were no high performance surfboards. We just had surfboards.  Making a surfboard high performance was up to the surfer. 

The last year of the long surfboard was 1967.  and reality is in ’67 there were some boards that could’ve been considered performance or high performance boards, but we didn’t call them  high performance boards, they usually had  the words “light weight” or “feather light” along with a model name. Basically a board that was in the low 9 foot range and a little thinner, not as wide as some of the other boards you might find on the rack in a surf shop and also, of importance, was they were laminated with lighter fiberglass cloth… of course that's why the were called light weight models.

These shorter, thinner, narrower, lighter boards were the performance boards of the late 60’s. I designed one for myself while shaping at Morey-Pope in 1967.  A 9 foot 22 inch wide thinned out narrow nosed light weight board that surfed really well. Quick turns, playful off the tail, good speed in trim. Nose rides, coasters, cutbacks, all the great performance stuff.  I liked the board so much and felt you could push it to new and higher surfing performance levels that I used the design in most of the early William Dennis boards when Blinky and I first got started.

I’ve now got a reissue of this board, I call the ’67.  A traditional single fin performance long board with a slender over all foil. Nice curve in the outline back of center with a soft rolled bottom and accelerated rocker out the back for quick turns and playfulness on the tail.  Narrow nose for lighter swing weight and better wave face fit. A long and low rocker curve through the nose for good trim and nose riding.  

The ’67 takes traditional long boarding to new performance levels.

D.R.

Surfing is a relatively young sport.  The history of surfing may span some 80 years or more, the sport really didn't start to develop until around the 1950’s. And, the commercial side of the sport ,making surfboards as a business,  didn't start to develop until the late 1950’s. 

I’d say most of the early board builder/surfers though getting up in years are still apart of the surfing community if not still in business. This year a few of those early board builder/surfers have left us. First is was Harold Iggy, then Terry Martin and just a week ago Donald Takayama.  When I stop and think about these men and how they have impacted surfing and knowing they are no longer with us really gives me pause. 

As well, just over a week ago a long time local surfer here in Ventura past away.  His name, Jack Cantrell, passed a week before what would have been his 84^th birthday. Jack’s passing is significant to local Ventura surfing history. He was a first generation Ventura surfer… one in the small number of people that started surfing here locally many years ago. 

Few know what it is like to surf Ventura with just a handful of guys in the water… and not because of some freak swell that showed up unannounced that no one knows about but you and a couple guys that happen to be a the beach with you. But because there were only a few guys that surfed… period.  Jack did!

Not that many people have seen the changes the shore line has taken over the last 70 years here in Ventura and up the Rincon, Jack did!

Though now there are maybe a dozen guys that make surfboards in the Ventura area,  Jack was here, and surfing, when there was no one that made surfboards in Ventura. So he’s seen it all. Tom Hale, Tom Morey, Pacific Plastics, Morey Pope, William Dennis, Campbell Bothers, Steve Huerta, McCrystal, Wayne Rich, Roberts, Craig Angell , FCD, and the list goes on.  Imagine none of these or even one of the 5 retail surf shops in town.    

No surf racks, no surf wax, no leashes,  no wet suites and, sometimes, no one but you and your surfboard at the beach.  Jack was here and lived through all this history….  And, this too gives me pause.

RIP Jack.

D.R.