Bruce
Jones, Sunset Beach, CA
Bruce Bruce Jones Surfboards has built premium
surfboards for three decades. The company,
renowned worldwide for its products, was
founded by Bruce in 1973 after he shaped
surfboards for many years with some of the
biggest surfing names in the sport: Hobie,
Gordie, and Brewer to name a few.
Bruce was there at Hobie's, during the golden
age of the mid 1960's, when the best shaping
talent in surfing history was gathered in
one place: Phil Edwards, Dale Velzy, Terry
Martin, John Gray and Ralph Parker, among
others. Starting in the glueing department,
Bruce worked his way into rough shaping,
then into the actual shaping room and lost
no time in getting help from everyone involved
in shaping surfboards.
Michael Hynson, Encinitas, CA
Mike Hynson is the swaggering American co-star
of the 1966 crossover hit "The Endless
Summer," and creator of the popular
Gordon and Smith produced "Red Fin"
signature model board. Hynson is now a celebrated
and world-renown surfboard shaper/designer,
working from his beachside studio in San
Diego, California; Born in 1942, Hynson's
family moved to San Diego's Pacific Beach,
in the mid 50's, where he began surfing
in earnest. Graceful and stylish, Hynson
rapidly rose through the ranks to become
one of the area's finest surfers. When visiting
Hawaii for the first time in late 1961,
Hynson's incomparable skill enabled him
to be one of the first to ride the infamous
"Pipeline" on the North Shore
of the island of Oahu. Two years later,
filmmaker Bruce Brown asked Hynson to star
in his new film, "The Endless Summer."
This gig required Hynson to travel the globe
chasing summer and the perfect wave.
Rich Harbour, Seal Beach, CA
Since 1959, when Rich Harbour went into
his parents' garage with a saw and a piece
of foam, Harbour has crafted more than 23,000
surfboards and counting. Today, vintage
Harbour Surfboards are collected by enthusiasts
around the world eager to grab a piece of
true surfing history. Harbour Surfboards
was established more than 40 years ago and
remains as the worlds oldest surfboard manufacturing
shop at the same location and a driving
force within the surfing industry.
1950's It was the year 1959 when Rich Harbour's
used longboard was stolen from his garage.
Devastated over the loss of his surfboard,
Harbour ventured out to build his own. He
bought a blank and cut it in half with a
handsaw. Using a piece of redwood, and huge
rubber bands cut from an inner tube, he
glued the stringer into the blank. Rich
shaped the board with a hand plane and sandpaper.
Being the star pupil in his high school
woodshop class and the best surfboard repairman
in town gave him the confidence to do this.
He glassed it and the results produced a
board that wasn't bad for a sixteen-year-old
junior in high school. However, it received
too many snickers from the local crowd at
the beach. Boards numbers 2 and 3 were soon
made and were a vast improvement.
1960's It wasn't long before many of the
locals were asking Rich Harbour to make
them a surfboard. The boards kept getting
better and better. By the end of the next
year, a Seal Beach surfer named Denney Buell,
who had graced the pages of the very first
Surfer Magazine, asked Rich to shape him
a board. Rich's ability to make great surfboards,
and this vote of confidence from a top notch
surfer, really got things moving. On March
7, 1962 Rich moved from the garage to open
Harbour Surfboards. In less than one year
at 5th street and Marina Drive, Harbour
Surfboards quickly outgrew that location
and re-located to the current address at
329 Main Street.
Bill Stewart, San Clemente, CA
For over four decades Bill Stewart has been
creating one of a kind custom surfboards.
An early backer of the longboard resurrection,
Bill is the inventor of the 2+1 fin configuration
and Hydro Hull beveled rail, as well as
co-inventor of the Future Fins System box.
Born in 1951 in Bowling Green, Kentucky,
Stewart grew up in Hollywood, Florida where
he began surfing in 1963. He quickly realized
that he could combine his passion for surfing
with his artistic talents and started shaping
boards in 1967.In search of better waves,
Bill moved to Southern California in 1971
and started working for Hobie, Rick James
and South Shore. After gaining some much-needed
knowledge and experience behind a planer,
Bill opened Stewart Surfboards in Laguna
Beach in 1978. Bill was the second person
to ever airbrush on a surfboard and was
voted Best Airbrusher by Surfer Magazine
in 1980.
In 1984, Stewart developed the Hydro Hull,
a double concave design he used on longboards
and shortboards. The same year he invented
the 2+1 tri-fin configuration, the standard
in performance longboards.
Donald Takayama, San Diego, CA
Shapers come and go and come back again.
Takayama has been hard at it since the middle-50s
from Hawaii to California and back again.
with very few detours. Takayama claims some
fine names as shaping influences: Dale Velzy,
Renny Yater Pat Curren, Mike Diffenderfer,
Ken Tilton, Hap Jacobs, Joe Quigg, His first
surfboard was a redwood in Hawaii, around
1948. Where did he get the redwood? "Railroard
tracks," Takayama said. "They
were changing railroad ties and had all
these old ones on the side of the road and
so I went over there and helped myself to
it."
Takayama started surfing in Hawaii and worked
for John Price and Surfboards Hawaii before
he came to California in the middle 50s
on a wing and a prayer. "Yeah you know
I left Hawaii with a one-way ticket on one
of those cattle planes, Trans Continental
Airlines. Halfway over I go up and knock
on the cockpit door and say, "Hey,
Captain, we almost there yet or what, brah?'
I showed up in LA when the only airport
was at Burbank. I think I had $10 in my
pocket. It was 1955 or 1956 or something
like that. I have memory lapse now."
Takayama also can't remember how many boards
he has shaped over the years, only that
he has been doing it almost non stop since
the middle 50s. He worked for ????? in Hawaii
and ???? in 19?? He opened Donald Takayama
Hawaiian Pro Designs in Encinitas but there
were too many people poking their heads
in asking "What's up?" He moved
it all to Oceanside and has been there ever
since.
He's been going non-stop for the last 35
years. He was one of the Refounding Father
who promoted the resurgence of longboarding
in the early 90s. " I was working with
Oxbow and Joel Tudor and Nat Young promoting
the World Championships in France. Everyone
came and it was enlightening to see everyone
so excited. And from there it just kept
escalating. I make boards for California
but there are Takayama licenses in Australia
and Japan and France. The demand is amazing.
I had no idea surfing would be as large
as it is today and as a manufacturer I know
there is no way I or any of us can fulfill
this market."
Hap Jacobs, Palos Verdes, CA
Hap Jacobs was born in Los Angeles, CA and
moved to Hermosa Beach in the fourth grade.
Though reluctant to part with his city friends,
he grew to love the beach. Growing up on
The Strand at 30th Street in Hermosa Beach,
Jacobs picked up riding canvas surf mats
filled with air. His first job at age 15
was at a surf rental shop called California
Surfrider, located near the pier. His duties
included inflating surf mats for customers
in the morning, then riding them himself
in the afternoon.
Jacobs’ early days of surfing were some
of the most memorable. Graduating from surf
mats to hollow plywood surfboards, Jacobs
would drag the boards down to the beach
in front of his house. However, these boards
would fill up with water and be a nuisance
to ride. His next board was a balsa redwood
board by Pacific Holmes. Once fiberglass
was introduced, surfers could ride balsa
surfboards sealed with this material. At
the time, he was too young to drive, so
some members of the Palos Verdes Surfing
Club would take him to Palos Verdes Cove
if he promised to stay out of the way and
don’t cause any trouble. Being a tide-sensitive
spot, sometimes the boys would have to wait
out the high tide at nearby Torrance break,
Rat Beach. Then they’d make their way down
the dirt hill to PV Cove, two boards among
every two boys. One would carry the noses
and the other the tails.
In 1951, Jacobs moved to Hawaii where he
joined the Coast Guard and was stationed
on a “buoy-tender” boat. The job title is
rather descriptive of the duties, which
included repairing and replacing buoys for
all the Hawaiian islands. George Downing
was also stationed on the same buoy-tender
boat and the two became good friends. George
would later become instrumental in all beach
activities that grew popular over the years
in Hawaii, such as surfing, paddling and
outrigger-canoeing. Jacobs also befriended
Wally Froiseth and Woody Brown. With the
help of these three experienced island surfers
and board builders, Jacobs began shaping
surfboards, at the time when board builders
in Hawaii shaped pointy, round-bottom, flat
deck boards for Makaha.
During his two-year stint in the islands,
Jacobs met his soon-to-be wife, Patricia
Barrett, who had moved from Monterey Park,
CA to Hawaii. Jacobs and Barrett moved back
to the mainland, and after going together
for a little over a year the two were married
in Santa Barbara, CA in 1954. The newlyweds
decided to stay a few days in Santa Barbara
after the wedding for a honeymoon, until
a surf buddy called Hap to inform him that
a south swell had hit, and the beaches were
breaking. That’s when Hap packed up his
new wife and raced home to catch the surf.
Hap and Pat are still married today.
Renny Yater, Santa Barbara, CA
Reynolds "Renny" Yater was one
of the first real commercial surfboard builders
of the 1950s-a generation that really put
surfing on the map. As the sport of surfing
has continued to grow and flourish throughout
the years, so too has Yater's reputation
as a leading contributor to the surfing
industry. Perhaps even more remarkable than
Yater's early accomplishments has been his
ability to change and grow with the industry,
staying on top of current trends and new
materials and continuing to produce innovative
new boards. In the early 1950s, Yater shaped
and fiberglassed his own boards. During
the mid-5Os, Hobie hired him to glass his
balsa boards in his Dana Point shop. In
1957, he moved over to Dale Velzy's shop
in San Clemente where he began to shape
balsa boards.
In the fall of 1959, Renny opened Yater
Surfboards on Anacapa Street. Here he established
the famous Santa Barbara Surf Shop logo,
an insignia synonymous with Yater surfboards.
In 1961, he moved his shop to Summerland
where it remained until 1964, when zoning
regulations made it impossible to stay.
In 1965, Yater moved his shop to Gutierrez
Street while at the same time opening up
a retail surf shop at 401 State Street which
would be in business until 1971. In 1967,
Yater moved his shaping and glassing facilities
to Gray Avenue.
more shapers coming soon.
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