Rick UFO ... From George Leone

 

 

 

 

"The Rick Surfboards U F O model was developed by the polisher at Rick's, John Shandera (not sure of the spelling). The story I was told was that he had ridden his motorcycle out from the Midwest and landed a job at Rick's polishing boards. He eventually became the shop foreman and kept production running.

I started sweeping the floors at the Rick Factory as a stoked 19 year-old at that time (late '66). It was puzzling to me how a "Hodad" had become a board designer, but the Rick shop was noteworthy in that it was really open-minded. (Rick was the first shop to sell Carl Pope's W.A.V. E. Hollow boards made of honeycomb and epoxy in '70 or '71.)

The U F O Model was a great seller and became a kind of Icon until the shortboard revolution turned everything around.

The pictured UFO has the first "official" decal, previous to that the letters U F O were cut out of the word  SURFBOARDS in the standard decal at the time (Like the sideways blue ones in the picture, but they came in different colors.) A year or so later, we went with a "modern" style, each letter comprised of 4 parallel lines--really "70's style" and it was the 70's, so that's OK.

The cutaway fin was a feature of the design as we were all cutting down our "D" fins to get more maneuverability as the boards were getting thinner. ( '66-'67)

The scooped tail was supposed to help the turning, too. Note that the bottom was rounded in that area so the board was loose. Without the scoop in the top of the tail, it wasn't possible to sink the tail to turn hard. This was a "Performance" board, not a "Power Surfing " board. It wasn't designed to use the edges to carve. More like flattish turns and walking the board quickly, "hot dogging", surfing off of the back foot. It was designed to be easy to noseride, but not a concave noserider, much more versatile.

The side profile is a great picture. You can see the thinness of the nose and tail areas and the foiled thickness in the middle. Also look at the rails when the stringer intersects. The nose is very thin and the tail area is about a 50/50 rail to keep the board loose. This board wasn't designed to carve, the tail edge is soft, so the board could change directions quickly.

In contrast, the Rick Barry Kanaiaupuni Model boards were the more "power surfing" boards, designed to carve, using the front foot and engaging the rails more. (Hulls took that "Total involvement" style of committing the edge even farther.) The "BK" Model had a "belly" in the nose area, rounded to help initiate digging the pinched rail into the face. John Leininger, who was ostensibly the sales shop manager/ ad manager/ image creator/ and so much more, convinced me to be a "power surfer" so I carved on Barry Kanaiaupuni Models and never really rode U F O's. I'm glad I did, because I adapted easily to the shortboard explosion on a  Greenough "Baby" that John himself shaped in the shop, dropping from a 9'3" "Mini Gun" to a 7'3" Baby in one amazing day in '67 and I never looked back.

The shortboard revolution was sure fun; like now, designs good and bad were being developed constantly! Back in the late 60's the Rick shop built had a flextail model, the first roundtail model I had ever heard of and adopted the Eaton twin-fin design within days of the first successful design Mike had. Eaton had formerly shaped at Ricks, being brought in by Becker, then moved up to the street (literally) to shape for Bing after a year or so."

George Leone ... fact checked by John Leininger.