Notes From The Shaping Bay
Dennis Ryder Surfboards... Stories... Information... interests
Thursday, October 31, 2024
Monday, September 30, 2024
Summer is officially over. And what a summer it wasn’t.
Here in
Thing about the fair is that parking gets shut down. The
formally free lot gets closed and the pay lot up into pipe is also closed. So
the only place to park close to the beach is at inside point. That gets filled
up during the Fair before sun up if there is a swell. And that’s what happened
the day of the only decent south swell this now past summer.
Fortunately when I got down at the point, when it was still
dark, I found a parking space so I could park and go for a walk up the point as
the day was just getting light. Check the conditions, see where the swell was
focused and of course see all the guys that would have parked up in the upper
lot, that was closed, walk all the way up to Pipe. Some guys even running. Not
that the surf was that great but it takes several minutes to get up there and
then several minutes to get back to you vehicle after you surf. When you’ve got
to get to work every minute is crucial.
Not everyone will make the trek up to Pipe so they just go
out at the point or surf inside point. Which makes for very crowed conditions. Even
though the swell produce pretty consistent sets unless you were really
aggressive getting a set wave was though. This ole guy wasn’t feeling very
aggressive that day so I got a whopping 4 waves during the hour plus I was in
the water.
Days like that have me longing for my younger days when there
where fewer surfers and you could surf for a hour or two and get worn out.
Getting plenty waves and lots of paddling to get back in the lineup for another
go at it.
The other thing about this now past summer was the water
temperature…. call it cold. Wearing a winter suit into June is a bit much. But
if you didn’t want to shiver for an hour…. Well that’s what if did. It did
finally warm up but didn’t stay that that way. Even now the water is just above
60 degrees. The water temps last winter got pretty cold so looks like there
could be repeat of cold water this
winter.
With no real summer surf maybe we’ll get some nice fall surf.
In my neck of the woods fall can offer up some nice consistent surf.
Hoping for the best.
D.R.
Saturday, August 31, 2024
My wife and I have been going through some stuff we’ve had in storage. In a box of board games this surfaced….
Anyone ever seen this. I can’t say I tried playing the game
and honestly don’t remember anything about it.
It looks to be laid out like the game of Monopoly. There are
2 sets of cards that a player gets to draw from similar to Monopoly that are
labeled Trivia and Challenge.
So what the heck… lets look at what these cards say.
Challenge Question: What was the first surf magazine called?
The answer says, The Surfer
I don’t think that’s right. I believe it’s just Surfer, or
Surfer Magazine.
Ok, another one: What does ASP stand for?
The answer says, Association of Surfing Professionals.
Kind of dated since the ASP is no longer. I’m pretty sure we
have the WSL. World Surf League. The games was made in 1996… we’ve moved on
from then.
How ‘bout a Trivia card.
Is there really a famous surfer known as “Da Bull”?
Answer says, Yes. But the card doesn’t say his name. Sad that one, The
late Greg Knoll may he rest in peace.
One more: When 2 people surf together on the same board, what
kind of surfing is that?
Answer, Tandem. Not sure Tandem surfing is much of a thing
these days. But there it is.
Maybe I’ll post some more surf trivia question another time.
D.R
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
Sunday, June 30, 2024
Of the 40 some miles of coast line that is inside Ventura County about 30 of those miles one could actually live at the beach or a few blocks from the beach.
Maybe 20 miles are homes
on the beach or areas that are beach breaks.
As a kid if you were
fortunate enough to have lived in one of those beach communities and started
surfing…. well, most likely that’s what every surfer would like. The
Over the years there have
been a number of surfboard labels that have come up out of
In the early days of
surfing there was Morey-Pope that had success and reach outside of its home of
The population of
My post this past May got
me started writing about all this
Well that Story has been published. In
Go figure.
D.R.
Friday, May 31, 2024
The first ever surf
contest that paid money to the top competitor was at “C” street in
It was put together by Tom Morey in summer of 1965. Morey was head of the USSA at the time and seems with that position would be the right ingredient for a successful event… which it was.
Keep in mind that in the mid sixties the only surfboards being ridden were what we now call long boards. As I’ve said in past posts we just called the boards we surfed back then a surfboard. One of the most difficult things to do on a long board is to execute a nose ride. Some people can nose ride and get pretty good at it. Others have a difficult time even getting close to the nose let alone hang what we call toes over the nose.
What Morey did with the first ever cash prize surf event ( pro surf contest ) was make the judging of the event objective. The objective was record the length of time the contestants spent on the nose… 25% of the boards length from the tip of the nose. It didn’t matter what you looked like getting to the nose or after, your style or anything else. The judges held stop watches and recorded the time a contestant spent in the 25% area of their board while on what ever wave they caught.
The surfer with the highest total time on the nose won the event. No subjective judging at all. That’s never happened since. Of course how could you have an objective surf meet when riding the surfboard of today? Unless the event is a long board event. The nose riding event the judges only had to do a little math as opposed to deciding how well a surfer maneuvered through the wave that was caught. And, if the surfers style was more likeable than other competitors.
Then there is the luck of the draw on what competitors were in the right place at the right time to paddle into the better waves that come through the time of day and time of the heat being surfed in. Morey’s surf meet had that part sure, the competitors had to find the best waves that would give them the best opportunity to hang on the nose. That’s a skill that is developed but still when the better waves were caught only the time spent on the nose was counted.
At some point a “pro surf
event” had to happen to set up the possibility for a future of professionals.
Someone had to be first and it had to be somewhere…. That place was
The point in
Even gets surf all year long.
D.R.
Tuesday, April 30, 2024
Aside from a significant
number of good surf spots in the short 42 miles of
The surfboard industry got
it’s start in the 1950’s and by the early 60’s it began to grow exponentially..
There were a few surfboard builders in
VIP had a surfboard production process to make what was later called pop outs because they weren’t made in the traditional hand shaped process. The person that ran the company I believe was a man named Bill Fisher. These boards were sold all across the country in places like Sears. Not unlike the mass produced surfboards you can buy at Costco now days. Though the boards you find at Costco are what we call foamies, VIP boards were built with a fiberglass process.
Tom Hale also made
surfboards in
One of the most
influential people in the business of making surfboards… Tom Morey, started making surfboards in
With the demand for surfboards and media exposure the various surfboard companies sponsored guys and gals that were recognized for their surfing abilities and these surfers would have a special surfboard model made for them. Moery-Pope had 2 of them. The John Peck Penetrator and the Bob Cooper Blue Machine. Of all the surfboard models that were made back then those 2 boards are in the lineup with only a few others as the most iconic of the period. If not the most uniquely different. In 1968 they produced what has been considered the first short board in production. The McTavish Tracker.
They also developed a removable fin system. The system was developed for the industry and several other surfboard labels used the system and were able to have their own proprietary fins made specially for their label.
You know we didn’t have
surf wax in the 60’s either. We used paraffin we got from the grocery
store. Morey-Pope developed a spray on
product to use on your board to take the place of paraffin. That product was
sold virtually everywhere you bought a surfboard. If it was still available
there's hardly a long boarder that wouldn’t be using it today. But alas it
wouldn’t be available because it was a solvent based material… now banned…. At
least in
After Morey and Karl went different ways around 1970 Morey went on and developed the Morey Boogie body board
and Karl stayed in
And yet that’s not all
that's been created for surfing that has come from
D.R.