The bottom turn…. Continued.

If you think about the way we surfed, and for that matter what we surf, changed pretty radically in just those few years from 1967 to ‘70 - ‘71. As I mentioned in my post of July 6, for me it started with the bottom turn.

Looking for a way to ride a wave without moving around on your board was what drove board design. Interesting that all the changes took place on a very grass roots level. There were no big pro surf events, no big sponsors that put good surfers on the payroll so all they had to do was surf. There were a couple surf magazines and some guys making surf films so we all could see a little of what was going on but, the advances in surfing around California was put on by all the local core guys up and down the coast that did what they needed to do to get by and still have time to surf as much as possible.

I think most people didn’t understand the surfer. We weren’t interested in making money or getting ahead. We just wanted to go surf. Got to have a roof over your head and you need transportation, so find some work that will get you that and a surfboard, of course, and that’s it… go surf.

Why? We wanted to work on that bottom turn. You know the one that you put all your weight into, with your board on extreme bank out on the flats. You’ve got full G force dynamic with weight, gravity, rail, fin and water that when released launches you down the line and back up the wave face to set up your next move. It could be a ride out on the shoulder for a turn back or a long calculated slide down the line for distance. One way or another you’d be looking to set up another bottom turn. When your ride was over… paddle back to the line up with full adrenaline and mind impressions flashing through your head of that last wave. Ready to do it all over again, only better.

All the uncharted places on the wave face that starts with a bottom turn…

D.R.

Dan Riley at a Ventura County point. The full force bottom turn. Circa 1972.

The man and his Machine.

I received a phone call Thursday from someone that said they’d like me to see a surfboard they had and maybe consider doing some repairs on it. The board has been in this person’s possession for some 35 years though the board was made 41 years ago in 1967.

So I said “ sure “ to the person on the phone “ bring your board by the shop and I’ll have a look.” Ten minuets later John appears at the shop door. We greet each other then he runs back to his vehicle and brings back the nicest looking Blue Machine I’d seen in a long time. Aside from some of the Slip Check being a little worn on the tip of the nose the deck looked perfect. The bottom had some dings and the rails at the tail where worn through from being dragged in the sand. The fin had been replaced with a fresh polypropylene fin including wonder bolt. But hey, when you surf a board it will get some battle scars, all things considered…. it was a fine looking board. I honestly didn’t remember the Blue Machines being so nicely foiled. It felt so nice under my arm I had to take it into my shaping bay and take some measurements.

So how’s this for a 41 year old….? At 9’4” and 23” wide, all of 2 ¾ “ thick with a 16 ¾” nose and 15” tail. Rolled up rails in the tail that went to a nice 50/50 egg shape then on to the wing tip nose. The only difference between it and the Machines I make now was the roll under the nose which I make flat now and the nose rocker, which was some what lower than I do now but, the tail rocker was exactly what I do now.

The history, the times long gone, but the memories are still here. I was so fortunate to have been there.

D.R.

John and his Machine.

My story post 32. It started with a bottom turn.

What I remember about getting good surf in the summer of ’67 is the length of my board. Even though I surfed a 9’0, which was short by most standards it began to feel to long.

What was nice about surfing that day with ‘Pee Wee’ Shaw... with every wave I looked forward to working on bottom turns. Back then we usually executed a pivot type turn where you’d step back on you board weight your back foot and guide your board around with you front foot. The popular left go right turn was done that way.

After executing your turn you would immediately take a couple steps to put yourself in trim. If you didn’t move forward you’d stall off the wave, so a quick reposition after your turn was mandatory. Reach, shuffle or step back, turn and step forward was a pretty automatic move after standing up.

Riding mostly point waves I started finding that after the initial turn and glide down the line and dropping back down the wave face and pointing your board at a slight angle to the wave, you could execute another bottom turn from the middle of your board. By laying the board over on its rail and at the same time weighting into the move with a full arched back stand rather than stepping back . The move generated speed so worked great on a lined up wall.

So on days with really good surf like that one day in ’67 I would work on that bottom turn time and again wave after wave until what I began to think was that the move would be easier if I didn’t have as much surfboard under my feet. If I didn’t need to step back to execute a turn why not have a board that was shorter so there was no need to step back?

Though later the next year guys were taking their long boards and cutting off the noses to make them shorter, the design process was actually the other way around… at least for me. It wasn’t that the boards were to long in front, they were to long aft. I didn’t want to step back to turn, I wanted to stand up and turn right where I planted my feet on take off. As well, you might notice that the early shorter boards, from California anyway, had pretty wide and fairly thick tails. A design element that changed of course but, we had to start somewhere.

D.R.

This shot of Dickie Moon from an old Surfer Magazine I nicked off of Swaylocks is a fairly close example of the stand in the middle of your board turn.

You can’t predict the weather, and when it gets really nice what are you to do?

Usually June in Ventura is gloomy. Usually all along the California coast the weather in June is gloomy. Gray overcast days most of the month that may or may not break into sunshine. As well, we may not see any surf, or if we do it’s gotten crossed up by channel wind and therefore not good for surfing.

So what happened this past week? It was sunny every day all day long. And, there was no channel wind. Which means the surface conditions were great for surfing. And, we’ve had a string of southern hemisphere swells reach Ventura. Though small, it was clean and glassy all day all week. Until yesterday afternoon when some wind picked up then died down again around 7 p.m.

For Ventura some years you can count the number of clean surf days with all day glassy conditions or light variable winds on one hand. We just had a nice 5 day stretch. I surfed so much I was afraid of hurting my shoulders so after surfing my new 7’0 twin fin hull 4 go outs I switched to the 8’0 quad and then my 9’1 PSQ. I haven’t surfed PSQ for some time and was surprise at the time it took to find my feet… at least a dozen waves I’d say. But that was ok because I surfed for about two and half hours, so I got it down.

What fun… I remember telling my son when we where surfing one nice sunny summer day, in the middle of the day, which meant we weren’t at work making surfboards, ‘hey, if the surf ain’t blown out then work is!’

So, when the weather gets good and there is some surf with it… what do you do? Go to the beach!

D.R.

Days with good conditions all day and surf need to be surfed. At least where I live.

My story post 31. Significant surfing days.

It was a late summer day in September 1967. Warm, sunny, with light variable winds and some how I ended up at the beach when the tide was about to make its turn from a low of around 1.5 feet.

The sand was of course all filled in from the summer months so there were no cobles showing along the point. With no leashes back then, and never a thought of one, with the lower tide and only sand along the beach made a lost board a casual swim to the beach knowing your board would wash up on sand instead of a frantic one with worries of your board being washed up over rocks.

I went down to the point alone in my 61 VW bus, the ultimate surf car. When I arrived it just so happened that one other local guy, Steve Shaw, was there too. Steve “pee wee” Shaw was a good surfer, one of the crew, with some notoriety from a picture that made Surfer Magazine of him on a clean Stanley’s wall. One of the very few published pictures of surf from that now long extinct surf spot.

So what greeted our visit to the point that afternoon? To our stoked amazement we saw perfect 6 to 8 foot faced waves stacked up like corduroy reeling down the point with not another soul around. School had already started so that explained a little but still… was there a tidal wave alert or something? How cared? We where on it in short order.

Having surfed all these years days like this when everything has lined up so perfectly get etched in your memory, it doesn’t matter how long ago, they are available for recall at the mere thought. This was one of those days.

Just me and Steve paddling out and over wave after perfect wave casually working our way around the line up for the best take off spot and dropping into the biggest and best waves of every set. Laying out bottom turns with everything we had, racing down the line under feathering wave faces, hanging through sections planted on the nose, cutting back and doing it all again on the same wave, then paddling back out to the line up. We where like yoyos on a string from Figueroa St. to well below Palm St. until we had our fill.

I still remember my last wave. Coming down the line and executing a big roller coaster on the inside wall off and riding to the beach in the white water left from the long ride that started way up the point.

As I walked back up the beach I was greeted by one of the local guys that had just showed up and witnessed my last ride. He said “I didn’t think you would make that last move”. It was only one of many being pulled off by Steve and I for at least the last couple hours. And, I don't think either one of us ever swam for a lost board.

D.R.

Days to remember

If you are interested in surfboard design and would like to be around people that are then the place to be yesterday was at the Surfing Heritage Foundation. If you weren’t there then, to use a line from Endless Summer…. ‘you really missed it’.

Yesterday, Saturday June 7^th was the Surfboard design workshop hosted by Bill Thrailkill and the Surfing Heritage Foundation. With guest, shaper Jim Phillips, and attendance by 50 or more surfing enthusiasts. I was one of the enthusiasts and had a really great time.

To sit and listen to dialog and discussions about surfboard dynamics and be around a bunch of guys that are stoked to learn and understand design aspects is inspirational.

As well, it was great to meet some of the guys from the Swaylocks forum that I have interacted with online. And to be in a room with hundreds of surfboards from redwood planks to the modern short board all beautifully displayed and identified, that makes the atmosphere so perfect and is worth the price of admission.

This was the second work shop, the first one was February 07 and was really great. This year with more in attendance the dialog was fantastic and the stuff Jim Phillips shared was as good as gold. I’m sure everyone went away full to the saturation point… I know I did.

Included in the event was a raffle. With the price of admission you received a raffle ticket and could purchase as many as you wanted. There was a bunch of stuff in the raffle, several blanks, even machined shaped, fins, and building supplies. It was fun watching as the guys would receive their winnings.

What a great time…

D.R.

At the event last year I won a blank which I shaped into a Stubbie Quad and gave to the event this year to be included in the raffle. With lamination donated by Patagonia and fins donated by O'Fishl
.

Me, the Stubbie Quad and raffle winner Tyler.

Myth, magic and Fair Day.

It wasn’t long after I got connected with a few of the local guys in the Ventura surf seen that I began getting briefed on some of the areas surfing folklore.

In the sixties there were no surf forecasts, web cams or for that matter, surf reports on the local radio stations. Yeah, the surf report when it started guys used to think it sucked when someone would do a beach run in the early morning light to check the local surf conditions then go to a phone somewhere… no cell phones then either, call the radio stations give the report of what they saw which would be recorded and played back all day. Those surf hungry in landers could listen for the report and if the report was favorable make their one or two hour treks for surf.

Well, before there was any kind of surf report there was one day you could count on for surf. It was the annual day of the first winter swell, it was actually marked on the local Ventura calendar too. Every year no matter what, be ready because sure as you can surf you’re going to get some on this day.

When I was first told this I thought… ‘wow really?’… but the closer the day got the more I anticipated, then even started getting anxious because it could get really big so ‘be prepared’.

So how can you predict without fail the day the first winter swell would arrive? Well, because…. it’s Fair Day. And without fail the first winter swell would always arrive on Fair Day. The first day, opening day, of the Ventura County Fair. And guess what? in 1967 my first year in Ventura, just like the story was told I woke up that day, that Fair Day in October, went down to the beach and there it was. The first winter swell of the season. All the local crew knew, and now I did too. Fair Day!

The Ventura County Fair is not held in October any more and hasn’t been for a long time. It’s held for 10 long days in August. And Fair day died with the new Fair schedule. For those that don’t know… the Fair grounds are right on the Point in Ventura. When the Fair is on it gets close to impossible to get to the beach to surf after about 10 or 11 a.m. And there’s one thing you can count on. Sometime during those 10 Fairs days we will see some south swell action reach Ventura. But, it’s almost impossible to get to after the Fair is under way.

D.R.

Fair Grounds picture.. David Pu'u
used by permission

Notes on the maiden voyage of the twin fin hull.

The surf was not really what I was planning on for the first surf on this board. But, the crowd was light with clean conditions and some shoulder high waves… the opportunity seemed good enough. So yesterday I decided to give it a go.

The fins on the board have no cant or toe so right off you don’t feel the usual fin drag. And because of the shape and placement of the fins the board has little drive off the fins… that was planned.

Once I found my feet and had a wave with a long enough wall to ride down to engage the rail then I found the board to work as I had hoped. Fluid drive down the line and velvet movement from rail to rail with no loss of speed. I found a few waves to get a half way decent turn back on which went well but never had enough wave face or power for a good strong redirect… it redirected fine but would like more water for the moves.

All in all I’m pleased. The board paddles great, catches waves well and has a really good feel in the water and in the surf.

What is the difference between a regular single fin hull and the twin fin? The normal hull is a rail machine and utilizes the fin for punch and drive. One of the best things in riding one is the amount of weight you can push into a bottom turn, driving way out on the bottom of a wave and laying as much as you’ve got into a turn. The dynamic of rail, fin a full weight is power. As the board comes out of the turn and you un-weight you are sling shot down the line. The fin dynamic is changed with the twin fin. The flex and drive off the fin is not there. Well… there is drive off the fins but it comes when the outside fin releases, so the power in the turn seems to have a very fluid feel. Instead of a sling shot you receive an engaged and steady thrust.

On initial go out I’ll say this board has a smooth feel and almost effortless engagement. I also think it will work best in waves with 5 to 7 foot faces… We shall see.

D.R.

Surfing is really pretty incredible and as it’s said… ‘only a surfer knows the feeling’.

As long as I’ve been surfing I still think it’s absolutely incredible! Standing at waters edge and watching waves rolling across and down a shore line and thinking it would be possible to swim out to the breaking waves and stroke into them and hence slide down and across the wave face? How nuts is that? Or, design a plank out of something and work your way out to the breaking waves lying on that plank. Then paddle into the wave, have the wave pick you up so you start sliding down its face?

It’s all amazing, and on top of it all we’ve designed boards so you can actually stand on them while sliding down the face of a wave, maneuver around, up and down, over, under and even inside a breaking wave. The accomplished surfers make it look easy but, it’s not. It takes a ton of effort even to just catch a wave let alone stand up on a surfboard. However, once you’ve put in the effort and are able to feel the sensation of riding a wave you can get completely hooked. It’s really challenging and very rewarding, physically demanding and very satisfying, on top of being great fun and one of the best forms of recreation.

Today I went for an afternoon surf at the point. There were a number of people in the water learning to surf…. Some maybe out for their first time. Made for a slalom course for awhile, until a couple set waves cleaned them all out. But I’ll tell you what, they all seemed to be trying and they all had smiles on their faces, they were having fun. So was I!

D.R.

Fun = Travis Riley on a small wave dancing, on a surfboard or on water?

What if your never tried something different?

Having a one board quiver was pretty normal when surfing was younger. For one thing most of the labels made only a few, if that, models and, if you didn’t buy a board off the rack the board you bought was custom. It would last you a year or two you’d sell it and go buy another.

When surfing was younger there were long boards and then there were long boards. Only at the time we called them surfboards. Or you could look at it this way… you could have a long board say 10 foot and you could have a short board…. say 9’3. Aside from the length the two boards would be similar. 50/50 rails maybe even the same glassed on fin. But really most everyone that surfed had one surfboard, not many had more than one.

Theoretically if you had a board in the sixties, let’s say before boards went shorter, you could still have that same board and still be riding it. Of course to avoid embarrassment you would have had to surf somewhere all buy yourself between 1968 and about y2k but, lets pretend…. There’s a guy out there that’s still riding the board he got in 1965… and you’re the guy.

Hopefully you’ve got the board wired by now. What do you see when you paddle into a waist high wave? What do you think of doing when you paddle into a head high wave? How do you maneuver your way along a wave with a 10 foot or better face? There are guys, and gals all around you with different equipment but you are riding the same board in all conditions. You’ve watched surfboards change and surfing abilities progress. How much do you think your surfing would have progressed if you rode the same surfboard year after year?

There is nothing wrong with having a one board quiver. For some it may be all they can afford. But it is possible to change and try something different after a time. Why? It surly can help progress your surfing… dare to be different, or at least try something different.

D.R.

Twin fin hull prototype

My story and the classics.

I’m listed in the Surfboard collectors guide book as one of the shapers from Morey-Pope that shaped both the Penetrator and Blue Machine so the word is out and has been for some years.

So, from time to time I get asked if I still make or will make the MP boards like I shaped back in the sixties… Fact… Those 2 boards were only made between 1966 and 1967 though I’ve been making them off and on for 26 years now. Are they the same as they were in the sixties? Yes and no. They are the same outline, foil and rail line but nicely refined.

It all started when long boards began their reemergence. Almost immediately I was asked by guys here in Ventura if I could or would make them one of the old MP style boards. And why not? they were great boards and I know how. So I did and have been sought out to make them for guys from all over. Staying conscious of the collectors market I’ve never perused any big marketing ideas and made them mostly by request.

I would like to continue making these reissues or tribute boards pretty much the way I have been, quietly and without fanfare for individuals that are interested but over the last couple years when asked if I’d make one sometimes I've declined. As well, last year I took the Machine listing off my surfboards page on my web site. I’d like to explain why but won’t….

There really is no reason to advertise my reissues, they are very special boards with great history and those that are interested can and will continue to request them. And here is a special thanks to those that have.

D.R.

The first guy to request a Penetrator reissue… Jim Harasta at Malibu in the ‘80’s
Photo by Tom Behm

John Peck riding a Penetrator I made for him in ‘06

Photo by David Puu

Addendum May 13, 2009

I am now once again making signature John Peck Penetrators. With one or two stock Penetrators at Wave Front Surf Shop in Ventura and orders on request.

What I like about doing something different is that you’ve got to think about what you’re doing. I’ve got two new boards that I’ll be completing this week…. Actually they’re not new but new twists to my retro hulls.

I’m calling them the sisters. One has parabolic or perimeter stringers. Shaping boards with perimeter stringers is different. There is no center line to follow so you have to find center at every measurement point. I use a special centering ruler that I made some years ago so it’s fairly easy to measure and outline the perimeter stringered blank, just time consuming.

The thing I also like about shaping perimeter stringers is doing the rails. Since the stringers run along the rail line the stringer intersects the rail profile. So when fine tuning rails and fitting a profile template on the rail you’ve got to make adjustments with a block plane…. very exacting. Put the template on the rail, if it doesn’t fit take a couple passes with the block plane check the fit, back and forth until it’s just right.

The net result of these perimeter stringer boards is I’ve got something quite different. They have a very unique look and if the new perimeter stringer hull works anything like the PSQ… perimeter stringer long board I’m doing now it’s going to be great.

D.R.

I had a visit with my mother today, she came out for the afternoon. So we had the whole family at the house. My daughters two girls are now teenagers and my mom was looking at them then turns to me and says… “ I never had to worry about you or where you were when you were a teenager”. I had never given this much thought but she went on to say… “ yeah, Dennis you were always out back in your surfboard shack. I always knew where you were… out back working on your surfboards”.

To think back now, I’d come home from school and go work on surfboards. On the weekends if I didn’t have a ride to the beach I’d be in my shack doing something on a surfboard. It really wasn’t a job for me it was just what I did. Who knows how much time I spent working on a ding repair? It didn’t matter what kind of repair I’d get to do either. If I’d never done anything like it before, like cutting the corner of a nose off and fitting a new piece of foam and reshaping and glassing it. I’d just figure it out and work at it until it was done. Then ask for couple bucks when the board was done…. remember every thing was a lot cheaper back then.

Learning by doing, and with no ones help… Like the first time me and a couple friends did some resin work… we didn’t know that you needed acetone to clean up with. We used some other solvent that of course didn’t work. Then went to wash up with soap and water in his mothers kitchen sink. We made one serious mess of that sink…. His mother was pissed!

My first planer? I bought one that the motor sat below the table.. you know that the planers we use to shape a surfboard are usually used by carpenters on doors. So they are usually used with a fence on them, we take the fences off to shape surfboards. My first planer was made with a permanent fence and the motor housing was part of the fence so the planer wouldn’t lay flat on the blank surface. I learned right away I needed a different planer. Had no one to tell me which kind to get but spent time looking at tool catalogs to find what would work and for the amount of money I could pay.

My little surfboard shack. I spent hours and hours messing with surfboards in it. Figuring out how to laminate a board better, or sanding one and realizing that if I’d do a better job with the resin work sanding it wouldn’t be so hard. How to get a gloss coat just right....

I loved every minute…. I really can’t say I’ve changed… My shack is a little bigger but I still love messing with surfboards.

D.R.

My story post 30

Surfing before the crowds… actually there were crowds at a number of spots in the late sixties and into the seventies. Like Malibu, of course, Rincon, Ventura inside point or the cove, I remember Doheny being pretty crowded, Newport pier and other places as well.

As surfboards began getting shorter we also began finding places to surf that weren’t ridden. For instance my friend Richie would surf the north side of Ventura pier during the summer wind swells. He didn’t have a car and lived just a block from the pier. Hungry for surf after work he found if you picked your wave you could have a good time surfing there. I joined him a number of times and, if I wasn’t with him he was surfing by himself.

Believe it or not, though inside point would get crowds further up the point could be absent of surfers. Now days one of the most crowded spots in Ventura is Pipe. But in ’68 my friend Peter would come by my place on MacMillan and San Nicolas throw rocks at my window to wake me up at the butt crack of dawn to go surf pipe before work. He didn’t want to surf alone! After going there a number of mornings with Peter I got my shaping partner Richard to go with me some mornings too. We were the only guys there.

Speaking of Richard…. In late ’68 he got a pass to go to the Ranch… the kind you use to drive in. Before I left MP we made a number of trips up there. Usually it would be Richard me and one other guy. We’d head out about 7 or 8 in the morning with surfboards, water and trail mix. Be in the water at rights and lefts by 9 or so and surf the whole day all by our selves. I can still see those perfect A frames in my mind. Surf for an couple hours go in and rest. Go back out until you were tired, rest some more for a final go out before heading home.

One other spot that was not surfed was Overhead beach break. It might have been Richie that went in there first but, Mike, Richie and I went there looking for surf in the summer of ’69 and had plenty fun surfing it when no one was around.

It’s still possible to find spots without tons of people but back in times past it was not to difficult.

D.R.

At the point with 3 guys out… June 07

My story post 29, or what I remember about the winter of 1969.

I moved to Rincon valley and joined up with Wilderness in spring of ’69 but the winter of ’69 was pretty insane. We had a lot of surf that winter and some very serious storms come through Ventura.

What the storms did to the local surf breaks was pretty amazing. As I remember it, there was a big rain at the end of January and one near the end of February. The first rain deposited so much sand on Ventura point that there were literally no cobble stone rocks exposed from the mouth of the Ventura River to the pier.

The affect on the surf at the point was significant. While it lasted the new sand point provided by the storm made one long continuing wave from the top of the point all the way down inside. Usually there are a number of sections, sometimes make able sometimes not, but this new sand point had a wave that was as perfect as any I’d ever seen. Catch the wave at the top of the point set your edge for a driving bottom turn climb and drop, turn back, bottom turn again… repeat, repeat.

The other spot that got dramatically altered… for a short time, was Santa Clara River mouth. Again so much sand was deposited that a very long sand point formed on the south side of the river. The surf there was as good as any point wave on the map. It took some work to get to it because you had to cross the river, it got almost waist deep in spots but on the other side was the gold. I got down there a couple times with the local crew when in the afternoon Santa Anna winds had died down enough. Mild off shore winds and roping long rights for a good quarter mile…. what fun that was.

As more rain came things got pretty ugly. Eventually so much debris washed down the Ventura river and got deposited on the beach that it became impossible to even walk to the waters edge along the point. The water along the point was one giant mass of floating drift wood that stretched half way to the end of the pier. The Santa Clara river actually change its course, turned toward Ventura and ended up busting through the Ventura Marina washing the boats that were docked along the south end of the marina out to sea. Then the surf deposited the boats along the beach below south jetty.

We’ve had big rains a number of times since then that have made for great surfing. But, there has never been anything like the storms of 1969 yet.

D.R.

Storm surf at the Ventura Pier.

While in Wave Front Surf Shop one day this week I took notice of a new Boardworks model that was white with a faux wood stringer painted on it. Boardworks of course being a molded board it’s usually pretty easy to tell them apart from the traditional foam and fiberglass boards, but the white with a faux wood stringer board could fool you for a minute. I find it curious that surfboards that aren’t made with traditional materials and methods still follow the traditional colors and lines.

Seeing that board and then receiving some pictures from my e-mail friend Barry of Dale Velzy got me to thinking again about the future of surfboards. So this may go along with my post of 9/30/07 here.

What we now call the Surf Board Industry had its beginnings just 50 or so years ago. And the number of guys that are still at it that started with either wood boards or the early foam boards is a very small piece of the overall builders pie. Shaping a board out of a big block of foam, learning the process by trial and error and looking up to those that did it before and learning from them is the tradition of shaping and making surfboards.

This tradition is very important to surfing history. It is core to what surfing is about. And as more and more years are added to surfing history or, as surfing gets older so too do the remaining shapers that were brought up in the tradition get older. There will come a time when they are only in pictures. The boards they made will remain though, held by those that honor the tradition.

The late Dale Velzy in his shaping room.

Added 3/17/08

Some may not see the point in the shaping tradition, and that’s fine, but the fact that it’s possible with your hands and eyes to sculpt a finely foiled and balanced object to ride waves on is really pretty incredible. Well, with the help of a computer a machine can do that! That’s correct, and any bone head can be shown in short order how to finish the machined blank off. And there are those in China and Thailand that finish blanks off all day long day in and day out that know nothing about the surfboard dynamic. And that’s called shaping?

An interesting side note…. I was acquainted with this guy some years ago that was a pattern maker. He worked for a big sports equipment company. His job was to make the patterns for the wood drivers in a set of gulf clubs. The company had very sophisticated computer controlled machines to make the patterns but they found the end result wasn’t good enough… it needed to be tweaked by hand. The human hand and eye did a better job. If I remember right they ended up ditching the machine process altogether and my friend ended up making the patterns from scratch.

The hand shaped tradition.

D.R.

It’s curious when you meet someone and it turns out that your paths never crossed but had been very close parallel lines.

One of the older guys that brings boards by the shop for laminating, Chuck Vinson, spent a few hours at the shop doing some special resin color and line work on one of his boards this week. We met last year when he first came to inquire about getting some glass work done and when he introduced himself mentioned that he was a laminator at MP during the Saticoy days. So we started chatting about when he worked at MP… he started right after I left… and what he did after that.

Turns out that after he left MP he went up to Santa Barbara and started a shop there, as well, eventually went to the North Shore and worked there. On the North Shore he worked for Lightning Bolt. The board he was working on at the shop was a Lightning Bolt replica for wetsand. While on the North Shore he worked and roomed with one of my high school surf buddies, his name was Wayne. Wayne’s mom used to take us to surf that I mentioned in this blog entry.

So Chuck is a guy that started working on surfboards when he was in high school, like me. Then works at MP only starts working there shortly after I leave. Then goes up to Santa Barbara and starts a shop. I worked at Wilderness in Santa Barbara. Then goes to Hawaii and ends up rooming with one of my high school surf buddies. Our paths finally cross almost 40 years later when he comes by my shop last year. I enjoyed reminiscing with him.

The Reminiscing kept going too because Nat Young did a presentation and book signing at Ventura Surf Shop Friday 3/7. Because Nat and Mike Cundith were buddies he used to come stay at the Rincon Valley ranch house when he was in California. I hadn’t seen him since August of 1969 when he came to the house, so I made sure I was at the event. The presentation was great and the book ‘The Complete History of Surfing’ is excellent.

D.R.

A few random thoughts on what we’ve come to call the short board revolution, which took place between late 1967 and 1970-71. Though surfboards had evolved before then and evolved after.

How things changed is a matter of personal history, that is, personal to the individual. What I recollect and what others remember may have similarities but not quite be the same. As well what was happening in the Ventura Santa Barbara area was not the same thing happening in San Diego or Santa Cruz areas.

In Ventura and Santa Barbara there were a small number of board builders and shapers. I just happened to be one of them. Surfing was changing and some guys fell out of the business because they didn’t fit into or follow the change. For instance in Ventura Tom Hale stopped making boards. I do know that he was doing some laminating in 1968 for Morey-Pope. The MP shop on Front street could not produce all the McTavish Trackers that Richard Deese and I shaped so some of the lam work was sourced to Hale. When MP stopped production of the Tracker and moved out to Saticoy as far as I know Hale stopped board building.

Though as some of the builders fell off they were replaced by knew guys entering the surfboard crafting thing. Even still there was only a small handful of guys making and shaping from 1968 to 1970-71. As well the big labels didn’t start to drop off until about 1970 anyway. In ’69 MP was making hundreds of boards a month. So were labels like Dewey Weber with boards like the Weber Ski. So there were labels keeping shapers employed.

But for sure as the established labels began taking a beating there were guys that made surfboards that ended up with out a job. And if you wanted to make surfboards you needed to follow the trends. If you were one of the guys making the trends ok but, if not, you had to follow or be out of work. As an example… I liked and surfed the Greenough style board but by ’71 a lot of guys wanted flat bottomed down railed boards. If I didn’t shape the flat bottom down rail I just didn’t have any work.

Having my start as a production shaper in 1967 and having steady work for the following 3 years pretty much right through the big change was great but by ’71 the whole surfboard making thing got rough for a number of board builders. The surfboard business got very fragmented and very localized.

What was…. a number of larger established labels run very business like with employees and fairly nice stores, which by the way sold almost only surfboards. And what was changed to... an underground type thing with small local shops that catered to a local clientele almost exclusively, and a lot of shops weren’t run very business like at all.

D.R.

In the shaping bay circa 1970

My story post 28

How I ended up leaving MP in the Spring of ’69 and moving on to Wilderness was pretty impulsive. But the story goes like this…..

After the winter layoff Morey-Pope had got their new factory set up in Saticoy. So everyone reported out there for work. The shop was big and being set up for a production of 200 surfboards a week. I say being set up because when we all started working out there the place needed tweaking to get up to speed. One of the problem areas was the sanding booths.

My friend Mike Cundith was the MP sander. The sanding room at the Front street shop he had was vented very well, Mike was very happy with it. However the sanding rooms in Saticoy didn’t vent well at all. Mike had nothing but trouble with them and was continually frustrated because the shop manager was unwilling or unable to get the venting problem fixed. I don’t know how many days and weeks went by but eventually Mike had enough. It must have been mid morning when he threw open the sanding room door one day ripping the mask from his face in a cloud of sanding dust and yelled “ I’ve had it…. I quit “ …. Right then and there he left and didn’t come back.

My other Friend Richie West laminated for MP. I honestly don’t remember when he left, was it the same day? Something tells me no, but if it wasn’t it was shortly after. So there was some unrest in the place and frustration…. Mostly management issues. Then one day I found out the head shaper, Richard, was making a buck off of every board I shaped. Looking back I don’t know if it should have bothered me or not but at the time it did. Maybe it was because he never told me… and I felt left out of the loop… I don’t know but my friends leaving out of frustration, the management issues, the buck a board thing was the last straw and I decided to quit too.

When Mike left he went and started setting up the Wilderness shop in Santa Barbara in an old ice house between E. Cabrillo Blvd. and the rail road tracks along East Beach. And me…. Quitting and walking away from a good paying job? Well I had been talking with Mike about joining up with the Wilderness guys…. Which was Mike, Richie and Peter Moscogenis. So after walking out of the MP shop I went to my place on Buena Vista in Ventura, packed my stuff and moved in with Mike, his wife, Richie and Jamo at their place in Rincon Valley and started setting up at the ice house… shaping boards at Wilderness.

D.R.

A veiw just up the over grown driveway above the Rincon Valley ranch house were the Wilderness gang lived. Me sitting on the ground playing my guitar.

My Story post 27

There are a few boards that have stuck in my memories from all the boards I made myself during the evolution days.

That first 7’2 was sum what of a tear drop shaped outline…. That is it had a fairly straight hip area, wide point was above center and the nose tapered more to a point. The next board I remember having was one I made at MP before I left in the spring of ’69 and moved up with Mike, Richie and gang to work at Wilderness in Santa Barbara.

Anyway, the board was 6’8 and for some reason I couldn’t get the deck line to work the way I’d like and it ended up with a long sweeping curve in the deck that peaked back of center…. Not a typical “ S “ deck line. The board worked well except the fin was made from a green pigmented panel which gave the thing a soft flex. The learning curve was continuing… don’t use pigmented panels for fins if you want a nice stiff snapping fin. The green finned board was a little different and I got teased about it some but it still rode good enough. Because of the fin it worked better in short beach break type waves, which during that particular time we got a number of great days on the back side of Faira and at Over Head BB. Now try surf Over Head BB, the place is way over crowded. Back then… we were the only guys there.

Another board I remember making was about in the middle of summer ’69. I wanted something that would float real well for the small summer surf so I made a generic type flat bottom board with soft rails around 6’6 x 21 x 3 and kept thickness out on the rails. The board floated me great but wouldn’t hold an edge for nothing. So, I put a resin bead around the apex of the rail from the tail two thirds up. This added about a half inch to the over all width of the board. I shaped the bead so the rail now had a nice edge on it. Ok, now I was set… set for a fall. The edge, added width and over all thickness made the board too stiff. I would have needed to gain about 50 lbs to be able to turn the darn thing. Almost every time I’d go to set an edge on a wave bigger than waist high I’d fall flat on my face. I wanted to rail surf the thing and didn’t have the body size for it. The learning curve continued…

Learning what worked was all trial and error. Board lengths, thicknesses, rail profiles, widths, outline curves, rockers… finding all the right ingredients. Ya know what? I wish I would have taken notes. Though there may have been others, the only guy I ever saw take notes was Nat Young.

D.R.

Something similar to what was.

My Story post 26

The 7’2 was the first of many Greenough style boards I would ride. From the fall of ’68 into the early ‘70s I made myself a sizeable number of them.

It seems that people think that when you make surfboards you can get as many of them as you like because after all ‘you make them’…. Fact is they cost money, not retail or the bro deal but none the less blanks, fiberglass and resin are not cheap. So what I would do is sell the board I was riding and make myself another board, post haste, with the proceeds.

There was a stretch there from 1969 to about 1972 that I may have made myself a new board almost every month. I could go surf then go in to work after surfing and stick my board in the sales area of the shop with a price tag on it. If someone came in for a board and wanted my board…. sold. Take the money, pay for another blank and start mowing foam. I went from the first 7’2 down to 6’0, a couple inches at a time in not more than 6 months.

I remember reports coming in from Australia of the guys riding sub 6 foot boards. Wide, short and round outlines, full hulled bottoms with big single fins. Hard driving bottom turns engaging as much rail as possible. Sweeping 180 degree turn backs. It was all new territory. If you fell you swam, so there were consequences. But it didn’t matter. Paddle hard, work hard, project your thoughts into the next wave until you’re going where you want to and making it all work.

Looking at some of the old surf films of the era the moves don’t look that radical by today’s standards. But at the time it was.

D.R.

Riding my first Greenough style board

Winter for the surfer means winter storms that generate sizable surf. And of course some unpleasant weather.

This past week here in Ventura we had rain for 5 out of the last 7 days. And it looks like the rain will continue through this coming week for 3 or 4 days. Along with the rain the temperatures have been below 60 here at the beach most everyday. The Rivers fill and empty their brown colored, debris fill waters into the ocean. The town of Ventura has two rivers. The Ventura river on it’s north west side and the Santa Clara river not more that 2 miles south from the Ventura river just below the Ventura Marina. So the waters around Ventura during winter storms get pretty ugly. And not healthy to enter for surfing.

My shop is not heated and temps below 60 degrees are not good to laminate surfboards in…. makes for a rather unproductive week. Resin takes it’s time curing. But we make due.

Though temps along the beach are not too cold, inland not even 15 miles the temperatures drop to freezing and below. With the rain comes snow and the mountains around Ventura get a pretty white covering this time of year. Saturday we had a dry day so my wife and I went for a drive inland and took in the views.

If you surf the upper side of the Fair Grounds during the winter you sometimes will see snow covering the mountains behind Ojai. Visible looking up the Ventura river valley.

I stood right at the Ventura rivers edge and took this picture looking at the surf.

Doing a 180 degree turn I took a picture of the mountains.

This would be the same view if you were in the lineup. I’ll tell you what… the morning wind that comes down the river valley from those snow covered mountains is cold. Maybe not as cold as what some of you get up north or on the east coast but for this So Cal guy it’s cold!

D.R.

My Story post 25

The 7’6 vee bottom worked for me through the spring and summer of 1968. If I remember correctly at MP we were making boards in the sevens for most of the ’68 season. So what I was riding was pretty much standard fair, as far as size was concerned.

Then later in the year a couple of the guys I worked with started riding boards right around seven foot and doing well with them. These shorter boards were foiled different than the vee bottoms we’d all been riding. The vee bottoms had a rail line and profile similar to the long boards we used to ride. These newer shorter boards were different. The decks had an ‘S’ curve to them and the bottoms transitioned from rounded belly under the nose to flat in the tail. And, the rail line was up in the nose and down in the tail. They rode different too.

The vee bottom boards started to show a weakness in hard driving bottom turns and because of their length you still would move forward and back for trimming in the wave. The desire was to not move on the board but be able to stand in pretty much one place on the board and work the wave from the one spot.

Riding closer to the critical part of the wave and staying right there in the pocket was the ultimate in surfing. Climbing and dropping, racing under, along and with the curl of the wave was in our sites, getting there was the quest. These new boards were going to get us there. The foiled design, rails and rocker curves were going to make it happen. My coworkers and friends, Mike and Richie, made a couple of these new boards for them selves with direction from George Greenough. I followed in the fall of ’68 and made one for myself. It was 7’2

D.R.

Another foam count down.

Most everyone knows by now that Walker Foam closed their operation down the week before Christmas. So all the guys that have been using Walker will be counting down their inventory of Walker Blanks until they are all gone. It happened with Clark and now with Walker.

For me…. I’ve only got about a half dozen Walkers in stock. Funny, I still have about 3 Clark blanks. Not that the Clarks are anything special… just the few I have were for styles of boards I really do very little of so there they sit. The Walkers on the other hand will get used up quickly. I liked Walker foam very much but they weren’t my only supplier so I like everyone else will just move on.

Not all surfboard foam is alike. Densities vary, blank selections vary, deliveries or will call only suppliers. Glue ups, stringers, rocker curves all play into what board builders go through when dealing with foam.

If you make a certain model, say a high performance long board, the blank that is usually used for that model needs to be accommodating to the over all shape of the board. If I have to change to a different 9’4 blank it will not have the same foam volume or thickness distribution as the one I was always using before. So I will have to work up a new routine for shaping my high performance long board out of a different blank than what I’d been using. It’s difficult and time consuming to make blank changes and have repeat ability. Changing blanks all the time messes with your consistency. Which is why guys find a foam they like and stay with it.

Now if you have blanks machine cut, which I don’t, it’s not as big a problem. Still you have to get a blank that the board you want to make will fit into but, the machine does all the hard milling and getting the foil and rocker all done for you.

Fortunately there are a number of foam suppliers now and I’ve got a couple that are willing to work with me and the particular stuff I want for my boards. Thank God, and the foam guys.

D.R.

I wrote the below two paragraphs last December 31.

Milestones, everybody has them…. an important event or turning point. As well, a marker that tells us how far we’ve gone. For the New Year most of us look back and reflect at least a little and say we made it through another one. The marker.

Important events can happen any time of course, and can be something pleasant or not so pleasant. A turning point? Sometimes we can go a long while before we even notice we had one. Then it’s “hey, things are different now and you know what? It all started way back when”. I’ve been going through a turning point for the last half of this…now past year. So I guess you could say it’s not a turn but a long curve. I’ll save the story for another time.

Now it’s December 31, 2007 so I guess I should tell the story…

Some time during the year 2006 I began to realize that the person I was working for went about the surfboard business and building process in a way that was completely different than what I wanted to be involved with. Aside from the fact that work had slowed down to numbers that weren’t enough to make a living at, my working environment was quite uncomfortable. At the same time I was hearing from people interested in seeing reissues of boards that I had done in my past. The whole retro thing and a more history conscious surfing population has helped that, I think.

I wanted and needed a place that I could put my heart into my work, a place where I could really enjoy what I did and the creative juices would flow. So between Christmas and New Years day of last year I gathered all my gear from the shaping bay I worked out of and began setting up my own place.

The turning point can be looked back upon now that the year is ending. And I’ve settled into a nice high end board craft shop I call home, looking forward with hope, encouragement and plan to be making some of the best performing and best crafted surfboards ever in the year ahead.

And may I say thanks for taking some time to read my stories and your interest in D.R. Surfboards.

Happy New Year!

Dennis Ryder

So what kind of stuff does a surfer guy have on his Christmas tree?

I never realized how beach and surf specific some of the ornaments are that we put on our tree every year. My wife decorated the tree pretty much by herself this year, can’t remember what I was up too. But, I got to looking at her handy work and thought ‘geez, can’t tell what this house is into’.

Gotta have your surfboard ornament… and of course a ‘sshlipa ‘ or two.

The hula girl is a must.

What else was on the tree? A nice Aloha shirt ornament. Among other things, Santa dressed in Aloha shirt, shorts, sandles and a lei around his neck.

What kind of stuff does a surfer guy or girl get under the Christmas tree?

A surfboard would be good. Kind of big but, that would be nice. How about a wet suit. That’s a good one, fits into a box and looks like all the other presents. And of course the afternoon of Christmas day you’ve got to go test the new suit at the beach.

A new set of fins for your board is good too… make an older board seem new and different. A board bag. What about all the surf videos. That can help keep the stoke.

Wax, can’t be without wax. A few years ago my son went to the local surf shop and said he wanted to buy a whole box of wax. The kids behind the counter told him he couldn’t buy a whole box. “Why not?” “well you just can’t” So he started loading the counter with bars of wax until the box was empty and had them ring up each bar one at a time.

I still haven’t gone through all that wax yet! Great present.

Merry Christmas!

D.R.

My Story post 24

1968 was a fun year for me. After returning to Ventura and getting a job shaping at MP things began to turn around pretty quick. The surf scene was changing from the colorful long board days to an underground movement.

I went out to the William Dennis shop after returning to Ventura and shaped myself a stringerless 8’2 Vee bottom. Sprayed the deck with black slipcheck and took the baby to the beach. The board had an OK ride but I never got much of a chance to dial it in because it was stolen. Right from my little cottage house where I kept it, some guy nicked my board. That has got to be one of the most disappointing things… having your surfboard stolen.

It wasn’t long before I was out at William Dennis shaping another board. This time a 7'6 Vee bottom. But I got real cocky with this one. The worker bees at MP weren’t allowed to make boards for themselves at the shop there, so I’d go out to WD and do my thing. It just so happened that Morey had an editorial published in Surfer Magazine about gypsy board builders and how the industry suffered from these underground guys, etc. That was late spring or early summer of ’68 now and all the young guys thought what? We’re going to do what we want… get over it. So here I am… I work for the guy and I go make myself a board, then for fun, I make a label with a hippie looking guy on it with the name Gypsy Surfboards.

The really funny thing was the day I went to launch my new board. It was a Saturday morning, I was walking down Front St. on my way to the point and right when I got at the MP shop… it was on Front St. which was right around the corner from where I lived. Here comes Morey in the MP van to open the shop sales room for the day. I say 'hey Tom check out my new board ' and hold up my board with the Gypsy label in plain view.

The look on Morey’s face…. priceless.

But geez, what a smart ass I was, and went to lengths it seems to be that way. What was I thinking? Gotta laugh though… funny story.

D.R.

Funny how big surf arrives on Wednesdays. Yeah, everybody knows we had big surf this week. Even my mom, who lives inland about 40 miles saw it on the news.

I called my mom on Thursday the 6^th to wish her a happy birthday. She says, “oh I saw the big waves and I just knew you were out there, I was thinking, now he shouldn’t be doing this but… I just knew you would be out there, you wouldn’t stay away”. Too cute, she celebrated her 86^th birthday and she still worries about her son, who’s 59, getting hurt or whatever… surfing.

Now let’s see…. I started surfing when I was 13 so; this has been going on for 46 years? Well not really. Because inlanders that know nothing about the beach and surfing never knew what was going on along the coast, the news media had better things to do. So my mom and everybody else never knew what the surf conditions where like. These days the swells get so advertised, or is it sensationalized, that when the swells do show up it’s almost anticlimactic.

I stopped by the point on my way to the shop Wednesday, as I do almost everyday, to check the surf and conditions. It was really big. And so was the crowd watching. There were no parking spaces. There was a sign at the end of “C” Street warning of high surf and to stay away.

What happened to the days when the surf was big and it was no big deal? When there were places to park your car if you wanted to check the surf. When there weren’t news crews waiting on the sand at the pier to film a rescue and then go interview the person rescued.

I still know when we have big surf. I can hear it at night from my house. I can smell and feel the mist it creates in the air. I can look at a tide chart and determine when the best times to surf are. Yeah all that, then brace yourself for all the commotion at the beach.

I liked it better when you could go about your business and no one noticed. Oh well…it's OK mom, I'm doing fine, no need worry.

D.R.

Today my wife and I went down to the annual Ventura Christmas Street Fair. The city hosts these street fairs where they block off 4 blocks of Main St. down town and rent vendor space to crafters, etc. People come from all over the county… I’m guessing… to browse all the booths. It’s a cool time to find unique Christmas gifts.

There are a ton of people walking up and down the street, you never know who you might run into. So who was it today? Mickey Munoz. My wife and I where at one of the booths that had some nice pictures of Ventura Pier that where mounted on those magnet sheets so you can stick the picture on your frig. Anyway, I see a friend who had just bought one or the Ventura pictures. He comes over and shows me his purchase and then says “did you see Mickey?" Mickey walks over, whom I don’t think I had ever met, we’re introduced and start talking. I ask "what are you doing up here?" 'cause he lives down south somewhere. Turns out he came up to go to Bruce Browns birthday party in Santa Barbara last night. I think he said it was his 70^th.

So this year I run into Tom Morey at the NAMM show. I saw Greg Noll up in Santa Barbara… that may not count because it was a planned event but Kemp Aaberg happened to be there, and now today Mickey Munoz. Who else will I run into this year? Still the month of December to go.

OK enough name dropping. The really cool thing I saw at the street fair was some furniture made with surfboards. Ever not want to get rid of your old favorite ride but not have a place for it either?

Make it into a chair. Or have this guy do it for you.

Those things are really cool! I gotta get one of my boards made into a chair.

D.R.