I loved “Relatable Form”, a new short surf film from Santa Barbara shaper Ryan Lovelace. You can watch it in its entirety above. The movie features Lovelace and crew as they unleash a quiver of varied shapes on the perfect setups of the Mentawais. The surfing is great and the boards are groovy, but what I enjoyed most was the movie’s insistence on shedding some light on the local Mentawai people. It’s an angle that is far too often overlooked — or omitted altogether — in the usual media coverage of one of the most famous archipelagos in surfing. I particularly dug the parallels drawn between hand shaping surfboards and the Mentawai tradition of building canoes. “Relatable Form” has a wonderfully relaxed vibe, but it also manages to pack plenty of substance into his brief running time. If you like travel, high performance surfing, or gorgeous hand crafted surfboards, then I can’t recommend “Relatable Form” enough.
Blood, Sweat and Foam: Blue Hawaii Pottz Twinzer by Wil Jobson
Greetings, Shredderz! Today’s Sagas of Shred entry — in which I scan an old surf magazine ad and write a bit about it — builds upon yesterday’s Blue Hawaii Pottz Pro Model post. As you can see in the photo above, it’s an advertisement for Pottz’s line of signature models shaped under the Blue Hawaii brand, but with a couple of very interesting twists. First, I wrote a separate Sagas of Shred post a few months back that featured the Blue Hawaii Pottz Pro Model, which you can find here.
The ad above — which originally ran in May 1991 issue of Surfing Magazine (Vol 27, No 5) — features a quad fin variant of the Pottz board. Gone is the flame spray along the rails, replaced by a twinzer fin setup, what I guess you would call a bat tail, and then some interesting concave out of the back. Glenn Minami shaped many boards for Martin Potter, starting at Town & Country during its early days, and then going on to found Blue Hawaii. The ad above, however, clearly features Wil Jobson, the shaper credited with inventing the twinzer fin setup.
Swellnet wrote up a post on Wil Jobson and the twinzer, and they also included this awesome close up of the business end of one of the Blue Hawaii / Pottz twinzer boards. The Swellnet board, however, was shaped by Stuart D’Arcy, and not Jobson. When you compare the Swellnet board above with the one featured in the Blue Hawaii ad, you’ll notice some key differences. First, the Blue Hawaii board has a different shape in the tail, and what looks like only two channels, versus the four in the Swellnet board above. However, both boards have the smaller twinzer stabilizing fins, which, according to Swellnet, are called canards.
And because here at Shred Sledz we celebrate Shawn Stussy’s entire catalog, of course we had to mention the board featured above. That board you see in the photo is a Shawn Stussy shaped personal rider that was apparently inspired by Jobson himself. The Stussy twinzer was sold at last year’s California Gold Surfboard Auction. Now, I know that Stussy shaped boards for Michael Tomson, who was CEO of Gotcha. Gotcha, in turn, was Pottz’s longtime clothing sponsor. Is it possible that somewhere in this mix Stussy got the idea to shape the twinzer pictured above? I can’t say for sure, but it certainly would be cool if that turned out to be the case.
Thanks for checking out Sagas of Shred and tune in next Thursday evening, California time, for more vintage surf ads.
Pottz Blue Hawaii Model
Greetings, Shredderz! Today we’re featuring a board that I believe I wrote up over two years ago: a Pottz Blue Hawaii surfboard. Technically speaking, I guess the name is the Blue Hawaii Pottz Pro Model. That’s a mouthful, though, and I think we’re all on the same page that this is the infamous flame graphic signature surfboard of Martin “Pottz” Potter, South African world champ and one of the most radical surfers of the late Eighties and early Nineties.
The board above is listed for sale on Craigslist in Florida. Pics in this post are via the listing, which you can find here. The last time I wrote this up I balked at the then-$1K price; looks like this has gone up to $1,500 since. The board is in good condition, although there’s some clear discoloration on both the deck and the bottom, if you want to nitpick. There’s no indication on who the shaper is, but Glenn Minami was Pottz’s shaper, and I believe this goes back to Potter’s days on the Town & Country Surf Designs team.
It’s pretty hard to find good action shots of the Pottz Blue Hawaii board, but the one above, courtesy of Pottz’s Facebook Page, is pretty great.
Check out the Pottz Blue Hawaii board for sale on Craigslist here.
Weekend Grab Bag: Liddle Reef Smoothie and More
Greetings, Shredderz! Sorry for the relatively parse posting schedule last week. I don’t want to tip my hand, but I think we’ve got some gems coming up that should make up for it. In the meantime, here are some boards for sale that I think you might dig, including a Liddle Reef Smoothie. Keep scrolling for more:
Liddle Reef Smoothie Model (Craigslist Ventura)
Frankly, I’m surprised this Liddle Reef Smoothie model is still listed for sale. (See more about this model on the Liddle Surfboards site.) The seller is asking $1,200. As always, pricing surfboards is more art than science, but collectors have been welling to shell out top dollar for vintage Liddles as of late. For comparison, Kirk Putnam sold a Marty Peach Liddle for $1,200, which you can see on his Instagram here. This board has the classic Liddle crash test dummy logo, which is always a nice touch.
Hawaiian Island Creations Single Fin (Craigslist Santa Barbara)
This stick is pretty bitchin’. I really love these old school HIC boards, and while it’s a well known brand, it doesn’t have nearly the cachet of something like Town & Country. This one is super sick — I love the triple icon logo, the channel bottom, and as a nice bonus it comes with an original Rainbow fin. The seller is asking $450, which I think is right there in the ballpark.
Con Surfboards CC Rider (Craigslist SF Bay Area)
This bad boy is 10’2″ of classic longboard beauty. I love colors on this board, and in particular, the contrast between the yellow bottom and the blue high density foam stringer. Seller is asking $950. The fin is apparently a Greenough Stage III Wonderbolt fin — gotta love it any time someone puts a lot of detail into a Craigslist post. For more on the Con Surfboards CC Rider model, check out this Deep Dive I wrote a while back.
Bing Bonzer Redux (Craigslist Orange County)
I actually wrote up this board a few months back, and it’s back on Craigslist at $400, or half the price at which it was offered before. This thing has a bunch of pressure dings on the deck, but I love the colors and the resin pinlines, and that fin is gorgeous, too.
George Greenough for O’Neill: Sagas of Shred
Greetings, Shredderz! Sorry that the blog has been a little less frequent these days. But today I’ve got a treat: an ad from a 1980 issue of Surfer Magazine featuring none other than George Greenough, the surfcraft guru whose influence still looms large over the sport. It’s funny to see Greenough featured in an ad, given his famous aversion to any kind of publicity. It’s also cool to see that the ad likely features one of Greenough’s custom camera rigs, which allowed him to capture then-revolutionary footage of himself deep inside the tube. The shot still looks modern today. It’s no wonder that Greenough is still revered by surfers across many generations.
As always, thanks for reading, and tune in next Thursday night for more Sagas of Shred!
Social Media Roundup: Herbie Fletcher’s Hawaiian Boards and More
Greetings, Shredderz! As always, here’s a smattering of social media posts from the past month or so, that I think you might enjoy. Keep scrolling for more…
Pictured above we have two Herbie Fletcher boards shaped for Hawaii, happening at opposite ends of his career to date. The board in the top photo is a square nose longboard Herbie made recently and the lower photo features a 7’4″ diamond tail shaped in 1969.
This month Taylor Knox comes with not one but two separate entries. The first shot shows Ben Aipa making it look easy in some serious Hawaiian juice; the second is Taylor Knox putting a Mark Richards twinny through its paces.
And here’s one more that really ties the room together: MR, Owl Chapman, and Ben Aipa, sometime during the Seventies.
I wrote up this awesome Stussy twin fin recently. Here’s a shot of former Stussy team rider John Gothard brandishing another S double stick with some interesting looking fins.
Rainbow Fin Ad from 1974: Sagas of Shred
Greetings, Shredderz! I’m currently writing this update from the road. As some of you may know, every Thursday night I’ll select a vintage surf ad and upload it as part of the blog’s Sags of Shred series. Unfortunately, I have been on the road the past few days, which means I don’t have any new scans for this week. For now this bitchin’ Rainbow Fin Company ad from 1974 will have to suffice. I’m not sure where I found this originally — maybe Swaylocks? — but either way, it’s a rad look at the beautiful vintage fins Rainbow Fin Company was producing in the Seventies. Rainbow is still alive and kicking, and still located in Santa Cruz. I’ll always love the beautiful fiberglass fins of the Seventies, and hopefully this Rainbow Fin Company ad does a good job of explaining exactly why that is.
Thanks for reading and tune in next week for more Sagas of Shred!
Shawn Stussy Twin Fin
Here’s a little Shred Sledz trivia for you: any time I see a rad Stussy board posted for sale online, I have to write about it. (For another awesome Stussy board, check out this thruster he made for Michael Tomson, the founder and CEO of Gotcha.) Sorry, those are the rules, and I’m afraid there are no exceptions. Recently I saw this super rad Stussy twin fin pop up for sale on Craigslist in Orange County. You can find the listing for the board here. All pics in the post are via Craigslist and the board is not mine.
I’ve made no secret of my admiration for Stussy’s surfboards, and the board above hopefully makes it clear why I go so crazy over these shapes. The Stussy twin fin has all the bells and whistles you could want out of one of these boards. It measures in at a tidy 5’8″ x 20″ x 2 3/4″, and the serial number is 703. The board isn’t dated but I would guess somewhere in the early to mid Eighties. First, I absolutely love the airbrush. Generally speaking, if it was made in the Eighties and it has bright colors, I’m game. That said, Stussy’s boards from this era might fit into the overall aesthetic of the decade, but from an artistic standpoint, Stussy’s airbrushes are light years ahead of the standard fluoro spray job. It may sound obvious, stupid even, but the dude is a true artist, and I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say that Stussy’s boards are pieces of art.
Aside from the airbrush on the deck, there are a ton of other aesthetic flourishes on the Stussy twin fin that I can’t get enough of. First, I love the fact the Stussy logo has different colors on the deck and the bottom. The seller hasn’t provided great pics of the little laminates throughout the board, but you can see a small “Equipment for the Modern Age” hit on the bottom, just beneath the main logo. I also spy some artwork on the glass on fins, but I can’t tell what they are. I’ve said it many times before, but one of my favorite things about Stussy boards is how small logos and pieces of hand drawn artwork are scattered throughout.
The Stussy twin fin featured here is pretty well preserved, but there are some things worth mentioning. You can see there’s a big delam spot on the deck near the tail, to the left of the stringer. The bottom has a bunch of little nicks and dings on it, too. More than anything else, I just can’t believe that whoever owned this thing didn’t take better care of it. It’s like the Indiana Jones line whenever he sees a priceless artifact in the wrong hands: “It belongs in a museum!” The seller is asking $500 for the board. Perhaps this says more about my love for Stussy boards than anything else, but I don’t think that price is crazy. If this board were in better condition — a big if, I know — I could see it fetching multiples of that price. But it’s not, and fixing this thing up would require a decent amount of work. Either way, it’s a beautiful board, and I hope it finds a happy new home.
Check out the Stussy twin fin for sale on Craigslist here.
Phil Becker Single Fin
Today we’re paying tribute to one of the most prolific surfboard shapers of all time: Phil Becker. Becker comes from a long line of shapers and labels that hail from the South Bay of Los Angeles, in and around Hermosa Beach. Bing Copeland, Hap Jacobs, Donald Takayama and Pat Rawson all can trace lineage back to the South Bay area — and that’s just a partial list. Keep scrolling below for some more background on the shaper, and then some pics of a lovely Phil Becker single fin.
It’s thought that Phil Becker hand shaped more surfboards than anyone else in history. Estimates peg Becker’s total output at somewhere between 100,000 and 130,000 boards shaped by hand — a truly mind-boggling figure. Becker spent some early parts of his career shaping for Rick Surfboards, another surfboard label with South Bay roots. By now, some readers may know that I’m a big fan of the early Rick / Becker boards.
The board featured in this post is an unbranded Phil Becker single fin. I’m guessing the board was shaped during the Seventies, but I’m not certain. The fact the board is unbranded is a bit unusual. From what I can tell — Becker is famously private; the Encyclopedia of Surfing claims he only gave one interview throughout his multi-decade career — Becker mostly shaped for two labels: Rick Surfboards and Becker Surfboards. Becker Surfboards, however, can be thought of a continuation of the Rick Surfboards brand. Becker and some business partners bought the Rick Surfboards label in 1980 or so, and then continued operations under the Becker Surfboards name, until they sold the brand to Billabong in 2010.
That said, I have seen two other labels with Becker shaped boards: Natural Progression and Sunline. The board in this post, however, is the only unbranded Becker shape I have seen to date.
Speaking of the board in question…my goodness, that thing is sexy. I actually love that there’s no branding anywhere on this board. The end result is a surfboard with clean, unblemished lines. It also doesn’t hurt that the board is still in fantastic condition.
As you can see, the board has a triple stringer setup and a gorgeous glass on fin.
The Phil Becker single fin you see above was listed for sale on Craigslist in Orange County over the weekend. The post is no longer up, so I can only assume that someone leapt on this thing. The asking price was $325, which I think is an amazing bargain for a board from a shaper of Becker’s caliber, not to mention just how beautiful the thing is.
That said, I’ve noticed that Becker’s boards tend to be pretty cheap overall. Maybe this is just a side effect of his prolific output over the years. Granted, the Phil Becker single fin featured in this post is a sample size of exactly one, so take that with a grain of salt. Either way, I think whoever ended up with this stick should be pretty stoked.
Weekend Grab Bag: Santa Cruz Edition
Greetings, Shredderz! Hope everyone here Stateside had a wonderful Thanksgiving. If, like me, you live in Northern California, you’re well aware of Santa Cruz’s status as ground zero for high performance surfing in the area. Santa Cruz has more than its fair share of talented surfers and great waves, but likely due to its distance from the Orange County / San Diego epicenter of the surf industry, Santa Cruz doesn’t have quite the same visibility of its Southern counterparts. I imagine this is all well and good with the locals, who might prefer to keep their little cold water paradise to themselves. That said, I’d like to take the opportunity to feature some vintage boards from some of Santa Cruz’s best shapers. Keep reading for more…
Doug Haut 1966 Longboard (Craigslist / Oregon)
I believe it was none other than fellow NorCal craftsman Marc Andreini who dubbed Doug Haut Santa Cruz’s answer to Renny Yater. The comparison is an apt one, as Haut continues to produce clean, functional shapes for surfers who frequent Santa Cruz’s famous right hand points. The seller claims the board was shaped in 1966. As you can see, it sports a gorgeous glass on fin and overall it’s in great condition. No price listed. Pro tip: if you’re in the market for a lightly ridden Marc Andreini personal rider, he’ll often sell them at Haut Surf Shop (and, of course, you can order a custom board directly from Doug himself).
Doug Haut Transition Era Hull
Sorry Shredderz, I can’t divulge where this one is posted. But it is listed for sale somewhere on the internet, so I’ll just leave it at that. Anyway, this is a pretty unusual Haut board in that it’s a Transition Era hull. No dimensions are listed but the seller claims it was shaped in 1968. The serial number on this Haut board is #1096, compared to #517 for the longboard above. Given the two year span between these two boards were shaped — assuming both sellers are correct — the numbering sounds about right. I’m a big fan of hulls in general, and I also love the wedge stringer. Sadly I can’t quite make out what kind of fin box it is. No dimensions are listed, and the seller is asking $1,600. This seems pricey to me, but it is a very cool board from one of Santa Cruz’s finest.
Pearson Arrow Seventies Single Fin (Craigslist / Santa Cruz)
Whenever I surf around Santa Cruz, I see more Pearson Arrows than any other kind of board. I actually featured the board above on Instagram earlier this year. It just reappeared on Craigslist and I had to write up this gem. I absolutely love this board, and it’s an unusual older example from one of Santa Cruz’s best known shapers. The modern Pearson Arrow logo, made famous by Jay Moriarty (RIP), will forever be my association with Bob Pearson’s label. That said, I actually prefer the clean original logos seen above. The seller is asking $675, and the board apparently needs a few repairs. I’m a little thrown off by the blue fin box, but can’t say for sure whether or not that’s a sign that some major surgery was done at some point. This is a gorgeous board no matter which way you cut it, and Pearson’s status as a go to shaper for Santa Cruz locals speaks for itself.
The best part about this post? Bob Pearson and Doug Haut are still making boards today! Check out either one of their sites for info on their boards: Haut Surfboards and Arrow Surf Shop.