Paul,
A good story...back in 1967, Reno and I chased Brewer over to Maui to get boards shaped. Reno got his done but RB kept putting off mine.
A good story...back in 1967, Reno and I chased Brewer over to Maui to get boards shaped. Reno got his done but RB kept putting off mine.
One morning, up drove McTavish, Nat, George, the Witzigs, Russell Hughes and Ted Spencer. Dick and Bob got into a lengthy discussion about everything. On the car were a couple of the wide tail, deep vee bottom boards that looked pretty strange to us...the only thing I liked were the beautifully foiled Greenough fins.
After they left, RB got fired up and shaped my board but it wasn't like anything I had in mind. I wanted a 9-6 Pipeliner longboard but he had other ideas after talking to McTavish. It ended up being a 8-6 vee bottom mini gun, the first of its kind, and really the first shortboard among our group. A few days later, a big North swell came and Honolua wasn't great but it was clean in the morning. We all went out, Brewer lost his board first, then Buddy Boy and finally Reno..all their brand new boards busted in half. Nat paddled out, spun out on his first wave, broke the nose off his stringerless board. I rode a little one in. The only guy who surfed good that day was Russell, he had a more conventional shape.
They all went back to Oahu for the Duke meet where Bob got one wave that blew everyone's minds. Solid 10' West bowl lining into the inside, he went straight down and banked that wide tail over and went straight back up...no one had ever done that before. He got heaved but he showed us something radically different on that turn and nothing was ever the same after that.
Long winded..sorry. But they all went back to Maui and scored some epic Honolua. Nat ripped and you could see in the pictures that John or Paul took, his patched nose. But the hero of the day was George on his mat. It was clean, peeling 6'-7' in front of the cave and the surf mat ruled. Never forgot that.
Aloha,
Gerry
2 comments:
This is everything
I had two chances matting Honolua. The first day was "flat" with a few stragglers on the cliff talking about nothing. Knowing the mat could make small waves fun, I went out for a solo session. I was catching the peak at the tail of the cave section because that was all there was. But, because I was alone in paradise I was loving it. Eventually (20-min) a few cliff dwellers decided the waves looked like fun and joined me. Something about riding small waves where people go to ride big waves means we're all there just to have fun, and fun we had.
The next day, unknown to me, the swell came up. I was happily driving back to Honolua for a repeat performance but was "disappointed" to find it 4-6 foot with bigger sets. The cave section was working but I wasn't in the mood to fight for a turn. Instead I returned to the tail of the cave section and managed a few fun ones! Perhaps if I lived there, or maybe if I had a few days to let the crowd warm up to me, I could have taken a few through the section. As it was, I am happy for what I got and would love to return there someday to try again.
Post a Comment