Aloha and Welcome to this LEGENDARY SURFERS chapter on 1930s and ‘40s surfer and shaper Bud Morrissey. It is largely drawn from an article I wrote for The Surfer's Journal in the late 2010’s, entitled “Flat Bottoms and Parallel Sides: The Design Contributions of Buddy Morrissey”.
Between the pine/redwood planks of surfing’s resurgence at the beginning of the 1900s, and the emergence of the Malibu Board in the late 1940s, surfboards developed from simple slabs to hydro dynamically designed “surfing machines.” It was nearly a half-century-long process and stuck in the middle of it was the 1930s surfboard shaper of choice: Bud Morrissey. More than any other shaper of his time, Morrissey contributed design elements “The Father of the Modern Surfboard” Bob Simmons would use to create his advanced designs; one of which – with further refinements by Joe Quigg – became The Malibu Board. Both Simmons and Quigg were influenced by Morrissey's flat bottoms and parallel sides.
“As a kid, I got to go down with my family to Balboa Island and the Corona del Mar area,” Bud told surfing historian Gary Lynch in an interview in 1988, a number of years before Bud’s passing.
“Going out the bay, I saw guys surfing at old Corona del Mar… that looked like a great deal.” Of course, like many Southern California kids of his time, he also saw pictures and newsreels of people surfing. His first hands-on experience riding waves, though, was riding rented kayaks and getting “all screwed up.”
“First board I got was a paddleboard that my cousin and I made. I’m trying to think of a guy’s name – he just had some blueprints – Bob French.”
These were Tom Blake paddleboard diagrams. Although Bud at one point referred to French as “a bit of a screw-up,” he was a naval architect at one time and became an innovator of internal ribbing for paddleboards. His late 1930s paddleboards were some of the finest designed during that period, as testified by the fact that one of his original boards even won a paddleboard race in the 1980s.
“My cousin and I just got the plans from him,” Bud said of French. “Very detailed blueprints. That was the first board. 1934. We went down State Beach, first day, and I got bashed in the head. I guess it wasn’t long after that that I saw the regular type of surfboards. I went to all the different surfing places. Palos Verdes was predominantly paddleboards. I was probably one of the first ones there to use a square-tail – or whatever you want to call it [a solid wood board].
“Also, one of my school buddies – this is going back to junior high school – was a brother of Meyers Butte [pronounced “buddy”]. We were interested in hot rod cars… Meyers Butte was Pacific System Homes. They built prefab houses. Meyers Butte never became much of a surfer, but he was very interested in it [surfing]… Pacific System Homes is the place where they made most of the [solid wood] blanks. Lorrin [Harrison] got his blanks from there and shaped ‘em. That was a natural tie-in for me.
“Also, going over to Catalina, we did a lot of aquaplaning – the old fashioned aquaplane. Just a flat board.
“My first plank was a Christmas present. I don’t know who shaped it; possibly Lorrin. There was an old guy named ‘Dutch’ somebody who was not a surfer but shaped boards at Pacific Systems. That was Meyers’ hobby, too.
“The balsa wood came from General Veneer. They imported the balsa wood, then Meyers got it. Then we went to the balsa wood boards. Then – I imagine Meyers was the one who came up with the balsa board with redwood rails. You know, redwood nose and redwood tail piece and some stringers. Then we went to pure balsa. Oh, they were so light compared to what we’d been using! That was way before glassing [fiberglass]. But, the damn balsa boards would just get chewed apart, you know, in the rocks, in rocky areas – Palos Verdes, for one.
“I went to Hawai’i first time in 1936. They were still riding without a fin – Hawaiian-style redwoods. I made one of those. They did very badly in cold water. Then, Meyers built a lot of redwoods like that [possibly pointing to a balsa/redwood combination], probably before the balsa really came in. I went back to redwoods, then; like that [pointing to another board], chambered. They were doweled.”
Back in the 1930s, most guys made their own boards, but it was generally considered that if you wanted a better board, you needed to get one made by someone with a proven track record of successful boards. Recalling the main shapers of his day, Bud noted Johnny Stinton of Santa Monica, Lorrin “Whitey” Harrison of Laguna Beach and himself.
“I shaped boards for different guys… dozens.
“What I went to was a flat bottom and parallel sides. I’m pretty sure I introduced that. Absolutely flat bottoms. Lots of them [at that time] were rounded bottoms. My idea was – with no engineering [background] or anything – they [the boards at the time] were just kinda pushing sideways all the time. Parallel sides would keep ‘em straight and flat bottoms were like boat bottoms.”
The best example of a Morrissey-shaped chambered redwood – possibly the only surviving Morrissey chambered – is the board held in the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center (SHAAC) collection, a gift from William C. Janss, who later in his life owned the Sun Valley Ski Resort. The board is 11’4” x 21.5” x 3.75” and weighs in at 78 pounds.
“Bill took this board on the… Lurline to Hawaii in 1939,” Barry Haun of SHACC told me, “surfed it there, then brought it back to the Mainland and later had it in his home in Sun Valley, Idaho. It is one of the first boards to have a fin made of aluminum (only 1”deep).”
Bill Janss recalled the board being built sometime around 1934. However, it was most likely shaped sometime afterwards; probably between 1936-1939, after Morrissey was fully exposed to Tom Blake’s hollow board designs with transverse ribbing. Janss wrote that the board was built to surf Malibu, Palos Verdes and San Onofre. It was ridden at Malibu, Palos Verdes, San Onofre and at Waikiki – Queens, First Break, Public Baths and Castle (Steamer Lane). “Size of waves approximately 20-25 feet. At the time I thought 30-35 feet or more.”
The board is a hollowed redwood laminate with later modifications like a two inch reduction in length (original was 11’6”) and a metal skeg extrusion on the bottom toward the tail. Like other boards of that era, it was typically carried on the shoulder somewhat perpendicular to the ground. Janss remembers carrying the board sometimes a fair distance, like from the cliff road to the beach at Palos Verdes.
The Janss/Morrissey board consists of five air cells, three ¼” horizontal wooden struts for support during construction and strength during hard use. After the board was originally shaped, it was broken apart so that the air pockets could be created and the struts added, then it was reassembled. The board was sealed with 3-to-4 coats of Val spar varnish. The “price from my companion designer/builder,” wrote Janss, “was $30 FOB.”
The board was well cared for and even “wrapped in beach towels from the Royal Hawaiian in Waikiki. It was varnished and sanded every two years and shipped in a wooden crate yearly to Waikiki. It was a charmed board, as it went over a few coral reefs and finally just arrived from Hawaii [one time] with no wrapping.”
“Main accident to board was in late 30’s when Dick Ince (father was producer Tom Ince who died under mysterious conditions in Catalina Harbor near William Randolph Hearst’s yacht) pearled into Public Bath Reef. Nose reworked locally by a Japanese cabinet maker who copied triangular design... Other damage occurred from storage and bad handling at Duke’s restaurant.
“DAY OF FAME: Was surfing with Duke and Morrissey at Public Baths and got caught in 10’ wave. Board washed over coral reef. It was a long swim to reach a narrow channel through reef. Duke paddled up on his Blake-built koa paddle board (160 pounds, 16 feet long and hollow). Duke took me on tandem and we caught smaller wave that deposited us on reef. I said, ‘I’m out a here,’ and Duke said to stay put and we would catch next wave in across the reef. We did that and I recovered board – no damage – and returned to Public Baths Surf.”
Bill Janss, himself, had begun surfing in the “Santa Monica area, until 1933 when I teamed up with Buddy daily after school. Each weekend we would be at Malibu, Palos Verdes, Long Beach, Storm Channel and San Onofre.” He remembered notable surf sessions with Tommy Holmes and Bob Sides “on reef off Santa Monica Canyon in the early days. Spent a day with Tony Guererro (Santa Monica Beach Club life guard), Duke Kahanamoku and my brother Ed (he owned the car)… surfed at Balboa Storm Channel (Corona del Mar)…”
When he went to Hawai’i sometime after 1936, Janss “started surfing Waikiki... After a year we ventured out past Public Baths and worked Castle Surf which came up two to three times during the summer. Only companions out there were Duke K., Tom Blake, Tarzan Smith and Buddy Morrissey. Sometimes it was quite lonely for the two of us. Our surfing spot could be set by triangulation with objects on shore.”
“We had a one bedroom apartment (could sleep 3) opposite Queens in back of Piggly Wiggly Market, with monthly rental of $35… Our attire was: a pair of shorts with one pocket (for paraffin wax) plus jockey shorts.”
Janss described the way in which they turned a surfboard back then: “Turning – combination of leaning board and dragging foot. Foot was lodged against board, board was rocked back to help board change direction. Body position moved forward on wave to increase speed. Board leaned into wave to increase speed. Hip action helped in turning. Moved back on board when turning.”
The problem with turning a surfboard is what led Tom Blake, in 1934, to invent the surfboard skeg – or, what we now commonly call the “fin.” In commenting about the first fin on a surfboard, Bud Morrissey commented that “Like any invention, several people come upon the idea [more or less] at the same time.”
About his own first application of a skeg to a surfboard, Bud said: “You’ve heard lots about [Miki Dora’s step father] Gard Chapin and you’ve heard the term huli. That’s what we used to call a board without a fin and a very steep wave that tails pretty good. That’s a huli.
“Gard and I were out one day. We had talked about, ‘God, what we gonna do about this huli shit?’ And I said, ‘Gard, I got an idea. Let’s go on the beach.’ We found an old – oh, like an orange crate – that had some pieces of wood [I thought I could use]. We knocked off a piece with a rock and then hammered it into the boards… That did the trick, yeah.
“Then, I made a very similar design, but deeper, probably only an inch and a half long. There were a couple of reasons for that. Stickin’ it in, in those days – there were convertibles, cars with rumble seats. You’d put the boards in the rumble seat. The fin of today would have been in the way horribly… That was a part of the evolution of it.”
“I made some,” Bud said kind of chuckling about fins, “out of aluminum – T-sections of aluminum. It came in a T-shape. I used that for a while until I just caught holy hell at Waikiki because they were dangerous. Guys would say, ‘Hey, you’re gonna kill somebody with that.’ So, I went back to wood. Actually, the aluminum did have very sharp edges and could have hurt somebody. But, that’s the only other material. They weren’t dynamically shaped.”
As for materials and weight, “I had some solid redwoods [weighing] as much as 120 pounds… I think I got the idea of cedar; a lighter wood; got Meyers to [glue me up some]. Solid cedars came in at 80-85 pounds, depending on the size of the board you used. Eleven feet, six inches was pretty standard [for length]… Then went back to chambering… [redwood boards] made out of 1 x 4’s, glued together. They’d come out 80-85 pounds… Balsas were real floaters. They’d come out at 50 [pounds] or less.”
“I shaped most of ‘em right here,” he said chuckling in his home on Olympic Boulevard in Los Angeles. “I just shaped, is what I did. Meyers Butte would, you know, band-saw ‘em out for me. I used to get hell as a kid – balsa shavings blowing down the street,” he said laughing. “I used a hatchet, a draw shave, a plane – then, just sand it.”
In addition to Bill Janss, Bud’s friends included Gardner Lippincott, Bob Sides (pronounced “cy-dez”), Brian Janda – “a haoli from the coast, but also member of the Hawaiian Beach Patrol” – Tommy Holmes, Bob Butts, Danny Alexander, Woody Brown – “Something else!” – Dale Velzy – “Dale’s a real character… The Hawk!” – and Tom Blake. “Tom Blake really coached me, really helped me… very positive input.”
According to E.J. Oshier, a regular at both the Palos Verdes Cove and San Onofre, Bud Morrissey was among San O’s top surfers in the 1940s. They were: “Lorrin Harrison, Barney Wilkes [doing dentistry in San Clemente so he could be near ‘Nofre], Benny Merrill [San Clemente Van & Storage, pre-war], Opai [Tom Wert], Bud Morrissey.”
Morrissey “was quite a guy, recalled E.J. “We were friends, but not close friends. He was a little different. He could have been in the Palos Verdes Surfing Club, but he just didn’t care to join. He was just a different type of person, but a nice guy!
“He developed – right after the war – that parallel sides solid board that enabled him to slide at an angle across soup, which none of the rest of us guys could do on the big old boards. We just kind of marveled. A lot of guys didn’t like Buddy. I liked him, but a lot of ‘em didn’t because he was a little different – you might say ‘snooty’ in some respects [high brow, better than thou]. His father had been a Hollywood producer/director and had a lot of money and this kind of thing.
“Anyway, Buddy Morrisey and Opai were very close chums and they’d be together at ‘Nofre a lot. And we’d all be out surfing together.”
When one looks at photographs of the 1930s and notes the changes in shape that solid and hollow surfboards took over the course of the decade, Bud’s parallel sides and flat bottom influences can be seen as a transformative plan shape by decade’s end. The period just before World War II was when Bud considered he was at the height of his art.
Coincidentally, this was the time when he married the top woman surfer of the decade, Mary Ann Hawkins. By the mid-1940s, Bud’s influence as a shaper would be felt in the surfboard’s next progression at the hands of Bob Simmons.
“I think we exchanged ideas,” Bud told Gary Lynch about his interaction with Simmons. “We both contributed to each other’s ideas. His boards, I feel, were sort of a take off on mine, only he did the spoon nose which sounded like a hell of a good idea and it turned out to be that way. The top of boards started to be shaped at that point.”
ENDIT
Credits
Photo credits: ©2004 Guy Motil.
Misc: Surfing Heritage and Culture Center (SHAAC), Spencer Croul, Gary Lynch, Barry Haun and The Surfer's Journal.
No comments:
Post a Comment