While searching for pics of old 1960’s era wood fins today I came across an ad from Morey-Pope with Bob Cooper promoting his then new model the Blue Machine. There was a quote from the ad that caught my attention.

Cooper was really into surfing and surfboard design. It may be hard to see now days that some guy in 1967 at 29 years old had that much going on because after all the boards of that era were big. You know, what we call long boards now. Vintage, old logs, traditional long boards and the guys that rode them were?? Well didn’t know much ‘cause look at what surfboards are like now’.  

Here’s the quote…. “I’ve been totally encompassed by this sport or art or whatever and I see that the limits are not even in sight. I see that the wave is just out there happening. It’s for you for whatever you want to make of it”.  Considering when that was said I’d say it’s pretty profound. Cooper is pictured in the ad with his arm around a Blue Machine that was close to 24” wide and 9 ft. plus in length. So what was he thinking?

Back then I know what I was thinking and no doubt Cooper was thinking pretty much the same thing. Cooper went on a three month promotional trip in the fall of 1967 and I left Morey-Pope to start William Dennis surfboards with Bill “ Blinky” Hubina.

The first board I shaped at William Dennis was 8’6”.  Short for those days. By the fall of 1968… one year later I was riding a  7’6”  BTW, when Copper came back from his trip he made some boards at William Dennis and they were much shorter and different from his Blue Machine.

By the fall 0f 1969 The surfboards I shaped for Wilderness Surfboards were in the low 6 foot range. Cooper had moved to Australia by then and was most likely making boards in the 6 foot range too. That’s only 2 years after the above quote. Did he have a crystal ball and see the future? Even though those boards were not like the advanced short boards of today no one could have guessed we’d see what we saw, and rode for that matter.

When that ad went to print Cooper had been surfing for 17 years. So he got started surfing in 1950 at the age of 12. By 1967 he’d already seen some significant changes in surfboard equipment and the design changes that came along. Some of the boards that were ridden back then where long narrow hollow boxes of plywood. The balsa boards were a big improvement. Then came foam and fiber glass. 

And the shapes of the boards from the 1950’s were different from the board Cooper had under his arm in that ad. I can vouch for the Blue Machine of the day…. It was a good performance piece of equipment.  Yet he still said the limits of surfing aren’t even in sight. I’d say surfing is still evolving.

Do you think we see limits yet?   

D.R.