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| 223138 | 11440 | Molded, Reverse Engineered, Handshaped by One Only...WHAT IS ACCEPTABLE TO YOU? | 58 | Bruce Fowler | Oct 12, 2021 | 2021-10-12T12:10:36-0400 | So in reading the last several comments, maybe we have to ask what constitutes a "pop out"? Is it Reynolds Yater using milled/machined blanks of his Yater Spoons? Or is a pop out a Firewire or Surftech? The different methods of making a surfboard now widely available upon us include vacuum bagging which largely came over from sailboard production. As one of the main custom sailboard shapers in the 1980's, I saw how the sport of windsurfing & the industry evolved. I was building the "Ferraris" with other guys like Bruce Jones, Ed Angulo, the Naish family, Craig Maisonville, Bob Dill, Eric Voight, Gary Swanson, Dave Johnson, Jon Price, Topper, and Steve Seebold. The heavy, flimsy rotomolded "Windsurfers" that pounded & vibrated in anything over 3 knots served the purpose of getting people started in a sport that had many false starts before people in the skiing industry got involved and told Hoyle & Schweitzer "you're never going to attract people to buy into the sport when all they see is Mike Waltze jumping a wave in "Surfer Magazine". Sure, people think wow, bitchen, but I could never do that " They knew what they were talking about. I was an active snow skier, and I might not have ever gotten into the sport had these same people not have the insight to attract throngs of new snow skiers thru a learning program they introduced known as "GLM" aka "Graduated Length Method". Accomplished skiers HATED "GLM" because rhe shorter, easier to learn on skis cut the mountain up hideously. Their only refuge was to ski the advanced runs that Beginner & Intermediates wouldn't dare to tackle until later. Their influence sent Hoyle & Schweitzer back to Con, who created their first Windsurfers per their design. As two surfing engineers working in Long Beach, they arrived upon creating a board that they could affix a sail to when they got off work and the surf was blown out. The new beginner board was much wider with a very stable bottom they named a "Star" board which instilled confidence for beginners. The ski influence also brought in a certification program like they offered at the ski resorts for instructors giving lessons. They built "simulators" on the sand that you would have a section of board with the universal, mast, and sail to reckon with while instructors guided you what to do. Windsurfing had so many false starts. I'm sure some of you still remember those little quarter page ads "Ride a Windsurfer" in "Surfer Magazine"? What caused the sport to finally catalyze in the United States was when a friend of H&S that lived in France, said "let me see what I can do with it here in Europe". It went bonkers, it wasn't long before everyone was windsurf ing Europe. I remember interviewing Warren Miller for his newest Ski Movie, and when I called him up, he had just come in from windsurfing. He told me "while filming my new movie, I saw 5,000 people windsurfing a lake in Switzerland...". Maybe that one time Canadian hockey player looking for a revenue stream and hooking up with a Taiwanese factory owner to create Wavestorm is synonymous with the Windsurfer story, at least in part. I mean, surfing was already here, but was the sport in decline as kids started getting into sooo many other activities, or did Morey's Boogie Board pave the ways to those hideous low performance Morey Doyles, then improved Mason & Smith's and eventually to Wavestorm and beyond? As a designer I look at it as a means to an end. Different materials and methods of construction are merely details surrounding the means to an end. Or are they? If there is a subculture or segment of our society actively making a living or some kind of gainful employment from producing the sports equipment we consider & prescribe to, how responsible are we in the choices we make and reinforce through our patronage? The history and road traveled by Windsurfer, Morey Boogie, Wavestorm, as well as Surftech and eventually Firewire maybe provide a road map as to what we should expect. I shaped prototype sailboards for some of the larger sailboard companies..... was paid really well for it, but by 1988 they started having me paint the team riders boards all white or with the same color graphics as their pop out models. The pop outs were getting progressively lighter and stiffer as each year passed, and it became clear that the big boys were getting ready to eclipse us custom builders with their new improved product line which they could dominate the magazines with their big budget advertising clout. The last morning I did anything for one of those companies, I went into my shop, "The Surfing Underground", shaped the last two prototypes they had contracted me to do, then left by noon because the wind was up at Jalama. I had tried (again) to negotiate royalties on the designs which they politely refused me (once again) but did honor our deal of paying me $2500 per design. Sometimes when you hit an end, it's just a new beginning. |