Gallery: The Fascinating Evolution of the Surfboard
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*Surfing*, a new book out by Taschen, by Jim Heimann, documents the evolution of the sport from its early days. Advances in surfboard design feature prominently. This shot from 1960, of the Jersey Surfboard Club, shows off boards before they started to rapidly shrink in size.
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At Waikiki, in 1929, Tom Blake took this self-portrait with his “quiver” of self-made boards, used for a wide range of wave sizes and swell conditions.
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Up top, a California redwood surfboard from 1920. Below, a Bob Simmons—known as the father of modern surfboard design—board from 1949, made of a polystyrene core laminated with a mahogany veneer and sealed with fiberglass and resin.
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A promotional brochure for surfboard company Pacific System Homes, from 1932. Swastika Surf-Boards, manufactured by Pacific System Homes, adopted the Hindu symbol for God and energy, which signaled good luck, to anyone who recognized it in the first place. After the Nazis appropriated the swastika as a symbol of Aryan purity in the 1930s, the boards were rebranded as “Waikiki Surf-Boards.”
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This spread from a 1937 issue of *Popular Mechanics* shows Blake's lightweight surf-rescue board design, made with modern boatbuilding materials and techniques.
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Waikiki in 1951. Board lockers—part storage facility, part library—quickly became semipublic fixtures on Waikiki’s crowded beaches.
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Joan Crawford on Waikiki beach in 1949.
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The boards shaped by Renny Yater, a Santa Barbara designer, were sought out by the best surfers of the era, and he was renowned as a boardmaker’s boardmaker. This shot is from 1960.
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An advertisement for Bing Surfboards, from1963.
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Duke Kahanamoku was a prestigious big-wave surfer responsible for bringing a good deal of surf culture from Hawaii to southern California. This shot from 1968, taken at Hawaii's Sunset Beach, shows him carrying a shorter board. At the end of the 1960's, boards started getting smaller.
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Surfers and their personalized boards, from the 1971 film *Rainbow Bridge*.
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Australia’s shapers Jim Pollard and Allen Byrne produced the first channel-bottom surfboards in the mid-1970s. Difficult to shape and glass, the lengthwise slots were thought to enhance overall board speed.
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A surfer sunbathing, on Hawaii's North Shore.
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Clark Foam factory, in Laguna Niguel, California, in 1975. In 1958, Gordon Clark and board shaper Hobie Alter refined the secret formula for “blowing” foam blanks in an old garage in remote Laguna Canyon. With a cheap, mass-produced plastic board and a booming teen surf culture, Clark quickly became the “Blank Baron.” Before abruptly shutting down, he supplied 90 percent of the U.S. market.
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A film still from the 2009 movie *The Present* shows off the wide variety of boards that fill the modern-day market.
