View sketch of a Bob White X6 dated 1-25-1969
My very first job (in late 60's) was with Bob White Surfboards.
Started as a rail grinder...some glassing...buffing.
A little bit of end stage shaping...my favorite thing to do! Years
later, upon seeing Bob surfing at first street in Va. Beach, I gave
a retrospective apology for ruining the rails on several thousand dollars
worth of surfboards.
Bob set the precedent for innovative and cutting edge board design
with both his production boards and specific models such as the Real McCoy and the X series. Matt Warshaw once contacted me
in an attempt to track down Bob for his entry in the Encyclopedia of Surfing
(Matt was a necessary element of the epic "Riding Giants").
Bob White is surfing royalty, and stands in his individual place as part of surfn' history!
I come from the coastal plain of Virginia...flat terrain...hardly ever snows...
In childhood during winter.....I would crave snow.
...finding any incline I could...just an instinct.
Near age 28 or so....I began to look at skiing magazines.
Winters in coastal Virginia can get very cold....and I cannot enjoy myself surfing while shivering.
I would stop surfing in late October...some years, maybe a few days into November.
My cutoff point was H20 temp of 63 or so...that's with full wetsuit, of course.
An illustration of the human instinct for an incline & snow:
I once filled in for a vacationing employee at Bayside Hospital ER....near Mt. Trashmore in the City of Va.Beach, Va.
A rare snowstorm came....at Trashmore, Humans were using anything and everything possible for snowvehicles.
You would NOT believe the number of serious injuries that came in from sliding down
ole MtTrashmore into fence posts...parked cars.....logs&trees.
I remember one grinning guy came in with a flap of scalp peeled off...skull exposed.
Skiing, for me, now...is NOT a freestyle discipline.
Free skiing has it's moments, I guess.....deepfluffypowdr is fun.
Ski down...ride the lift up...up/down...up/down...Over & oVer again...it began to seriously bore me.
A view of snowboarding:
I may get to it one day.....to me, it's a novelty.
You'd think ...loving surfing as I do, I'd have an affinity for snoboarding....NOT true.
I prefer 2 edges in the snow and independent foot action for the speeds that entertain me, thank you.
I !LOVE! racing snoboarders on a Nastar course.
Sometimes, off the race course, when I'm standing still,
those ratninnies like to whiz close by at high speed.
I rarely see a snoboarder come to an agile stop....they have to weasel down to a slower speed...then stop.
My apologies to the snoboarding community...
A view of ski racing:
...a humbling discipline...no matter how good you may think you are,
there are thousands of people that can beat theheckoutofya. Like tennis....
you do not improve unless you're competing against someone infinitely better than you.
Dual courses are great for pairing up with a competitor you KNOW will beat yoU...
"Spike" at Winter Park Nastar gives a great critique of whatever you're doing wrOng.
My lowest HCP was 9.48 at Breckenridge, CO on March 15, 2004...no platinum division at that time.
I finally broke the platinum barrier with a 13.32 HCP - 2.29.2008 at Winter Park, CO.
That's my ONLY platinum so far...slipped back to gold next race day.
Then slipped back to silver on the following race day....ouch...
Note: These are not consecutive race days.
A Nastar handicap is a fairly exact measure of ability.
The 2009-10 NASTAR nationals is at Winter Park, CO.
The race course is a part of Colorado I love...other than, of course, Dinosaur Ridge!
It's also a Winter Olympic Year - Vancouver 2010!
Needless to say...the Winter Games are my favorite. Extremely cool medals for Vancouver!!!
In the summer, my parents would take me to 45th St. at Virginia Beach at least twice a week since age 5.
At age 12-13...I realized my true purpose for the sea...WAVES / SURFING!!!
....and with the onset of adolescence I became immersed in SURFING culture.
It overcame me...I couldn't think of anything else.
I remember my first look at the ocean at night as an aspiring surfer....moonlight on swells...
...the passion and the romance that surfaced in me was overwhelming.
My very first job was with Bob White Surfboards.
It was then that the now famous WaveRidingVehicles porpoise logo was created.
Now...living in an inland hell (Colorado)....I know my days away from the sea are numbered...there's nothing like surfn'.
...don't care for the inland culture...miss surfing too much.
The Atlantic ocean is a closed chapter.....the Pacific is next.
Anyone home in the olympic organizing committee(s)?!
......don't thinksooOo.
It is an absurdity to not include surfing in the summer olympic games.
With the amount of funding that shows up for the olympics...
can you imagine the incredible size / design wave facility each hosting city will get?!
Synchronized Swimming? Water Polo? Diving? Rowing? Sailing?
Someone help me to understand.....
Why isn't the world's ultimate summer sport in the summer games?
The weather, swell, geographical location is NOT a factor
in what city hosts the summer games. RIO got it for 2016...and of course, it's a GREAT surfing city...
Check the links below for examples of wave generating technology:
Of course, surfing competition is ruled by the judges.
I'm disturbed that the real purse money doesn't exist for surfing. A.S.P. athletes are as impressive as any on eArth.
Wheretheheck is the $1.2 mil. purse? (as in tennis, golf, and certain team sports)...
Lives are on the line at Teahupoo and Pipeline.
A contest at either of these 2 places should have a $1.2 million purse.
It
began for me in late summer of 1962...A handful of grommets at Churchland
High School (Class of '66) would embrace the sport as nothing else before.
Every Spring my grades would drop...Surfing had an effect on my academic
discipline. Wayne Clark, Les Brinkley, Lynn Usher, Randy Carter, myself...
Rob Beedie (Global Surf Network) and his bunch were just across the Elizabeth River at Woodrow
Wilson High doing the same thing. Note: m51.com digital media supplied 120+ minutes of Oahu footage without soundtrack
as a backdrop for the GSN Surf Film Festival at Old Dominion U.'s University Theatre in Norfolk, Va. on July 14th, 2007.
We emulated the guys at the coastline who could get more time in the water.
Bruce Brown's Epic, "The Endless
Summer", was a major influence to say the least...
I lived 26 miles inland from the Atlantic....just far enough from the coast to really enjoy the thrill of approaching hurricanes.
Late August, September, October, and early Nov.....change of seasons...water still warm...what a wonderful time of year at the coastline.
I'd follow the storms on TV, and zip to the coast when Virginia was in the "wave window".
Hurricanes are like celebrations...holidays....when a storm was coming, it was time to celebrate this force of nature.
Note: I was arrested on October 5th, 1993 for "celebrating" hurricane Emily as she passed by offshore Va.
A teen drowned, and the idiot VaB 2nd precinct police CLOSED the SEA to humans.....
....and guess who was out surfing......
I finally came in......police bullhorns and whistles...we could barely hear them being 300+ meters offshore....the sound of the surf muted the dumbAss horns and whistles.
When the surf is good, things like that on the beach are very easy to ignore.
I remember walking up the beach to the police jeeps...
they put all the boards in a pile as the "arrests" proceeded and the number of spectators and surfing criminals on the beach grew.....
Plenty of news cameras from all over the country...anchor persons sticking microphones up to my face.....
Questions like "Is it dangerous out there?" or "Do you know someone drowned?"
About 30 or so were arrested that day.
I'm sorry the little guy drowned....but, ya know....it's that kind of sport.
If you're in surf beyond your ability....what in the hell are you doing out there?...
If you don't have the stamina to get through the impact zone, you don't ride waves that day.
If you make it out by luck, not stamina...and you only have a couple years (or less) experience...you can get in trouble.
In Hawaii, and many tropical locales....the deeper water in the coral channels allow almost anyone to paddle out....
you can paddle out in 15 ft surf and not get your hair wet........
Of course, I appealed the court case, and it wound up costing $100. They deemed it illegal to surf that day and I was guilty.
The Virginia Beach city legislature does not behave as if there is a body of water
several thousand miles wide and a few miles deep in their back yard....
....they just think of it as a tourist attraction....they didn't even have a longboard at each lifeguard stand in and before 1993.......
I wonder if it is still like that?!
Heartland Bashing:
Now, in Colorado, I'm landlocked....I must travel for surf. I don't care for the inland culture.
I see a fair number of surfing related t-shirts here...many here don't know the history
of the companies represented on their clothing. I worked for a year or so at Blockbuster,
and tried to divert those wearing surfing logos to "Riding Giants", "Step into Liquid", and "the Endless Summer 2".
Most didn't have a clue.....there were wisecracks from resenting parents or young twerps
trying to be cool and impress grrlfriends. LongmOnt, CO is small town, trite America...nothing more.
I have lived too long far from the glory, freedom, and mystery of the sea and it's culture.
I've heard the Front Range described as "a shelter from the intellectual storm at the coast".
Photo
from 1966 Churchland High yearbook "The Trucker".
On the left is Dewey Weber Team
member - Wayne Clark.
That's
my tri-stringer Hobie on the roof.
Back to the history....Those
were the days of Western Auto at 17th Street (Dewey Weber Retailer at
that time - NOW selling modern
day Webers AND Hobies!, Surfboards by Don, Smith and Holland Surf
Shop, Pete Smith's Surf Shop, Butch's Surf Shop, Al's Surf Shop, Harris
Surf Shop, and of course, Bob White Surfboards and the origins of WaveRidingVehicles.
Va.
Beach Surf Stars/Celebrities/Dignitaries: Bob White, WRV CEO Les Shaw,
Bill Frierson, Ronnie
Mellott, Chip McQuilkin, Jimbo Brothers, Fred Grosskreutz, Jimmy Parnell,
Pete Smith, Bob Holland, Sr. (and 3 offspring Honey, Johnny, and Bobby...competitive/accomplished surfers all),
Marty Keesecker....I'll think of more eventually.
The most famous surfer ever to come from the Beach is, of course, Wes
Laine... in 1983: 9th...1984: 11th...1985: 9th in the A.S.P.
ratings!
Wayne Clark was the first in our group to master the sport and do well
in competition - on the Dewey Weber
team.
The Weber Team Jacket was toooo cool!!! I was envious...
I later
made the Jacobs team...but never placed in a contest while on the team
- Usually always advanced from the initial/second round of heats.
In association with Jim Martinette (Saltaire Communications),
m51.com wrote the code and rendered graphics for Wave Riding Vehicle's
first two years on the Web.
Jim's son, Fleet, was a WRV sponsored competiter.
In the early days, "Martinette's" was our surf spot at Sandbridge,
a residential beach just south of the resort area in Virginia Beach, Va.
I took the liberty of posting this photo of Tom,
in memory of my time with him.
The photo came from the Surfer's
Journal article by Glenn Hening
on the founding of the Surfrider Foundation.
The Journal is our sport's grandest showcase
of global surfing culture and history.
It was the start of the Surfrider Foundation on the east coast. GSN's Rob Beedie set it all up and made the arrangements.
Surfing
is completely a "freestyle" discipline...the exactness of winning
(as in Ski Racing, Sailboard
Racing, or Motorsports) doesn't
exist... they just don't race surfboards, though some may choose to differ
with that statement.
My best result was a 2nd in the East
Coast Surfing Championships - 1973. It was/is too much fun just being
a threat.... ...haven't been in a competition since 1988.
Hawaii visit - 5.2004:
On Oahu's North Shore in springtime to find out if I can improve my surfing
while living in Colorado. This visit I had chest to waayy overhead surf...perfect
to take it up a notch. It took just an hour or 2 to warm up. It was my
second surfing in about 9 months. Not too bad...felt like I was maintaining
ability.
Surfed at Ehukai Beach Park
just a couple hundred meters north of Pipeline. Also surfed Laniakea, Kammy's, paddled
out at Sunset a few times and was blown away watching triple overhead
sets. Laniakea is always a good bet for surf in the "off season"....I love Chun's, but didn't make the stop there this visit.
Today
I ride a prototype 8' Tim Nolte epoXy hYbrid board that is the best in
all these years. The shape/weight distribution enable it to turn almost
too easily. The latest refinement is still not perfect, but it's very
close. The Merrick Epoxies I saw at the North Shore Surf.n.Sea
are my first choice for lightness construction, though I didn't like the
shapes available.
Talk this spring out in the water and in shops: Epoxy yes/no? It's been
yes for me for last 20 yrs....but that was on the east coast. Evaluation:
the board rocks.
m51.com
surf culture acknowledgement:
For many, Surfing is Earth's most fun / most intense mating display.
Just a few notes on entering the food chain in the sea as a surfer...I
do not ride waves alone... sometimes even if 2 others are out, I won't
go surfing at that spot. Call me a whimp, whatever...I want several more
buffet items on the menu for predators, thank you.
These are truly Earth's wildest creatures. Keeping a fleet of helicopters
in the air, or implementing shark nets may help a bit. Overfishing offshore
could be a factor. My old friend Les
at Sunset Beach, Oahu states that when there is an attack/death, the community
comes out with a barrage of hundreds of baited hooks, and they usually
always come up with something. Wvec's footage of a shark from the chopper
was impressive....as was the family home video footage of the dorsal fin
approaching the young grrrls frolicking in the shorebreak! This
home video footage does not exist on the wvec.tv website today - these extinct
links may indicate it is in their archives. Theatrics from the media/city
legislatures does help ease the stress a bit, I guess.
If you can handle it....this is video of an actual attack
by TWO Great Whites in South Africa.....compliments of Surfer Magazine.
This is as scary as it gets, folks...NO blood in this clip...the sharks, I'm guessing were juveniles.
....of course....they had to add dramatic music.
South Africa has such GREAT surf...Jeffreys, etc....but the water is cold,
and great whites frequent the region to the point that great white tourism is booming!
Here's one of many White Shark tourism companies in the area: Africa Shark Dive Safaris
One last comment on these creepy cartilaginous cruisers....there are NO rules...
The ONLY thing you can "assume" about them is.....they may, or may not, be hungry....
Many will tell you that when you see dolphins, then there aren't sharks.
NOT true....there are NO standards of behavior....they wander anywhere...there are sharks in Washington DC in the Potomac River.
Any body of water attached to the sea will have sharks.
Hawaii 04 visit (con't):
Takes so long to navigate through the Honolulu traffic to get to the
surf...always fun to seedasights in Waikiki...parking?...it's difficult
in Waikiki area.......easy public parking around the marina at Ala Moana...long
paddle out....making sure I didn't get hit while paddling out, or take
off in front of anyone..... Ettiquette is important....they will paddle
over and punch you out / drown you. This is a state saturated in surfing culture.
You can go into a barber shop, a hardware store...somewhere on the wall surfing is depicted.
You must be respectful to those already riding a wave.....if you're cocky.....pissy....arrogant...you're in for a
very rude awakening.
Such a thrill to see that coast line and impressive grouping of hotels...surfin'
in Town.
Back in the country:
A ten minute walk from oldfriend Les/Debbie's home and I'm at one of my favorite funwaves on the N.Shore.
- Kammieland....just across the bay from Sunset Beach...but totally
different wave shape and size....peaky / rolling / smaller fun waves
at Kammie's!
I'm told the old men on the North Shore like Kammie's.
After hearing about the movie and website on a local news broadcast,
I e.Mailed thesurferking.com in hopes of getting an opportunity to work
with a movie production company.
The release of the DVD was August 21, 2007 (US and Canada).
The International title is "Summer Dreams".
It was weird fun riding waves in a wave park in Federal Heights, CO.
There was a parasitic policeOfficer near WaterWorld nabbing movie crew
with speeding tickets at 5am every morning....of course, I was no exception.
It's
a teen comedy with a great cast.
Post DVD release note:
oK.....surfers say the moOvie sucked.....which I expected to hear.
It was hard work with very long hours.
The film was meant to be light fare for teens and young adults....not a real surfin' moOvie.
Though filmed in Colorado, the workflow was exactly like any feature production.
It was a great, high stress, learning experience.
Cerina's latest film: Everybody Wants to Be Italian
Above is a photo of a whale skeleton at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.
This is a chance to present a theory on why whales strand themselves from time to time.
Notice the pectoral fins....you'll see phalanges (fingers)....I think cetaceans are trying to walk.
Possibly an ancient instinct within them still surfaces with some frequency.
All cetaceans have this skeletal structure in their pectorals.
......don't "believe" in evolution?...aside from being an idiot, you are on the wrong network of web pages.
The director of the Virginia Marine Science Museum,
(now known as the Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center),
told me he has believed this "migration to land" theory for many years.
I truly love these mammals. I have vivid memories of paddling over a wave and seeing a fleet of young
Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphins in the face of the next wave...there must have been close to twenty of them.
I knew they were going to hit me....but they all darted around me...it was semi-scary.
One of my favorite semi-scary things to do is...when I see their dorsals,
I put my head completely under water and make a squeaking sound....
within seconds...they appear right there near me...having a look both above water and beneath....
...wondering what I'm up to.
As curious, friendly, and intelligent as cetaceans appear to be...
...anything that big in the water near me is spooky.
!
Hui - Hawaiian word for "club" or "together"
Mellott Custom Surfboards - Old friend Ronnie Mellott
