#transitional surfboards

[shredsledz]

There are days when the search for rad surfboards can seem like an endless slog. There are others, though, when gems seem to fall out of the sky right into my lap.

Consider this board the latter. Up for sale on Craigslist in Honolulu is a Harbour Banana model that looks like it was likely shaped sometime in the 1970s.

What’s immediately interesting to me is the alternate Banana Model logo, which I have never seen before. Stoked-n-Board’s entry for Harbour lists no such logo, and it’s always exciting to find something that the eagle eyed editors at S-n-B haven’t encountered. I found a similar one on Stanley’s Surf Logos, which I have reproduced below. Unfortunately, there are no shots of the corresponding board, but you can see this is an excellent example of the alternate Banana Model logo.

Photo courtesy Stanley’s Surf Logos

Contrast this to the “classic” Harbour Banana Model logo, taken from a pic on Harbour’s website:

Photo Courtesy Harbour Surfboards

The second interesting thing about the board pictured at the top of this post is the fact it is more of a transitional shape, whereas the Banana Model is a traditional noserider. Currently, you can only order the Banana Model from Harbour as a longboard, and the only vintage examples I have seen are all 9′ plus. The Craigslist board at the top of this post, by contrast, is 7′10″. It looks to have way more in common with the Harbour Spherical Revolver, which was a transitional board offered up by the brand starting in 1969. The picture below was taken from DIS•PLACE•MEN•TIA, an excellent displacement hull-centric surfboard blog.

Photo courtesy DIS•PLACE•MEN•TIA

Finally, there’s a clear serial number of #64 beneath the alternative Banana logo, which you can see in the fourth pic at the top of the post. It’s unclear if this is meaningful, but it’s worth noting nonetheless.

I’ve reached out to the fine folks at Harbour Surfboards to try and get some more information. If I find out more I will update the post.

In the meantime, check out the board for sale here. It’s $400, and given the condition and the relative rarity of the board, I would be VERY tempted if I were in the Honolulu area.

[shredsledz]

This thing is in far from great condition, but at the risk of overusing this phrase, it is a cool piece of surfboard history.

Aussie shaper Bob McTavish claims to have shaped the first ever shortboard in California history in early 1968. Here is an excellent article / interview in Liquid Salt Magazine that details the history of a surfboard whose behind the scenes creation story reads like a who’s who of surfing. Earlier in the season on Hawaii’s North Shore, McTavish had taken one of Gerry Lopez’s boards and cut it down from 9′6″ to 8′6″. He then took some feedback from Dick Brewer, and during a stay at George Greenough’s house while surfing nearby Rincon, McTavish shaped a board that helped usher in the shortboard revolution. That board -- known as the Rincon Tracker -- later went for sale at a Randy Rarick auction. McTavish wrote a blog post about this board which you can read here.

Photo Credit: Liquid Salt

Shortly afterwards, McTavish struck a deal with Morey-Pope to make a shortboard model named the Tracker. You can see an example here, which I found on Craigslist in San Diego. The board isn’t in fantastic condition, but it is water tight, and the current price is $200.

According to Stoked-n-Board, McTavish actually shaped some of these boards as well, from 1968 to 1970. The Tracker model was produced from 1968 to 1972, which suggests that there are Trackers made that weren’t necessarily McTavish handshapes.

I did some more internet sleuthing and found an entire Picas album for the board when it went for sale a few years back. This reveals that a fin was glassed onto the W.A.V.E. Set fin box, which is an unfortunate bit of aftermarket modification.

If you want more information on McTavish, I can’t recommend Surf Research enough. Their entry on McTavish has some great pictures of his older boards, as he has shaped for many labels other than Morey-Pope. Surf Research has a great example here of a tracker shape that McTavish made for Aussie label Keyo.

This board isn’t perfect by any stretch, but if you’re interested, check it out here.

[shredsledz]

This might be my very first post about Bing Surfboards. Considering Bing’s place in surf history, that means this post is very much overdue!

I know I use the word “classic” a lot, but hey, I just so happen to write about some pretty sick surfboards. Bing is a quintessential California surf label, co-founded by two men who have earned their right in surfing’s history books: namesake Bing Copeland, and Rick Stoner, who later founded his own eponymous label.

I stumbled across a fantastic little Bing transitional shape that is still available on Craigslist in the San Diego area, which you can find here. The poster claims the board was shaped by Mike Eaton, who was one of the early advocates of the bonzer shape. You can clearly see Eaton’s name (though it is stamped, not signed) on the stringer in the last picture.

I can’t quite figure out what model this board might be. According to Stoked-n-Board, Eaton shaped for the label between 1965 and 2001. You can see a stamp on the stringer that indicates this board was shaped on August 15 1977, which places it towards the very end of the transitional era. The 360 logo on the board is also a giveaway for this time period. Curiously, the 360 logo isn’t listed on S-n-B’s page for Bing Surfboards, which seems like a big oversight given that you often see it on Bing boards from this time period.

The board is 9′ and 23.5″ wide. It also features a step deck. There’s another inscription on the stringer that says “Pinski”, which I am having trouble placing. It doesn’t seem to correspond to a specific Bing model, so I’m wondering if maybe this was a custom shape for someone with that name.

And if you’re into classic Bing shapes, there is an entire website dedicated to the topic: Classic Bing Surfboards. One page features a whole bunch of pics of Bing boards from the 1960s, and there’s a separate page featuring some cool transitional shapes.

They’re asking $500 for the board -- reasonable, but not a steal -- and you can find it on Craigslist here.