Greg Noll

by Kampion, Drew

• ISBN13: 9781586857769
• ISBN10: 1586857762
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-03-15
• Publisher: Gibbs Smith

Summary

One of the greatest surfers of all time, Greg Noll has built a considerable reputation as master of surfboard making, or "shaping." Today, collectors and surfers alike prize his unique brand of board. Recently featured in the award-winning documentary feature, Riding Giants, "Da Bull," in his iconic black-and-white striped trunks, was emblematic of big surf and fearless commitment. In addition to being a pioneer of big-wave surfing, surf movies, and surf magazines, by the mid-1960s, Noll was one of the largest surfboard manufacturers in the world.

Excerpts

Greg Noll is a big man in every way. Nicknamed "Da Bull," he is a legend in the surfing world, celebrated especially for a trio of achievements: He was the instigator of the first conquest of the waves at Waimea Bay on November 7th of 1957. He rode a huge third-reef Pipeline wave-the rarely ridden "cloudbreak"-in December of 1964. He took on perhaps the largest wave ever attempted, at Makaha, during the epic swell of December 1969. While Noll's reputation rests largely on his accomplishments as a big-wave surfer, it is his work as a surfboard shaper that will likely prove most enduring. He shaped his first surfboard in 1950, started his own surfboard business in the balsa-wood era of the 1950s, and went on to become a pioneer in the new foam-and-fiberglass revolution of the early 1960s. By the mid-1960s, Noll was one of the largest surfboard manufacturers in the world. Over the years, Greg Noll built many notable big-wave (as well as "hot-dog") surfboards. His signature model campaign with the great surfing iconoclast Miki Dora remains one of the high points of surf-business history, and the resulting "Da Cat" surfboards are among the most prized items at contemporary surfboard and memorabilia auctions.