Six Feet to Fit
by Ken McKnight
posted 2003-05-29

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Flash to 1970...
It's daybreak on the coast, below the Santa Monica Mountains. The wind is fresh and offshore and the smell of Mesquite and Chaparral looms as large as the set out at Malibu's Third Point.

A surfer drops down an airbrushed right wall. He heads straight into the flat and leans over for his bottom turn. Burying the rail up to the stringer, the only thing holding him in is the tip of his fin. Carving around and up into the pocket at full speed, the board rights itself almost by magic, and soon tips towards the other rail as the surfer weights and un-weights his equilibrium so as to maximize the speed to turning thrust point. Aiming at a spot some 20 yards down the line the surfer repeats the maneuver four times before having to do a full-speed change of direction, or a round house cutback, where the speed is once again achieved by simply letting the board react back to the trim position in a natural way. The surfer continues for a couple hundred yards, hair flailing, arms down off- the-bottom, arms up off-the-top, using his knees to help project each turn further and further down the waves length.

Flash on This...
The San Fernando Valley is the last place you would think a group of surfers would unknowingly help spearhead the short board revolution in California, but that is exactly what happened back in the late 60's. This was at a time when West Coast Surfing was at a design low and heading for the underground. The best surfers seemed to be coming out of Australia and Hawaii. That was until a quirky little group of Valley / Malibu regulars took an age-old theory and pushed it to the limit.

Led by a soft spoken, intelligent, surfer/shaper named Greg Liddle, this unassuming group noticeably changed a subtle design, the short round board, and took surfing to a level that is still feeling the influence today. The core group consisted of Liddle, Dave Lloyd, Steve Krajewski, Andy Davis, Tim Bowler, Mike Grossman, Kirk Putnam, and John Wojick. These guys bounced design ideas off each other like so many foam bubbles to form the basis for much of what we ride today. The fact that they tested at Malibu, only made the validation process that much more positive. They were small wave experts and they were good.

Flash way Back...
Malibu was always the centerpiece of modern California surfing from the 30's into the 70's. All the top West Coast surfers of these eras seemed to have been schooled there at one season or another. The waves were often well shaped and offered up the top talent a high performance medium for all conditions. From Blake to Zahn, Simmons to Quigg, Les Williams, Matt Kivlin, Dale Velzey, Doyle, Horn, Cole, Noll, Weber, Fain, Carson, and of course, Mickey Dora, all found the long walls perfectly suited for each to test their skills and equipment. Each of these surfers seemed to have the same smooth drawn out styles. None were herky-jerky. None were contrived. They surfed the wave and didn't let the wave surf them. It was the wave by which all others would be judged for many years. And it was crowded. It was always crowded.

Flash to 1968...
Malibu surfing from day one has always been a notorious hotbed of emerging surf talent. From the skinny kid with the gimpy arm, to the crew living their summers under the pier, and even the Hollywood Gidget era, performance has been paramount. Since the mid 50's the place has literally been crawling with surfers from the best in the world to the worst. It was the center of the surfing universe at that time. Centrally located to LA and all the Valleys, the beach is famous the world over as the spot to hang. And now, in 1968, the time is ripe for a change. There is a new group taking over from the establishment of long boarders that had ruled the point and the infamous "Pit," on the beach. The older guys could sense this new bravado in the water. Their longboards were no match for the new faster, short ones. And the brats on the beach were causing the trouble. Call em' what you will, hotdoggers, gremmies, and punks they were good and they showed up with an attitude.

It was the end of a classic era and change was everywhere. The cities were in tremendous urban travail. The innocence of the flower child 60?s had given way to the anger of the 70's. Everyone was going country or going crazy. The free love era was turning into hard questions about moral turpitude, and Vietnam was still a daily, deadly reality for many. From Nixon's Kent State chaos to the riots in Miami and Chicago, the upheaval in the nations psyche makes the silent majority smell as bad as dog shit. Music is changing daily. The new stuff from CSNY, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, and the Stones is in. Beads are no longer cool and hair is getting even longer. Wax is no longer just paraffin, but small cakes of sweet perfume smelling coconut lumps. Surf leashes haven't been invented and wetsuits are limited and expensive. The often over used clich?' of sex, drugs, and Rock n Roll has now become every parents worst nightmare. For those under 25 it is a time to revel in their abandon and not to trust anyone over 35.

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