Bronze

Looking out my window here in snowy Utah my mind has been wandering back to the warm weather of Hawaii in July and the good times I had at Randy Rarrick's Hawaiian Islands Vintage surf auction. 

I cant believe how close I came to actually owning an amazing bronze glitter paint early 80's Dennis Pang shaped T&C twin fin that looked like it had been custom shaped for me.

I immediately fell in love with this 10 out of 10 glitter paint Hawaiian built twin fin from Kona.
Subtle rocker, nice and wide at the nose, single fly swallow. 

The silent auction bidding form, with me, 101, bidder number  1.

The silent auction started and foe a while I was the first and only bidder. 

Then as the excitement of the auction grew more people started gathering around my board.

HEY! GET AWAY FROM THERE!

The auctioned ended and crowd subsided, leaving me broken hearted, beaten by one bid, but stoked to have been there and been able to play the game and share the buzz.

Local Motion

My friends have been very generous in sharing some pics of some fantastic Local Motion surfboards they have crossed paths with recently.

Pat Rawson for Buttons

Rawson 6'8 single fin, shaped for Mike Latronic

Pat Rawson for Bobby Owens

Bonus pics- Vintage Ben Aipa for Tony Moniz

Nineteen eighty three.

My favorite surfers and some of my favorite shapes & shapers from 1983.

Willy + Al Merrick.

Rabbit + Al Bryne.

Larry + Pat Rawson.

Wes + Rusty Preisendorfer.

Kong + Al Bryne.

Shaun + Rusty Preisendorfer.

Chappy + Murray Bourton.

As luck would have it I found 3 boards from this era in the one place at a vintage surf swap recently. 

A US made Hot Stuff 'Kong' model shaped by Tom Eberly of Lightning Bolt and a 2 x Local Motions by Pat Rawson I believe.

Lightning Bolt Single fin.

Here is my recently acquired 6"6' lightning Bolt single flyer, rounded pin tail single fin. It has no shapers markings other then the 00435 on the stringer. It was built with out a leg rope plug, which gives me pause to think about how old it actually is.

According to an earlier email from Randy Rarrick this is probably a Californian made Bolt out of the Hobie factory in San Diego. Danny Brawner held the license for mainland USA and this board was most likely shaped by Mickey Munoz or Terry Martin. Randy say, "During it's hey day of the mid to later 70's, over 30 different shapers pumped out Bolts with certified licensees in California, South Africa, Australia and Brazil. 

As they said at the time "The Most Frequently Tubed Surfboards in the World".    

Randy at the 2011 Hawaiian vintage surf auction

Mickey Munoz, Terry Martin and Bill Stewart in 1977

I see now I should have added some red pigment to my nose re-build