When Blinky came into the shop and asked if I ever thought I'd be making surfboards when I was 60,  which I posted here, I'm sure neither one of us thought about what it would be like still making surfboards as we got older and watching some of the guys we knew or knew of in the industry passing on.

This past week it was Hobie Alter. If you stop and think for a moment, Though Hobie was a big name in surfing and surfboards, I'd say he was pretty much the one that ushered in the modern surfboard as we know it.  That is the foam and fiber glass boards we have and have had now since the late 1950's

One of the 2 surfboards I've owned that I didn't make myself was a Hobie Phil Edwards Model.  But, thinking about the story of how the modern surfboard developed, how as a young guy Hobie started making surfboards and worked the different processes out to do production work. Make a nice surfboard and do it consistently. That's a really big deal, and to think he was the first guy to do that stuff.

I know what it's like to figure out how to do something you've never done before or even seen or seen done before. That was Hobie pretty much with the whole surfboard fabrication process... Amazing!

A year or so ago the Surfing Heritage Foundation did a Hobie presentation which a friend of mine and I were able to take in. I'm glad we got to see it.

RIP Hobie.

D.R.