You know those pictures of Bunker Spreckels holding that super thick red surfboard?
I found another cool picture of similar boards. Idk how exactly I got to it, cause I was down a major rabbit hole w/ like 15 tabs open, I was looking at the pics of that red Bunker board, but also here I came across Greenough and started reading some stuff about him too kinda right after that.
It’s just weird because that pic is above this article about a Bob Smith/Mr.X that made edge boards in the late 1960’s. Then greenough apparently made ‘Edge Boards’ a year or two after this “Mr. X”, but it seems edge boards are credited to greenough for the most part, and when I search edge boards pics they’re nothing like those thick ones. Was it just a general design that greenough popularized? And I cant seem to find anything else about the Bob guy. But funny, that looks a heck of a lot like greenough on the left.
Anyway what about those thick ones, who was making those? I’d be inclined to think they just pulled some cool pic for the article that might not be totally accurate, but if you look closely second board from the right does seem to have a little step rail like greenough’s edge board design, the green one against the tree too maybe. The article describes boards pretty different to greenough’s though.
Anyone recognize the brand on that blue one? The bunker one and these I think are the only like that I’ve come across. If anyone can point towards more info on the thick ones like who shaped bunker’s board and whatnot that would be super cool cant really find the info.
I know that at least for a short time, there was a crew making the thick ones at Sunset Cliffs in San Diego. Friend going to Cal Western (Cal Wee Wee) had one. I don’t remember any dims but at least 4-5 inches thick and edges all around that could nearly cut your fingers off. Some of them (not my friend’s) had retractable keel fin with handle through to the deck. You could yank the handle, side slip totally finless, then kick it back down for directional stability.
The Surfers Journal did an article on Mr. X and his edge boards a couple of years back, that photo is from the article. At the end of the article, I belive it stated Mr. X is still riding his edge designs in the San Diego area. There was also a photo of him with an updated board with a thruster fin configuration. Try contacting Eric Huffman at Birds Surf Shed, he might know.
There were several people shaping edge boards back in those days. Greenough’s Edge Boards are a completely different animal.
IIRC Vinny Bryant shaped that famous board Bunker rode in Hawaii but the Sunset Cliffs crew in SD were really into the edge boards.
Mr. X was the most widely known shaper of them but there were other people shaping them as well.
In this photo from the SHACC “Go Faster” Exhibit the grey board with foot pocket is an edge board by my friend and neighbor John Warren who attended UCSD in those days, the blue one and the yellow asymetric “Little Wing” board were by Mr.X, IIRC. Behind them all you see the Greenough style edge board ridden by Rastovich.
The wild airbrushed board is an early Hynson downrailer which evolved out of the edge boards and in the foreground you can see a bit of the finless Bing Auga which must qualify as an “edge” board as well.
Detail of the JW fin and edge
Besides Bird, you may want to reach out to Cher Pendarvis who wrote the TSJ article. She’s a wealth of knowledge, especially about the edge board scene having been right in the middle of it. And yes Mr. X is still out there. He and Cher both attended the opening of the exhibit at SHACC .
Good info and jarred my brain… I was rackin’ my brain trying to remember who did Bunker’s boards while reading thru the posts above yours. So many names are escapees these days. Vinny was a good shaper and way ahead of most in his development.
Would someone like to give an explanation of the edge board and why they think they work. I am currently a non- believer. Seems to me that water will wrap around the rail and negate any benefit of a second edge.
There’s 2 different beasties here. One, I guess Greenough’s version(?) has sort of step bottom going rail to rail. Idea is that at speed, it will plane up on the center panel so less wetted surface and therefore faster. On his later kneeboards the outer part of the bottom was angles like a “V” panel so you sort of drop onto a “V” bottom when putting it on edge. The other, Vinnie’s(?) just has pancake flat bottom and razor sharp edge all around for absolute max water release.
The yellow asym in the pic I posted above actually has a heavily concaved bottom but retaining the knife edged rail; it wears a groovy long base keel fin like this one of Nat’s from way back when.
