Aloha and Welcome to this short chapter in the LEGENDARY SURFERS Collection about the first two fiberglassed boards. One is well known, well documented, and actually a paddleboard. The first one – a surfboard – is virtually unheard of, with scant documentation.
Pete Peterson is generally credited with having constructed the first fiberglass paddleboard in the Santa Monica area in June 1946. The first actual fiberglass surfboard that we know of belonged to Olympic swimmer Jamison Handy just prior to the U.S. entry into World War II.
To better understand the two boards relative to each other and the new technology, let’s look at how fiberglass and resin began:
FIBERGLASS & RESIN
Glass fibers have been produced for centuries, but the earliest patent was awarded to the Prussian inventor Hermann Hammesfahr (1845–1914) in the U.S. in 1880.
Mass production of glass strands was accidentally discovered in 1932 when Games Slayter, a researcher at Owens-Illinois, directed a jet of compressed air at a stream of molten glass and produced fibers. A patent for this method of producing glass wool was first applied for in 1933. Owens joined with the Corning company in 1935 and the method was adapted by Owens Corning to produce its patented "Fiberglas" (spelled with one "s") in 1936. Originally, Fiberglas was a glass wool with fibers entrapping a great deal of gas, making it useful as an insulator, especially at high temperatures.
A resin suitable for combining with fiberglass to create a strong composite material was developed in 1936 by DuPont, transforming glass wool from a pure thermal insulator into a high-strength structural material.
With the combination of fiberglass and resin, the gas content of the material was replaced by plastic. This reduced the insulation properties to values typical of the plastic, but now for the first time, the composite showed great strength and promise as a structural and building material. Many glass fiber composites continued to be called "fiberglass" (as a generic name) and the name was also used for the low-density glass wool product containing gas instead of plastic.
Ray Greene of Owens Corning is credited with producing the first composite boat in 1937, but did not proceed further at the time because of the brittle nature of the plastic used. In 1939 the Soviet Union was reported to have constructed a passenger boat of plastic materials, and the United States a fuselage and wings of an aircraft.
In 1942, American Cyanamid developed the first direct ancestor of modern polyester resins using peroxide curing systems, which accelerated widespread commercial and wartime manufacturing.[1]
Enter Jamison Handy.
JAM HANDY
Henry Jamison "Jam" Handy (1886-1983) was an American Olympic breaststroke swimmer, water polo player, and founder of the Jam Handy Organization (JHO), a producer of commercially sponsored motion pictures, slidefilms (later known as filmstrips), trade shows, industrial theater and multimedia training aids. Credited as the first person to imagine distance learning, Handy made his first film in 1910 and presided over a company that produced an estimated 7,000 motion pictures and perhaps as many as 100,000 slidefilms before it was dissolved in 1983.
Handy competed in the 1904 Olympics in St. Louis, where he placed 3rd in the 440-yard breaststroke, winning the bronze medal. The distance had rarely been swum in Olympic competition and there were originally few entrants. Handy decided to participate shortly before the event, and in the final heat touched just an instant before Georg Hoffmann of Germany, who placed fourth. Handy placed sixth in the 880-yard freestyle, and in non-medal events, placed 2nd in the 880 yard handicap, and third in the one mile handicap.
Handy was the American Athletic Union (AAU) long distance swim champion for three years beginning in 1907, and won national championships in all three strokes, prior to the introduction of the butterfly. As a noted innovator in improving stroke methodology, he was one of the first swimmers to use an alternate arm entry style in the backstroke, was instrumental in introducing the Australian crawl to American competition and helped introduce the 2 or 4 beat kick to ease the strain on middle-distance swimmers.
Handy was also a talented athlete in water polo and participated in the AAU Sr. National Water Polo Championship in outdoor competition in 1921 and 1923. He was selected as an alternate as part of the U.S. Water polo team at the 1924 Olympics in Paris, France. The U.S. team won a bronze medal, though Handy did not to compete in the final. With his participation, however, he established a new record for the longest period of time between first and last Olympic competitions.
Later on, Handy pioneered the use of film in analyzing and improving stroke technique and positioning.
In 1965, Jamison Handy was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame. In 1977, he was inducted into the USA Water Polo Hall of Fame and admitted to the Helms Foundation Swimming Hall of Fame in 1960.[2]
Here’s where Jam Handy’s story gets interesting from a surfing perspective:
Twentieth Century surfing innovator Tom Blake told his biographer Gary Lynch that “Before the war [World War II] started… [noted swimmer Jam Handy] had sent a board back East and had it fiberglassed… that’s what Tom swears. I’ve asked him three times about it, cuz everyone says it couldn’t be true. But, he said that before World War II, Jamison Handy already had a fiberglass board. I don’t know why he’d tell me that if it wasn’t true.”[24]
Early surfboard shapers who used fiberglass – guys like Hobie Alter – tend to dismiss this East Coast connection.[25] However, it is true that fiberglass and resin used together to make a strong building material was first developed in the Eastern United States. Furthermore, there was nearly half a decade (1936-1941) before America’s entry into World War II for there to have been some experimentation to have taken place.
We do not know if Jam Handy ever talked about his fiberglassed surfboard to anyone other than Tom Blake, who personally witnessed the board. A possible deep dive into Handy’s estate papers may yet provide further clues.
PETE’S PLASTIC BOARD, June 1946
The first fiberglass board (a paddleboard) we have solid documentary evidence on is legendary Southern California waterman Pete Peterson’s “Plastic Board” built right after World War II ended, in June 1946.
The development of “plastics” – specifically fiberglass, phenols, mono and polyester resins had begun before the war and had significantly aided the war effort. Following the war, Pete found himself on the inside track of the use of these materials in the repair and making of surfboards and paddleboards, due to his friendship with an engineer named Brant Goldsworthy.
Brant “had been a wartime aircraft parts sub contractor,” wrote surfing historian Craig Lockwood. “Goldsworthy had developed a practical working knowledge about resins and fiberglass application and had been in touch with the marketing departments of chemical firms such as Owens-Corning, who had patented ‘Fiberglas’ (one ‘s’) in 1936, and Dupont’s chemical engineer Carleton Ellis, who had patented the first polyester resin the same year.”[14]
All over the country, large corporations like Owens-Corning and Dupont were converting their industrial facilities from wartime production into civilian production. Market research indicated to Owens-Corning and Dupont that fiberglass and resin would sell the best to the building industry, commercial aviation, and the small boat industry.[15]
“Brant Goldsworthy is certainly the ‘godfather of fiberglass’ in the world,” attested Hobie Alter who, in the late 1950s, became the key man in the development of the polyurethane foam surfboard for mass production. “He is looked at as the ‘godfather’ of reinforced plastics.”[16]
Goldsworthy and his partner Ted Thal would, a little later on, become the first ones to sell fiberglass and resin for surfboard construction.
Tom Blake protégé, champion paddler and legendary lifeguard Tommy Zahn said of the Brant Goldsworthy/Pete Peterson connection that Pete and Goldsworthy were more than just acquaintances. “Pete had been a lifetime friend of Brant Goldsworthy’s.”[17]
Pete recognized the potential for lighter boards using fiberglass. Before the war, he had made balsa boards to that end. These had to be coated with varnish to keep them from getting water-logged. Varnish, however, while flexible and organic, succumbs to ultra violet rays, breaking down in sunlight and lacking in tensile strength.[18] Not so with fiberglass and this is how Pete’s famous “Plastic Board” came about:
Working with Goldsworthy, Pete used a release coat on an existing paddleboard, laying up two halves in a clamshell configuration. They pulled the two parts off and used these to create a female mold. The subsequent male molds were then bonded to an inch-and-a-half redwood stringer, sanded and glass taped to seal the joint.[19] The seam was then sealed with fiberglass tape.[20] The result was the first hollow fiberglass paddleboard. Hollow board creator Tom Blake was so impressed he soon drew up board plans for “all fiberglass construction” of his own designs.[21]
Pete’s first fiberglassed board was constructed in June of 1946. Brant Goldsworthy helped and Joe Quigg – along with Pete – tested it out in the water.[22]
“Pete had two boards,” at the time he made his fiberglass paddleboard, recalled Tommy Zahn. “One was [Pete’s favorite] ‘The Pete Board’ and the other was this [prototype of the hollow fiberglass] board, which was redwood/balsa… It was just balsa wood with redwood rails. It wasn’t ‘The Pete Board’ – which was balsa with a redwood deck. And this prototype, which was wood, was the one he used in big waves. He didn’t use ‘The Pete Board’ in big waves.
“And so, when the fiberglass first came out, he thought, ‘hey, it would be a real neat idea to reinforce the nose of all these boards with fiberglass’ and [he] started doing that. Then he covered the whole [prototype] board with fiberglass. Then, he said, Brant talked him into making an all-fiberglass board. So he used it [the redwood/balsa big wave board] for a male mold and pulled that – this board [the ‘plastic’] off that one; then, put a center dividing strip of redwood, here, and nailed it on and glassed over that. Then, the whole board was effectively fiberglass except for this dividing strip – you could see light through the whole board.”[23]
Curiously, this innovation went virtually unknown among surfers of the day. Even Hobie Alter later admitted, “I always thought [Bob] Simmons was the first guy to use fiberglass on a surfboard.”[26] Anyway, Pete did not produce further fiberglass boards in any number that would have been noticed.[27]
ENDIT
FOOTNOTES
[1] Wikipedia search, August 2026.
[2] Wikipedia search, August 2026.
[14] Lockwood, “Waterman Preston ‘Pete’ Peterson,” 2005-2006, p. 62.
[15] Lockwood, “Waterman Preston ‘Pete’ Peterson,” 2005-2006, p. 62.
[16] Gault-Williams, Malcolm. Telephone interview with Hobie Alter, October 10, 2001.
[17] Lynch, Gary. Interview with Tommy Zahn, 27 July 1988. Tommy Zahn quoted.
[18] Holmes, Paul. Dale Velzy is Hawk, © 2006 by Paul Holmes, p. 50. Pete’s first balsa dated 1936.
[19] Lockwood, “Waterman Preston ‘Pete’ Peterson,” 2005-2006, p. 62. See also “The Malibu Board,” and “From Wood to Foam,” chapters in the LEGENDARY SURFERS collection.
[20] Young, 1983, p. 61.
[21] Lockwood, “Waterman Preston ‘Pete’ Peterson,” 2005-2006, p. 62. See also “The Malibu Board,” and “From Wood to Foam,” chapters in the LEGENDARY SURFERS collection.
[22] Young, 1983, p. 61.
[23] Lynch, Gary. Interview with Tommy Zahn, 27 July 1988. Tommy Zahn quoted.
[24] Lynch, Gary. Interview with Tommy Zahn, 27 July 1988.
[25] Gault-Williams, Malcolm. Telephone Interview with Hobie Alter, October 10, 2001.
[26] Gault-Williams, Malcolm. Telephone Interview with Hobie Alter, October 10, 2001.
[27] Gault-Williams, LEGENDARY SURFERS Volume 3: The 1930s, ©2012. Chapter on Pete.
No comments:
Post a Comment