Surfer Photography 1976 Summer
Introduction

Two full page advertisements for Fins Unlimited of California featuring designs by George Downing, Mike Hynson and Dick Brewer.
They have been extensively re-formatted from the originals.

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Surfer Volume 15 Number 1, April-May 1974, page 4.

Surfboards have probably been the biggest influence on fhe spot of surfing, other than the people who have created them.
What got you so interested in hot curt boards and the others in your collection?
Well, what happened, see, is I'm a gremmie growing up and you acquire your idols. and being from inland initially, Culver City, I didn't have any background in surfing at all.
I got down to the beach and got into surfing but I had no history and no knowledge of what was going on.
So when I went to work for Velsy down in San Cemente, I used to live in the shop and sleep up in the balsa loft.
There was nothing to at night, so he'd invite me over to his house, and we'd watch television, I'd babysit, and he'd feed me, and we'd talk.
And in conversation with him (he"s such a good saleman you know), he'd tell me about the good old days, which at that time dated my four years experience against his twenty.
And he kept talking about things that he felt were landmarks.
Like his first trip to the islands, how he saw the Hawaiians surfing these boards (like, at the time, he was riding boards with no fins).
And through these conversations, he kind of imparted this sense of romance to me, and he talked about the things that these boards did, which the boards that we had at that stage didn't do; maybe their ability to hold high in the curl and not spin out and drive down a line with no speed decrease.
You know, when I came into the picture, everybody was doing the big drop and turn, and you had to have a fin for that, and that seemed really important.
Its like early this morning, I'm talking to Phil (Edwards), and he's talking old board, and I'm talking new board, and it was the same trip with me and Velzy.
I'm sitting at Velzy's knee, and he's talking old board, and I'm not relating to him at all.
But I can see that this is part of hi experience.
And so I thought, if I ever get a chance, I'm going to ride one of these old boards, but there weren't any around except the stuff they had propped up for rafters at San Onofre Bud Browne had footage ... not Blackout or Squirrely but one of those guys doing the beautiful traditional arch, you know, feet together.
He had long hair and a headband, and he was in this beautiful bow, and his board's laid out, and his got a tighter trim than I ever saw, and when I mentioned it to Velzy, he goes "Right," and I went and saw the pictures again, and that was a hot curl board.
The board definiely fit in, whereas the boards we had then didn't fit.
We were down on the bottom, and he was stuck at the top and just sailing.
There were none available, like no one was making hot curl boards
So the thing was to go and find me an old master who could build me a hot curl board, because Velzy could tell me about the rails, the rails were essential, the way the curve went all the way up to the dead flat deck.
Because the holding power was all in the edge, they were dead straight, and the 'V' in the tail, and everything had to run together.
You couldn't have too much curve in it.
He said "I don't know who could shape you one.
I don't know where you'd find one."
So I just kind of let it pass.
And then from Velzy I went to work for Alan Gomes,  who was really and old time Hawaiian, and his father, Big Daddy Gomes.
I got a lot of old-time background for a kid at that stage, and they kept talking about Downing and the old Waikiki guys, and one day I was introduced to George Downing, and I just flashed.
You know I didn't even know him.
He was a friend or Hap Jacobs, and Hap introduced me and I think my next

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