If a picture paints a thousand words, then it should be possible to tell the story of this Lightning Bolt ad, circa 1972, in a thousand words or so. According to Sam George: “There were no Lightning Bolt Surfboard ads in the mags until they licensed […]
All posts tagged “Bruce Brown”

#4 // PART 2 – THE SHORTBOARD RESONATIONS
Jock Sutherland described a Pipeline tube as “just like the Pope’s living room,” and Tom Curren described Gerry Lopez as “Like an archer pulling back and letting the arrow fly.” Something about surfing Pipeline makes a surfer eloquent and pithy. Out of the 1960s and […]

#4 // Part 1 – THE SHORTBOARD REVOLUTION
A Gerry Lopez Lightning Bolt Pipeline gun circa 1975. From the collection of John Mazza. The Shortboard Revolution was bubbling through the first half of the 1960s, but at the 1966 World Contest at Ocean Beach, San Diego, David Nuuhiwa put his foot on the nose […]

#3 // DA BULL AT SECOND REEF PIPELINE
One of the most famous photos ever taken: John Severson’s portrait of Greg Noll wearing his custom-made, M Nii, black and white striped, jailhouse surf trunks and leaning against his 11’ 8” elephant gun. This was November of 1964, a time when the inner reef […]

#2 // THE EARLY PIPE MAESTROS
Surfing Hollow Days is Bruce Brown’s 1962 surf movie which begins with a moving image of a big, clean, sunny, hollow, left-breaking wave. The waves peels, closes out a bit and then opens up into a big tube that ejaculates a lot of spit. A […]

#1 // NEIGHBORLY BUSINESS :: AN HOMAGE TO HOBIE ALTER
In 1961 Hobie Alter and Dick Metz jumped on a DC 4 and flew to Honolulu, where Alter hatched the idea of opening a Hobie retail shop in the Hawaiian Islands. Dick Metz thought that was a great idea until Hobie made Metz an offer […]