Michel Junod
I started surfing in '62. I don't remember them being called pig boards. It was just the way surfboards were built. It all came out of the pig design. Everybody kind of picked up on that. As far as I can remember there were no models there was no individuality, not in the width of noses, not in the tails. All the boards were D fins on the tail. All the rails were 50 50 , they were round. Everything was basically the same.
Mike Black
Flat bottom?
MJ
No, belly bottoms. No body was into flats. The rails got more pinched eventually. The boards had belly in the bottom. As I remember, I have got or I have seen a few of the boards from back then even the pop outs. you see surfing got really popular in '62 '63. That was when it just went crazy. Even Velzy was making the pop outs. The pop out boards had the super round rails. Boards didn't have much dimensional variation or much contour dimensional variation they wrre just these kind of roundy and softy. They had the narrower noses, the wide point was behind the center. You ask the question , "how did it change from there?" every body got into the spot. I think they started thinking ..what can we do to these boards to make them a little more maneuverable? what can we do to make a board better for bigger surf? as soon as you got pigs in bigger surf they were just kind of clunky. they work great in small surf. Eventually the rails got thinned out and the wide point got pushed forward. The nose riding fad hit and everything changed. All I remember is ...you usually bought a surfboard in your area because of the popularity of the board , the guys who rode them and who you were impressed with and who your style masters were. In my area in Santa Monica it was Dave Sweet, Dewey Weber, Con those were the 3 main guys right there. a Jacobs was the first board I bought. I told you the story yesterday. I was really small. I have a picture of me riding this board. I don't have a template of it , but it was this 7'10" 3/ 4 inch red wood 20 inches wide D fin right on the tail. Wood glassed on fin. I traded that board in to the Sweet shop and got an 8'10" . It was so unique. I have never seen anything like that. But again until really '63 boards didn't really start changing. They eventually started getting thinner rails and the wide point moved up a little bit. The nose became a little bit wider.
Mike Black
What interest me about what you got going on is...you know Thomas Campbell is into the pig design and Barry Mcgee is into the pig design. And here you are.
MJ
I remember when I was learned to shape and I was working with Challenger people had a choice between a D fin a skeg or a the dick fin. So you know everybody had that thing. And then all of a sudden the D fin just faded away and then Weber made the hatchet fin and everything got more prolific and more style oriented. I would say a big giant D fin is going to nose ride better than anything.
Mike Black
Yep. you keep the tail down the nose stays up.
MJ
yeah but its harder to turn so it all depends what you are looking for.
Mike Black
What happened. 2 years back if I went into a surf shop and I looked for a modern shaped pig, it was only your boards. Maybe that is because I was around Mollusk. I was around the Pignars. I know Dano had his hog. But I didn't see alot of them. Have you sold a lot of those?
MJ
3 years ago, when Thomas first came to me, we started developing the shape and working with it. The bummer was, i think it was right at Dec. 2005 TC comes to me as says I want a pignar. I say "whats a pignar". how am I supposed to understand what it is with out you telling me what it is? you know? he is not real good at communicating details. he just kind of wants you to think like him. I go "dude, you got to articulate to me what you want done in the shaping room. no body is making foam right now. there are some blanks but nobody has the rocker we need." so we finally had to wait until Aug of '06 that was when US BLANKS got up and running. We could get custom rocker and custom stringers. We finally started making these pignars. That was all that was around as far as knew. Well Thomas had this other Pig board that Dano had made him that is in Sprout. Its that orange board that Devon Howard is riding in Indo. So that board, Thomas was "like this board is unreal!" and we critiqued it we changed this we changed that. you know if I can say that with out being arrogant ..we improved on it. we went you know to that next step. you know Thomas's problem with working with shapers like Dano is ...he goes down there and does something and then has to wait 6 months. Where as we could work every day together. So we got it down. I made my self one and went "wow! these are cool!" I was stoked! They ride different, they nose ride well.
MB
Well thats it. With this article I want to hear about what was going on back then and what is going on today.
MC's saying below that no one was riding pigs mid 90's. Wrong. Velzy (T. Martin ) had reintro'd the pig and was selling them at the Grotto and plenty of folks in south SD county were on them, myself included. It would not have occurred to many of us down here to ride hi pro's. They were for contest folk, the folk that MC hung around I suspect. Tudor rode them reluctantly as did his cadre like Eric S. and Kevin C. Back then if you wanted to advance to the next heat you had to do a floater, that's it, just a floater... anyway Mike the funny thing is how regional surfing is, how tribal really. 6 or 7 years prior to Joel blowing up, longboards were being ridden again, mostly in the summer around PB and The Cliffs and mostly by guys in their 50's. There were a few though in their 20's that dug the aesthetic and quietly did their thing, I'm glad I was one. Good post as usual.
ReplyDeletecheers mike.
ReplyDeleteMike Junod is a true legend. Great Post. yes, I humbly admit I am 4 years late to this...dammit!!
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