#47 george greenough by nick farrow

18/1/05

4:04 PM

Page 72

MICHAEL HALSBAND SURF BOOK

GEORGE

Portraits of George Greenough

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H

18/1/05

4:04 PM

Page 73

MARK GORDON

GEORGE

– Horatio Greenough

Opposite He says he’s only worn shoes three times in his life, and his feet appear to back him up. The unshod feet of an abnormally natural man. Left Clockwise from top left: Spoon molding; the Velo mold; stainless-steel highspeed sailboard fin; George’s modified Boston Whaler off California’s Channel Islands.

And after all the esoteric nuances have painted him over and over again, George Greenough steps away unscathed, unchanged, and unpainted by what we think he is, and he continues just to be what he is. Maybe that is what has attracted our attention and held it for several years; that being what we are is so incredibly difficult, and here is someone that may be just that. – Drew Kampion, Surfing Magazine, August 1978

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H

18/1/05

4:04 PM

Right George shooting the wake of his kneeboard c. 1967. Photographer Wardie says Greenough chose the back-lighting so the wave would glow when he carved a wake through it.

Page 74

In the context of the relatively staid 1960s surf scene, George Greenough was perceived as an eccentric loner, a quirky mad-scientist type who rode waves on his knees and had a penchant for invention, like the go-cart he built then raced around the Montecito hinterlands at upwards of 120mph It is ironic that the guy who had the greatest influence on surfing in the 1960s – who pioneered in-the-tube water photography, created the modern surfboard fin, inspired the shortboard revolution, and broke new ground in surf cinematography – hasn’t stood on a surfboard since 1961. Descendent of the great American sculptor Haratio Greenough (1805-52), nephew to the great soprano Beverly Sills, son of the heir to a railroad fortune, George was born in Santa Barbara and survived open-heart surgery as a boy to be raised in a Montecito mansion. He says he’s only worn shoes three times in his adult life, and since George doesn’t tend to

“IT IS IRONIC THAT THE GUY WHO HAD THE GREATEST INFLUENCE ON SURFING IN THE 1960S HASN’T STOOD ON A SURFBOARD SINCE 1961.” exaggeration, that’s probably just about exactly right. By the late ’60s, shortboards had swept away the old logs, and George was already a surf-culture legend, cruising the coast in his California Highway Patrol black-and-white Dodge 440 or the Channel Islands in his modified 16ft Boston Whaler (the foam and fiberglass shell was made from old surfboards and gave the boat rollover capability), checking his lobster traps or shark fishing on the way to his secret surf spots. For over three decades, Greenough’s life was an "endless winter" as he alternated residences between his family home (with its copious workshop areas) and the Byron Bay area of Australia’s Central Coast. Either way, he enjoyed the relatively uncrowded and powerful winter swells. His vehicle of choice, more often than not, was a canvas air mattress on which he was faster than anyone on a surfboard. His surfing made him a

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H

HAROLD WARD

GEORGE

legend down under, too. After his first experiments with water-housings and still photography yielded tremendous results, George developed the cameras, lenses, and mounts to capture movies of surfing in the tubes of incredible waves, as revealed in his groundbreaking first film, The Innermost Limits of Pure Fun (1970). Crystal Voyager (made with Australian filmmaker Albe Falzon in 1972) was built around George’s exploits aboard his sloop, Morning Light, a Gary Mull-designed Santana 37, which Greenough modified into a four-berth aft-cabin set-up with a central cockpit. He conceived and created a 110-volt wind generator to power all the boat’s operations. His next film, Echoes, was envisioned as a sequence for Falzon’s Morning of the Earth, but Greenough released it as a short film in 1973. It was well received by surfers and nonsurfers alike, and Hollywood film director John Milius soon enlisted George to lead the water crew in the filming of Big Wednesday (released in 1978). His latest film, Dolphin Glide, is filmed from the point of view of the dolphins, says George. "It’s shot with a modified full-aperture 35mm camera – a high-speed Mitchell – and the housing’s shaped like a baby dolphin, so it moves through the water like a dolphin, so I can keep up with them underwater." He says he’s developed a level of interspecies communication with the dolphins. "I’ll be riding a wave with the dolphin six inches to 1ft underneath me, and he’s matching me turn for turn, almost reading my mind. And then

18/1/05

4:04 PM

Page 75

GEORGE GREENOUGH

GEORGE

they cut out of the wave with me and head back out. I’ve been with them when I’ve called, and they’d come." The film’s 57-minute running time includes three segments: A remastered Coming of the Dawn segment from The Innermost Limits of Pure Fun, The Making of Dolphin Glide (shot with a triple-chip Sony palm recorder and blown to 35mm), and Dolphin Glide. Today, Greenough lives in a pyramid-shaped house in the rain forest next to National Park land near Byron Bay. Fundamentally a soloist, he avoids the good spots, but he surfs almost every day – on a air mattress. "I use a soft matt

for the variable inflation," he explains. "I can ride shitty surf – 1-2ft and weak – and I’m still out there having fun. I haven’t surfed Lennox for years – it’s an ugly aggressive crowd." At age 63, George is physically about the same as ever (5’10" and 138lbs.) and remains unconcerned with any sort of acclaim as he continues to surf, innovate, and record the action. He has lived his life very much in the spirit of his ancestor’s sage advice – beholding the majesty of the essential instead of the trappings of pretension. – Drew Kampion

Above George’s innovative camera rigs led to unique perspectives never seen by the general public or even most surfers. His fish-eye lenses gave the full-wrap perspective of a man in the barrel.

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H

18/1/05

4:04 PM

Page 76

JOHN WITZIG

GEORGE

"George Greenough and I became friends in our childhood. Our mothers were close friends, and George and I went to Montecito Union School and enjoyed many great memories. I remember in the third grade asking George what his plans were one weekend. He said he was going up to the hills behind the San Ysidro Ranch to hunt for rattlesnakes. Why?! He had a system for caching them and taking them home and milking them for the venom, which he would sell to someone at UCSB. At the insistence of our mothers, George and I took dance instruction at the Montecito Country Club. We would appear in suit and ties to be educated in the fine art of the fox trot and how to socialize with the opposite sex. At 11 years old, we discovered that the refreshments were more important, and each night we would fill our coat pockets with cookies and a glass of punch, then sneak out and enjoy our spoils on the clubhouse greens. George has always been a kind soul. I can’t recall him ever saying an unkind word about anyone, and he never

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H

looked for any type of fame or credit. We both started the art of surfing around 1957. Santa Barbara didn’t have many role models to help. Tom Rolland, Ken Kassen, Jim Fisher, and John Eichert were the leaders of the local scene; George and I were about the tenth and eleventh persons to get involved in the Santa Barbara surf scene. At the time, the boards were paddleboards, balsa boards, and redwood boards. The first balsa board to arrive in Santa Barbara was owned by Chris Weingand of the San Ysidro Ranch; his father took him to Hawaii and bought him one. Then John Eichert bought the board from Chris, and the rest is history. George discovered that he didn’t need to go to the local barber for his haircut; he would place a plastic bowl on top of his head and cut his own hair. I believe he still does. George had the good fortune to be able to purchase the Batmobile from the Batman TV series. We were surprised when it arrived; it didn’t have any of the fancy equipment on the dashboard. But it had a V12 Cadillac engine, and George

18/1/05

4:05 PM

Page 77

JOHN WITZIG

GEORGE

“GEORGE DISCOVERED THAT HE DIDN’T NEED TO GO TO THE LOCAL BARBER FOR HIS HAIRCUT; HE WOULD PLACE A PLASTIC BOWL ON TOP OF HIS HEAD AND CUT HIS OWN HAIR. I BELIEVE HE STILL DOES.” loved this car. It was a joy to see him going down the highway with surfboards hanging out of it. The Birds by Hitchcock was showing at the Arlington Theater in Santa Barbara, so George went down to the bird refuge and bagged a few mug-hens, then waited outside until the great bird-attack scene, whereupon a friend opened the side door and George snuck in. He got up close to the screen before releasing his mud-hens. It was classic. George and I were charter members of the Hollister Ranch Surf Club, and I hitched a ride with him one day in his old Ford station wagon. On the way we stopped to gas up, and when he reached in his pocket to pay, he pulled out a dry sardine. Back then, you’d drive up the beach, and when we reached Little Drakes, he saw something, slammed on his brakes, grabbed a long pole with a hook, and ran into the water, where he gaffed a 5ft shark and dragged it up onto the beach. He did this six more times then asked me to join him, so I grabbed a gaff -pole and ran into the water and struck at

my first shark. But when I pulled back, my hook was no longer bent – it was straight… and NO SHARK! I then told my feet, "Do your stuff!" and got out of there, but then George then told me that the surfing was cancelled for the day. He had to load the fish in the Ford and get it back to town so he could sell them to the local fish market. After I married, my wife and I had weekend parties with folks like the Yaters, Jeff White, the Currens, and various other Santa Barbara surf friends. Once I sat down with George in the backyard at one of the parties and asked him, are you ever going to marry? He said he might, if he could find a woman that would live his lifestyle. He is now 63 years old and unmarried." – Tucker Stevens (childhood friend and fellow Santa Barbara Surf Club member)

Opposite The style and lines that catalyzed the shortboard revolution: George at Point Cartright, Australia, c. 1966. Back in the day, he could find all the empty waves and hollow pits needed to prove his points. Above Minimalism and pragmatism yielded exquisite positions and powered-up moments where, kneeling like an acolyte, George drew the fine lines that inspired the surfers who witnessed to chop down their own boards, to go short.

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H

GEORGE

18/1/05

4:05 PM

HAROLD WARD

Below Wardie says: "These two shots were taken about a year apart. In the shot without the camera he is practicing getting lined up and testing the effectiveness of the air mattress as a shooting platform. By the time he added the considerable weight of the camera, he had the mat well under control and was a master at positioning himself and hanging onto all his gear when a wave caught up with him and threw him over the falls."

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H

Page 78

"When George Greenough talks, his mind, which has raced far ahead of his verbalization, is dragging his mouth along behind his thought progression. He’s talking so fast that he sounds like a recording being fast-forwarded, but if you listen carefully, what you hear is a logical progression of often-complex ideas building on each other in a non-stop verbal spew. Greenough is usually exclusively focused on his passion of the moment. As it happens, he has just finished a film about dolphins riding waves in which his camera emulates being a member of their surfing pod. Now considering a film on mat surfing, George reportedly is once again fully gung-ho on surfing himself. Occasionally, his enthusiasm for wave riding ebbs when crowds or conditions invalidate the goal he is striving for. George’s mode of conducting a relationship with waves is

usually different than ours. For the last decade, he’s preferred a deflated air mattress (custom-made and constructed of rubberized cells, sized and configured for his body mass) on which to ride waves that most would consider junk but on a mat are totally satisfying. That’s perfectly okay with him, as he really doesn’t want company, nor does he seek the validation of others joining in his form. (Which, of course, an esoteric cadre has done.) The softly inflated mat allows him to squeeze it into various configurations to conform to the wave slope during the course of the ride, becoming a variably-shaped planing device. He has pioneered this approach. For George, no existing swim fin satisfies his functional requirements, so he customizes standard Duck Feet by grinding down the side and center ridges, then reinforces them with

18/1/05

4:05 PM

Page 79

Here George with Ariflex 35mm movie camera, filming in California for Crystal Voyager (c.1972).

carbon-fiber so they’re more flexible but snap back, and then thins the blade tips to make them more flexible. Greenough’s reasoning is that, unlike all contemporary fins with soft shoes, you want a rigid shoe to transfer power to the blade, and a soft, rather shortish blade that easily flexes up and down to generate comfortable power strokes. Greenough has used the same practical application of logic mixed with use of cutting edge materials to do such things as customize a Boston Whaler hull into the Coup, a covered cockpit (made of composite foam-fiberglass sandwich) runabout that he used for channel crossing in all-weather conditions, to deconstruct $100,000 35mm movie cameras and reassemble them into rough

ALBE FALZON

GEORGE

ALBE FALZON

“HE USED TO DECONSTRUCT $100,000 35MM MOVIE CAMERAS

Above - George with Velo, c. 1967.

AND REASSEMBLE THEM INTO but effective fiberglass shells (whose cost /efficiency ratios blow the minds of the motion picture industry) with which he captured never before seen inside-out tube-riding perspectives, to custom mold especially designed hulls for his windsurfers, and to build a legendary progression of negative-buoyancy spoon kneeboards on which he achieved g-force curves and trims at hyper speeds. These types of innovations people find extraordinary, but George shrugs all that reaction off, except when utilizing his celebrity to help get a project into play. George lives alone near an Australian surf point, like a creative hermit in an environment that offers him warm, dramatic land and ocean conditions to suit his particular passions. A private person, he has managed to greatly influence the surf culture that surrounds him without becoming much a part of it. He can be a social being, but he lives in his own sphere of thought and is primarily a loner, perhaps because dealing with other people can tend to be a distraction from what seems important at any given moment. If our culture were to identify the ten most important surfers in the history of our sport, George would be high on the list, for his own inspirationally unique approach to wave riding, for his filmed expressions of his wave-riding experiences, and for his inventive, groundbreaking wave riding crafts and accessories that rival the contributions of Simmons and Quigg."

ROUGH FIBERGLASS SHELLS WHOSE COST/ EFFICIENCY RATIOS BLEW THE MINDS OF THE MOTION PICTURE INDUSTRY”

Below An early experiment in flextail design. Says photographer Falzon: "I think in all he only made 14 boards in his surfing life; most of his equipment was definitely collected and made on the ‘grunge’ side – very practical and obviously worked well … and certainly cost efficient."

– Steve Pezman (publisher, The Surfer’s Journal) ALBE FALZON

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H

GEORGE

18/1/05

4:05 PM

Page 80

“ON A BIG WAVE, YOU CAN PULL IT DOWN TO A 60O ANGLE, ALL THE WAY OVER UNTIL YOU START DRAGGING YOUR SHOULDER. THAT'S TWO GS, BUT YOU'LL HARDLY NOTICE IT IF YOU'RE CONCENTRATING ON THE WAVE. I DON'T KNOW HOW FAR I'VE GONE BEYOND THAT, BUT IT'S GOTTEN TO THE POINT WHERE IT HAS STARTED TO HURT AND THINGS HAVE STARTED TO BREAK. I HAD ONE BOARD START TO COLLAPSE ON ME ONE TIME. I WADE KONIAKOWSKY

LET OFF THE POWER WHEN I FELT IT START TO GO, AND I CAME OUT OF THE TURN ALL RIGHT ...”

ALBIE FALZON

– George Greenough as told to Bill Cleary (American surf journalist)

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H

GEORGE

18/1/05

4:06 PM

Page 81

HAROLD WARD

while carving turns on his kneeboard. First, he needed a lightweight camera set inside a GUITAR IN THE BEACH BOYS’ BACKING BAND, SAID TO watertight housing he could strap on his back. At the time there wasn’t any such ME RECENTLY, “I’VE KNOWN TWO TRUE GENIUSES IN equipment available; so George MY LIFE, BRIAN WILSON AND GEORGE GREENOUGH.” disassembled an old, cumbersome, highspeed Air Force movie camera and – out of If a genius is, by definition, somebody who has an a pile of springs and wires – fashioned a camera, complete exceptional natural capacity of intellect, especially as shown with a fish-eye lens, which was light enough to take out in creative and original work in science, art, or music, etc., surfing. With the camera encapsulated within his homemade then Greenough fits the bill. fiberglass water housing, George dropped into huge barrels at During the early ’70s in Santa Barbara, Ernie and I Lennox Head, Australia, and, as crystal shingles of seawater nicknamed George "Gyro" after an eccentric Donald Duck swirled over his head, gave us our first view on film of the comic book character, who could fix anything with a bit of "Green Room." George’s attitude has always been, if he chewing gum and bailing wire. needs something for one of his projects and can’t buy it at a I see George as a visionary who has dedicated his store, he makes it himself. talents to improving his passions. In surfing, sailing, I first met Greenough the summer of ’63 while surfing sailboarding, fishing, and photography he saw possibilities Cojo near Point Conception. A couple of buddies and I were others could not, and he possessed the innate genius to soaking rays in our motorboat, anchored just outside the break, bring his dreams into reality. when Greenough roared up like a madman in his Boston When George began filming his 16mm surf film, The Whaler. With his mane of long blonde hair blowing in the wind Innermost Limits of Pure Fun, he decided he would be the and his blue eyes shining brightly when he grinned, George was first to shoot moving pictures from deep inside the tube, immediately friendly and talkative. In a sort of high-pitched

“MY FRIEND, ERNIE KNAPP, WHO PLAYED BASS

Opposite Freefalling with control. Falzon: "This photo was taken at Angourie, a favourite hang for George and his friends ... always great waves and very few surfers at the time. I’m uncertain as to what happened when he reconnected with this wave, however my guess is that he planted his rail and was out of there like a rocket." Above George kicking back to the lineup with his camera. Photographer Wardie remembers the moment: "He’s cruising back out to the lineup at Razorbacks. Virtually no-one ever surfed there back in the ’60s because it’s such a top-to-bottom grinder, so George would rarely come out of the wave untumbled."

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H

GEORGE

18/1/05

4:06 PM

excited voice he talked for 20 minutes without stopping. He told us how he had been surfing alone at secret spots in the Santa Barbara Islands, got locked into square-shaped barrels at Little Drakes with no one around, and how he was designing a new spoon-shaped pocket rocket he rode on his knees and called Velo. He nodded at our stack of 9'6" surfboards, wrinkled his nose with disdain, and said he didn’t like riding those kinds of "slugs" with all that board "flopping around in front of you." George said he preferred a tighter package. He likened his kneeboard to a sports car – a machine with a low center of gravity, capable of razor-sharp turns and quick acceleration. While we were mostly into doing whip-turns on our longboards and running to the nose, Greenough spoke of "pushing G’s", cranking parabolic S-turns, and disappearing in the "shade" (tube) for seconds at a time. I had heard the name George Greenough before, but this was the first time I’d seen him in person. As he continued mesmerizing us with his wild surf stories, I took note of the pile of crab claws and lobsters filling his boat. Even though he was only 20 years old, he had the wisdom and depth of the old man and the sea… and he had the gnarliest bare feet I’d ever seen. I found out later he never wore shoes, but almost always wore resin-stained Levis and baggy gray sweatshirts. His calloused hands had the look of a hardcore fisherman. A

three-day growth of beard covered his handsome, boyish face. George explained that he had come down from Government Point and was tending the lobster traps he had strung out all along that sacred Hollister Ranch coastline. When he finally sped away in his boat, we looked at each other and cracked up. What a classic! We’d heard an earful from Greenough, but all of it fascinating stuff. Even though he was only a few years older, we agreed his knowledge of the ocean and the art of wave riding was light years ahead of us. Like most surfers, the first time I saw Greenough surf was in Bruce Brown’s film, The Endless Summer, when it came out in ’64. There was a shot of Greenough on his 4'10" balsawood kneeboard, ducking beneath an endless tube at the Santa Barbara Sand Spit. I didn’t hear much about George again until I traveled to Queensland, Australia in December of ’65, when I had the good fortune of hooking up with another energetic innovator, Bob McTavish, who was ablaze with stories about Greenough. Apparently, George had just been in Australia ahead of me and had the local Aussies raving about his revolutionary concepts for surfboard design and his radical approach to riding waves. McTavish, a totally involved, dedicated surfer and surfboard shaper, began applying Greenough-inspired ideas to his craft. His boards were becoming shorter and more hydrodynamic.

ALBE FALZON

Below Falzon: "The crew – Chris Brock, George, Garry Keyes, and Bob McTavish – in front of an old farmhouse that the boys had rented at Angourie. They lived and shaped there, not too far from the point. Farms were readily available and cheap to rent around that time."

Page 82

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H

4:06 PM

Page 83

Greenough showed Bob how to sand down a fiberglass fin to give it flex and make it "spring loaded" out of a turn. Because of George, the Aussies began riding deeper and tighter to the curl. In the fall of 1966, while attending Santa Barbara City College, I contacted Greenough at his parents’ Montecito home. Now we had Australia and Bob McTavish in common, and we soon became friends. Hanging out with George was very inspiring and always an adventure. If I was a Tom Sawyer, trying to tow the line and do what was expected of me by society, Greenough was a Huck Finn, a free spirit unencumbered by what people thought, a rugged individualist nature boy who did as he damn well pleased. Greenough would come by and help me with my physics homework so I’d have time to venture over to the Santa Barbara Islands with him. We’d make the crossing in his Boston Whaler with a school of dolphins swimming alongside the boat the whole way. George knew the channel, the weather patterns, and the islands like the back of his hand. He took me to remote breaks on Santa Rosa Island where we rode waves untouched by man or board. It was a pure surfing experience, almost religious – the kind of solitary surfing that George grew up with and thrived on. I remember surfing big days at Second Point Rincon with George and having the privilege of watching the maestro rip. He had the place wired – late take-offs, 30-yard bottom turns, giant swooping cutbacks with spray flying from his red-railed kneeboard, hissing through section after section, always making the wave. On smaller days he’d go out on a surf mat and make waves many couldn’t on a regular surfboard. In 1968, George began to film The Innermost Limits of Pure Fun. He’d never made a full-length movie before, but he went about it like a seasoned professional. His knowledge of photography and filmmaking was amazing, but it was all selftaught. By his own admission, George only had a "crude high school education." But to watch him in action, behind his lathe in his workshop, fashioning parts for his cameras or what not … he should be awarded an honorary PhD. At the time I was playing guitar in a rock-and-roll band. George liked our music and generously gave me the gig of music coordinator for his new film. Even though George was not a musician, he could communicate the sounds that he wanted. There was to be no narration. The music had to tell the story and evoke the mood and feel that he envisioned. I enlisted the expertise of Dennis and Doug Dragon, Ernie Knapp, and Phil Pritchard; we formed a new band called Farm. George paid us well and funded the recording cost for the soundtrack. It was his idea to rent the Lobero Theater, set the band up on stage, and have us play live while he projected his inside-thetube shots on the screen above our heads. He told us to let our guitar and organ riffs spill in unison with the curling waves until we got the feel he wanted. In 1977, while making plans for principle photography for the Warner Bros. feature film Big Wednesday, which I co-wrote with director John Milius, we decided to form a special "Water Unit" – a group of master surfers and water photographers who were capable of capturing the demanding surfing footage

needed for the film. My first idea was, "Get Greenough!" I remember the day George showed up at Milius’ Warner Bros. production office. Always uncompromisingly himself, Greenough was right in character – no shoes, resinstained pants and t-shirt, and an almost maniacal gleam in his eyes. Milius was fascinated by him and ended up being very pleased with his contribution to the film. Again, George built special cameras complete with water housings to do the job. Along with Bud Browne and Dan Merkel, George went out on his air mat at places like Sunset Beach to film in Hawaii. He’d get right in the impact zone so he could get close angles on Billy Hamilton, Peter Townend, Jay Riddle, and Ian Cairns, who were the surfing doubles for actors Jan-Michael Vincent, Bill Katt, and Gary Busey. Much of the spectacular surfing footage in Big Wednesday is pure Greenough. The meanlooking brown tube that closes down and wipes out the Matt Johnson character is a shot taken from Greenough’s Innermost Limits and blown up to 35mm to fit the big screen. To this day George continues to make breakthrough innovations in boat and sailboard desig… and with his latest film, Dolphin Glide, which is filmed from the point-of-view of a fish. Bob Simmons was the genius that took surfboards from the realm of mere planks and turned them into hydrodynamic planing hulls covered with fiberglass. George Greenough is the one that helped take surfboards to the next stage. Along with Bob McTavish, Nat Young, and others, Greenough pioneered the shortboard revolution of the late ’60s. The surfboard designs and approach to wave-riding that George envisioned 40 years ago revitalized the sport of surfing. His influence is indelible." – Denny Aaberg (legendary California surfer, guitarist, and surf writer)

CRAIG STECYK

18/1/05

HAROLD WARD

GEORGE

Above His fin designs were inspired by the foils on tuna fins. Top: Twin fins. Below: Catch of the day – yellow fin tuna. George was an avid (and sometimes savage) fisherman.

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H

GEORGE

18/1/05

4:06 PM

Page 84

BARRY KOHALIN

Above One of George’s most beloved haunts, the Indicator at Rincon. Bigger and more exposed to the afternoon winds, he reveled in the privacy of the place when the clean waves inside were clogged with surfers. Opposite George with Velo. This profile of the famous spoon reveals the extreme tail taper (composed of layers of transparent fiberglass) that accounts for the board’s flexibility. The tail deforms under pressure in a turn, then releases to help catapult the rider down the line.

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H

"George constructed the Flying Saucer canopy over the summer and fall of 1967, and had it mounted on the Boston Whaler by the time I landed at his folks’ house at Montecito in December (my first time in California). They put me up for a few weeks. We had Christmas dinner in the Boardroom… no, not surfboards – this vast room with the family portraits hanging on the walls… the room hadn’t been used since last Christmas. Anyway, George and I ran out to his secret spots on Santa Rosa Island several times. Empty, perfect lefts, dinner-plate-sized abalone everywhere, climbing over old shipwrecks, more empty perfect waves, fresh lobster cooked on the deck, then a sweet run home across the Santa Barbara Channel, dolphins lighting up the phosphorescence as they hitched a ride with us. I’d never seen abalone before, and I thought they were all the size of dinner plates. Boy, were they hard to pry off the rocks! We surfed Rincon for six weeks straight, January to February of 1968. Only George and I had the short, powerful equipment to make it from Indicators to the highway consistently. Pretty special. My intense period with George was 1964 to 1969. We spent winters here [in Australia] sharing house, tightly enmeshed in improving surfboards and surfing, mainly at

Noosa, Alexandra Head, Byron, Lennox, and Angourie. George has the greatest mechanical mind I know. He knows how things work. He has an enduring sense of adventure that, combined with my own, took us places in design and in the physical world that were new territory, constantly. First, George’s observation and study of tuna tailfins led to correct templates, flex, and concave taper, still only understood by a few. Next, his kneeboard surfing showed me to put speed and turning together in the tail, leading to the shortboard. Mind you, there were many deviations along the way, and his limitation was he couldn’t feel stand-up surfing, so we headbutted over the "hull" design for a couple of years. Worst boards I ever rode … but with micro-patches of brilliance. Impractical. Us stand-up guys just needed a high planing platform with no nose, a cushiony entry rail, and a symmetrical water flow over the back section… and tail-rocker instead of flex… to handle our weightlessness while not having a hand on the rail like George. Not to mention the movies, the boats, the trips, the fish, the laughs …" – Bob McTavish (legendary surfer and master surfboard builder)

18/1/05

4:07 PM

Page 85

"I met George while shooting Rincon in the early ’60s. We talked about photography and how he was buying surplus camera gear and modifying it to his own needs. He built me a housing for my 2-1/4 rig, and it was well done. I used it at Sunset Beach, but having to return to the beach to reload every 12 shots was too time-consuming, so I built a wooden box with suction cups on each corner and paddled it out at Sunset where I could change film in the water. I didn’t know until much later that George was also a design genius, and I got into hot water with a statement that, "American board builders did not look to a mat rider for design info." This was with the Aussie press, namely Tracks magazine. Apparently George was their design guru. I also saw George at the Nike ad shoot; he and Laird [Hamilton] were doing the water photography for the "Just Do It" ad campaign." – LeRoy Grannis (pioneer surfer and master surf photographer)

"As producer of the surfing sequences in Big Wednesday, I worked with George over a one-year period, from January ‘77 to January ’78 in El Salvador, at the Bixby Ranch above Santa Barbara, and on the North Shore of Oahu. George was my best cameraman – the most reliable, most experienced, most technically creative – of about eight on our crew. He even built himself a special 35mm movie camera to use while shooting from his inflatable mat in the channel at Sunset Beach. It was a waterproofed fiberglass-andcarbon fiber case with an Amiflex movement (with a zoom lens) running 80 frames-per-second of 35mm film. His shots were incredible. He was wonderful to work with." – Greg MacGillivray (surfer and Oscar-nominated filmmaker)

"It was the 1970s and, as in numerous times since, I was frustrated and unable to surf (standing), while recovering from an injury. Complicating my situation, I had many questions about boards and fins with no way of answering them. One day Bob Duncan of Wilderness Surfboards suggested that I give George Greenough a call, as he was back in California for the winter. So Bob gave me a phone number, saying that George enjoyed talking about various ideas, projects, and designs, and that we’d get along really well. So I called, and Bob was right. I remember one of the most unusual subjects that George loved to discuss – mat-surfing. Riding waves on an air-filled bag sounded strange, the exact opposite of everything I knew about surfing, but because of his sincere enthusiasm and knowledge, I was soon eager to give it a try. My first mats were stock rubber and canvas, imported from Australia through a surf shop in

Southern California. Armed with George’s advice, I embarked on a new journey, learning how to surf air on water. And soon enough, as George had predicted, I was mysteriously hooked. While those early mats were exciting, I recognized they were also very crude, in need of much improvement. Eventually the supply of good commercial mats dried up, so I turned to satisfying my growing addiction with a cheap, quick fix: boxes of massproduced, bargain store air mats. Unfortunately, they didn’t satisfy either – even worse quality and performance than my first rubber and canvas mats. It was clear that something had to be done if I was to continue any serious mat-surfing. Speaking with George I wondered out loud if I couldn’t make better mats than what had previously been available. He questioned whether it would be worth all the effort, but gave me a wise challenge that I took to heart and have since applied whenever possible: "Nothing ventured, nothing gained." Dramatic changes took place in high-performance mat-surfing during the winter of 1982-3, when the first modern, ultralight nylon and polyurethane surf mat was built by myself, and then sent down to George in Santa Barbara, who immediately became its primary test pilot. His new military green Hero mat was so successful that a high-performance surf-mat project was undertaken in 1983, by a team made up of George Greenough, Paul Gross, and myself, soon taking the name 4th Gear Flyer. In

PERSONALLY, I FEEL THAT GEORGE HAS HAD MORE INFLUENCE ON MODERN SURFBOARD AND FIN DESIGN THAN ANYONE ELSE IN OUR TIME. – Skip Frye (legendary surfer and board builder)

the following years, these mats and the changes they brought with them spread rapidly around the world. George was (and still remains) mat-surfing’s dominant inspiration. Two decades later, he still prefers and rides this type of surf mat to the exclusion of all his other (former) surfing equipment. Over the years, I have persisted and succeeded in my dreams of developing advanced, refined custom surf mats, due in large part to George Greenough, whose personal inspiration and encouragement continues to the present day." ALBE FALZON

GEORGE

– Dale Solomonson (mat surfer and builder)

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H

GEORGE

18/1/05

4:07 PM

Page 86

any board surfer … and made the wave. Clearly George was a surfer, but different, and he made me re-evaluate the lines we took and how we rode waves. Big Wednesday: It was 1977, and Pete Townend had "With long shaggy blonde hair, lanky and slight with a queer been called and was in El Salvador shooting the movie for shuffling gait, George is noticeably physically different. Always George Milius and Greg MacGillivray. It was a rainy winter wearing just Levis and T-shirt, George has the smallest day in Sydney when the phone rang, and it was Hollywood wardrobe I have ever seen. In fact, I have never seen him wear calling. Did I want to go to be a part of Big Wednesday and anything else. Despite his unusual appearance, he is so selfdouble for Gary Busey? Are you shitting me? Of course, I contained and has such total confidence, that he goes wherever asked them to call back the next day, just to be cool, but I he needs to go with no artifice – just take it or leave it. was going for sure. George was there and it was the first When you talk with George, there is no sense of selftime that I had a chance to watch him in action, working on promotion and no immediate indication that he is smart, but the film and participating in the experience in his own unique surely he must be a genius, as I have seen him do some way. I began to get a glimpse of the man that had briefly touched me several times in the past, and I’m glad to say that I developed a new “LENNOX HEADS...WHERE THE WAVES WERE 8FT AND PUMPING. I respect for him. Montecito: Still in ’77, we were back SAW THIS MADMAN ON A RUBBER MAT OUT SURFING, AND TO MY from El Salvador, where Big Wednesday AMAZEMENT ... HE ... GENERATED MORE SPEED .. .THAN ANY BOARD never arrived, and were planning for a new Water Unit shoot in Hawaii. George was SURFER … CLEARLY GEORGE WAS A SURFER, BUT DIFFERENT.” coming, but he needed to work on his equipment and had asked Warner Bros. for amazing things that I couldn’t have conceived. a new Arriflex 35mm movie camera to fit it with a water Longboards to Short: In May of 1967 I went to Sydney housing. PT and I were in LA, so we thought we’d drop in on from Perth for the Australian Titles with an 8’ shortboard that George at his dad’s place in Montecito, and it was there I saw was a result of the groundbreaking work of Australians Nat Gyro Gearloose in his element! The pool had a pot-bellied stove Young, Bob McTavish, Wayne Lynch, Ted Spencer, and an in the corner, one of George’s past experiments in heating the unknown American, George Greenough. This was the pool, which was now solar-heated, thanks to George. We found most revolutionary change in surfing history, as short him in his childhood bedroom, surrounded by the thousands of boards enabled surfers to ride the wave, not the board – parts of the Arriflex and a couple of fiberglass moldings – it a revolution that has continued since. George had touched seems he had decided to dispense with the Arriflex casing and me for the first time. rebuild the camera inside a new waterproof fiberglass housing. In-the-Tube film: I first saw George’s in-the-tube An astounding idea, but would it work? We would find out in photography at the tail-end of The Innermost Limits of Hawaii when we met again in the winter. Pure Fun, a movie I saw at the Regal cinema in Perth, Winter ’77: Searching for Big Wednesday: Clearly, if you Western Australia – as far as you could possibly need a surf movie to end with a bang, then shoot the surfing in get from Indicators at Rincon. George had Hawaii. We were set up with water patrol and the directive to touched me for the second time, and I had little catch the most radical and gnarliest waves we could ride, and information about him on which to base an opinion mostly this meant Sunset Beach. Sunset is no picnic and during – I just knew that I had to focus on deep tubethe shooting we had some BIG days. I was wondering how this riding from then on. experience with George would all coalesce. Hawaii is bigger Lennox Heads: In 1970 I had finished high and more powerful than anything George had shot before. school and was traveling on the east coast Would he get the shot with his new 35mm Georgiflex? When I and stopped at Lennox Heads, one of the saw him sitting on his rubber mat, the ungainly Georgiflex world’s greatest right pointbreaks, perched on his shoulder, shooting one of us pulling into a 12ft where the waves were 8ft and inside-section barrel, caught inside with a certain beating pumping. The inside section was coming, I had my answer. He would get the shot, as an expert about 5ft and unmakeable for almost cinematographer should, and he would take the beating, as an all the surfers in the water. Standing expert surfer should. on the beach, I saw this madman on George is an absolutely unique individual and a priceless a rubber mat out surfing, and to my asset to surfing. I am proud to have known him." amazement this freak on a floppy piece of rubber generated more – Ian Cairns (legendary surfer and co-founder of pro and speed on the inside section than amateur surfing organizations) ALBE FALZON

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H

18/1/05

4:07 PM

Page 87

"One of the abiding memories I have of George from the early days was when he was sharing a bedroom in a house in Alexandra Headlands with Russell Hughes. Russell was very neat ... remarkable in one so young … but George simply didn’t care at all. Russ was so frustrated by this that he drew a line in chalk down the middle of the room. One side was in complete order. On the other was everything George owned, was interested in... or had simply managed to collect... in total disarray. George slept in a sleeping bag that doubled as his suitcase ... he just stuffed his board and all his clothes in it when he came out from California. The mattress on his bed was hanging off one corner by maybe one quarter. I went back months later, and the mattress was in exactly the same position." – John Witzig (seminal surf journalist)

"It’s actually a bit of a worry, George is… how old? Fucked if I know! The little bugger looks the same as he did in 1968 – few more wrinkles, but the same anemic shriveled little body with the basin-cut blond mop. If you asked the average man in the street to tell you the age of this fellow Homo sapiens, I would be amazed if anyone could call it accurately. George is a rare bird. I think it’s because GG has lived the pure surfing life that we all aspired to but none of us could really live with that level of commitment. Greenough does it, lives it every day… will until the day he evolves into a fish. We are fortunate to still have him as a member of the tribe."

Opposite George and McTavish getting ready for a session at Angourie. "Aussie filmmaker Bob Evans was filming and I was doing stills for Surfing World magazine," recalls Falzon. "Angourie during this period was a frequent stopover on Bob's north coast filming trips. More often than not there would be just McTavish and the crew out – no development, no surfers." Below The jewel of Australia’s Central Coast, Lennox Head was the ultimate proving ground for George’s vehicular theories and the place where he filmed some of his deepest, sickest pits.

– Nat Young (legendary surfer and writer)

"Yes! I know George Greenough, but... does anyone know George Greenough? Someone thinks my slant could add light or even clarify the enigma. We like the enigma where it is. Is he (a great word) an ENIGMA? George mostly does whatever, whenever, and runs his own race. People noticed him because he was doing the same tracks, but the criteria was ruptured, or enhanced, or invigorated. Well, something was happening anyway! His trip was faster, rougher, took him to different places, and it was more efficient, compact, and encapsulated. Complex head-trips or mechanical juggernauts were stunningly being handled by simplistic solutions and rendered almost pedestrian… and minds blew. There seemed no obvious pretensions in moving the ante up. It just made the result faster, more fun, efficient, lighter, cheaper, more complete – increased the pay-off, blew a few serious players out of the water, made it better, and all by sophistication disguised as barbed-wire-and-bubblegum physics. George’s direction is singular, focused, boring, and boring (noun and verb). If you don’t want to know what he wants to tell, just give up. You’re outgunned, and the energy is directed at or through you till it stops where it is appreciated. If you are in the line of flow, don’t resist; most of his verbiage is pertinent. Serious fun and dark

ALBE FALZON

GEORGE

18/1/05

4:07 PM

Page 88

ART BREWER

GEORGE

Above George has proven himself as a proficient and efficient cameraman in a variety of venues. Here he’s caught at work during the 1978 Coke Contest in Manley Beach, Australia. Opposite For his work on Dolphin Glide, George modeled his camera housing to look and function like a small dolphin, to facilitate swimming and surfing with them.

mirth looking for ways of happening underlie the intensity of his transactional commerce. He enjoys the cruel twist of fate or the manipulations of circumstance. The latter is the better. Is he a genius? He is not a fool! He is a competent captain and leader in every sense of their implied responsibilities. He does not look like it! What does competent look like? How do you run a life? By pandering to people who cry out for signals that can bring them comfort? Center on the possible! Pandering is a waste of energy. Fun can be a challenge with inbuilt rewards. The effect of working to achieve a greater quotient of fun brings the dual kicker of accomplishment plus thrills. Double points! Contemplate strokes of a difference that carry everyone out to the same line-up. The real game is not in some preamble for position; it’s all about the ride. George figured out the most fun was in the track that had the combo of speed and power. The formulas were nonrestrictive. It applied to all our toys. It was his own personal adrenal tweak. The saltwater savant’s personal hunger for extreme sensations sent shockwaves, which happily brush us all. When society and the world finally give our fetish acceptance, so we can reject the attention and philosophically shoot out their spotlights, we will require icons. Simmons, Quigg, Matt, Clark, Dale, Woody, Duke, Pat ... keep ’em coming, keep ’em coming… Greenough can stand quite shaggily but just as tall as these others." – Bob Cooper (legendary surfer and primal antipodal pioneer)

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H

I can’t really remember when I first met George. I had been filming 16mm, first for Bruce Brown and then for myself, from the early ’60s. George, of course, was also into 16mm, so we had a natural point of contact. I started spending winters near Angourie mid to late ’60s. Gary and Denise Keys had an old farmhouse at Palmers Channel, where George, Chris Brock, and I stayed for a few years. Gary was making Wilderness surfboards based upon George’s spoon design. They were very interesting days. No one had money. Living was cheap. We were as much into surfboard making as we were into filming. A very holistic approach. Clean living, no grog, and deserted Angourie was only a few miles away. When the swell was up, we could hear the pounding in the night. From those early Angourie days my relationship with George continued and grew. As the Australian thrust into shortboards developed, John [Witzig] was covering the story in his magazines, and I was filming it. We traveled quite a lot as the movement grew, and George was often part of the caravan. The cutting edge of Australian surfing (led by Nat and McTavish, and later Wayne) was very much inspired by George’s surfing and innovation. It is interesting to note that George’s ideas took root in Australia far more easily than they did in California. Perhaps this was because California already had a strong surf industry with entrenched interests and ideas. In Oz, apart from the Brookfield scene, we were very much a group of country-

18/1/05

4:07 PM

Page 89

living, experimenting surfers, and very much open to exploration of new ideas. George was always an individual. A one-off person. He scorned convention and simply did his own thing. Those things he was interested in, he was prepared to devote his life to; and those he was not interested in did not exist in his world. To his passions he brought a keen innovative mind, always ready to rethink a problem and to reject a conventional solution. Thus, he developed flexing boards and fins more than 30 years ago; and yet the surfing industry (apart from a few dedicated individuals) is still locked into an old, outdated construction system. He wanted to share the surfing experience with an audience and for decades worked on film systems, which allowed him to shoot the heart of the action. By day, by night. Lately he has been working on his dolphin film, but I have not seen this. Simply put, George has rejected the value systems of our consumer-oriented society; he has been prepared to pioneer new areas of surf-oriented exploration throughout his life. He has never been money-driven or power-driven. The drive has always been fueled by the pursuit of the idea, the vision. I still talk to or run into George every year or two. The guy hasn’t changed. I nominate him as a national treasure."

Unfortunately, I haven’t always been able to follow his philosophy, but it is there in the back of my mind. If there was one person in my life that has had the most effect on me personally (besides my father) it has been George. George doesn’t suffer fools for very long, so it’s a good idea to keep on your toes when talking to him. A fine person and good friend." – Greg Huglin (surf, shark, and dolphin cinematographer)

GEORGE GREENOUGH

GEORGE

– Paul Witzig (chronicler and maker of surf films)

"I was thinking … surf design encompasses so many different areas. We look at fish and hydrodynamics as well as aerodynamics, in order to make a guesstimate as to where to start. In the life of the surfing family tree, it seems to me that George really has his own branch. He doesn’t seem adversely affected by anyone else’s decisions, designs, or choices. He is interested in all aspects of design with anything involved with the ocean – boards, cameras, boats, sea life, and materials. He is on the cutting edge of design in everything he does. I hear stories of how filmmakers want to steal his cameras and can’t believe he was able to make such things. He grows his own food. He lives without shoes. He is very connected to his beliefs and what he knows to be right, and he still has an open mind as to what can be accomplished … and that seems to be anything. I have never met the man, but he has influenced me tremendously." – Kelly Slater (surfer)

"George really changed my life. When I saw Innermost Limits in 1970, I knew I wanted to be a filmmaker and shoot ocean-related films. So I went to film school the next year. I didn’t actually meet George until 1971, and we slowly became friends. I assisted him many times in the 1980s in Australia when he had filming jobs, and I learned everything I now know from him. George is a unique person in that he freely gives out info on filming techniques and problem-solving that most filmmakers guard jealously. I’ve always tried to return the favor to younger filmmakers. George also taught me a lot about how to keep life simple.

"My first experience with Greenough was when we were kids surfing Ventura and Rincon, and we’d say, "There’s that guy with long hair and a funny mat." We didn’t really know who he was. Time and time again, we’d never make the inside sections, and here was this guy that would just go gliding across, like he was on some hydroplane type of thing – that’s what he was doing. It was like a hovercraft, and I remember calling it that. We thought he was an alien on a hovercraft. This was back during the ’80s. My other experience with George was when I spent a day with him at his pyramid. One of the things I noticed was that there were these denim piles. He would wear his jeans until they completely wore out, and then he would just drop them and pull out another pair and wherever they landed, that’s where they stayed forever. It was like anthropology. Probably the thing that he said that struck me the most was when he was talking about surfing and where he surfs. He said, "I usually go out to this specific spot, and it’s great because the only people out there are the dolphins. They are the only people I surf with." Just the idea that he didn’t break stride in sentence, and he wasn’t being clever with words, that’s just the way he saw it. Part of me feels that he thinks of dolphins as people, but more so, that he thinks of himself as a dolphin. That’s the thing that was unique that I carry with me from that day. The last thing I remember was his common sense. He doesn’t analyze, he just does." – Chris Malloy (surfer, filmmaker, explorer)

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H

GEORGE

18/1/05

4:07 PM

ALBE FALZON

Opposite George as photographed by Michael Halsband for his Surf Book (2003).

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H

Page 90

The first time I saw George "live" it was at Rincon on New Year’s Day morning just before sunrise in the late ’60s. The surf was just overhead in The Cove. I was preparing to paddle out from the hazy, empty beach when I saw two streaks on a huge wave at the Indicator. A guy had dropped in on something going very fast through a square section about 50 feet long. It got covered – completely gone from view. It looked hopeless. My attention turned to the guy on the shoulder still pumping at top speed on his mini-gun. Not until the lost streak had done a full 180º, roundhouse cutback around the mini-gun guy did I realize it was George on his mat. It was big, really big, at least for me. I had heard stories about George’s incredible mat -iding. I ended up watching from the beach about an hour as the line-up filled in. George took off deeper and went faster than anything on the point that day. To be honest, I had patterned my surfing equipment and style based on what I saw George doing in the magazines and movies. I had hoped to catch a glimpse of him or even meet him while driving up the coast from Sunset Cliffs. Somehow he disappeared, so I went to the old Channel Islands shop to try to show him my new board and meet him. It was a typical gremmie tactic. The old cop car was in the parking lot, and I didn’t have the nerve to go in and ask for him, so I hung around and waited for him to come out. I looked in the back seat of his car, and there was some camera stuff, a few fins, and useful stuff he had picked up off the beach, like old lobster rope, bits and pieces of foam, and the like. There was so much sand in the back of his cop car it could have been called "Greenough Beach." George finally came out of the shop, and I grabbed my new and first successful spoon and cut him off at his car. "Are you George?" He said "yeah," and I handed him my board and asked, "What do you think of my new board?" He took my board and held it by the rail. He didn’t even look at it. His response was, "How does it work?" I am embarrassed to repeat the praise I gave my own craftsmanship, if you could call it that, but I went on and on. After I finished he simply said, "Sounds like a good board to me," and then handed it back and drove away. I was stoked. George’s accomplishments with respect to the design and construction of gear usually overshadow his personality. So much has been said about his gear and genius that I would just be repeating others’ words to describe the level of sophistication therein. It is difficult to get past the genius found in George’s gear, enough, to even get a glimpse of George the man. Looking at George, you would think he was homeless. I heard he was turned away from a high school reunion because he appeared as just that – a homeless person crashing the party. I ate in a restaurant with him once when he wore a pair of fins to meet the "no shoes, no shirt, no service" policy. The only time I ever saw him in shoes was at Chuck Ames’ wedding. It was about 1987. They were zip-up-the-side, black "Beatle boots." He sat on the curb in front of the church to put

them on. My wife knows that George hates spiders. She asked him the last time he had worn those boots. He said something about high school. Then she dropped the bomb: "Did you check for spiders?" You should have seen how fast those boots came off. Not to be taken advantage of, George took an extremely unbecoming picture of my wife tipping a gallon jug of wine from across the reception room. She had the jug to her lips, her head tipped way back, and her eyes were slightly bugging out. The portrait was in perfect focus and framed so that the blood vessels in the whites of her eyes were the center of the picture. About a month after the picture was taken he showed an 8x10” to Kelly. She was pissed and did all she could to destroy the documentation. George never gave it up. It must still be in his closet somewhere. It still bugs my wife. Make no mistake even though George’s presentation is questionable, George is a successful guy. He has parlayed his genius wisely with respect to finances. George is simply frugal. His design and construction efforts reflect this frugal nature. His design is based on what he observes in nature. He is extremely observant and from a unique perspective at that. George’s designs are no frills, straight to the point, and inherently simple, just as in nature. George is able to build or fix just about anything with a nutcracker and spoon. I think he takes pride in outsmarting conventional wisdom to devise unique methods to build something that the rest of us would have to mortgage the farm to just buy the required tools. This ability to devise a process to meet his final design requirements is as much to his credit as his innovation with respect to concept. It is a rare thing to find, in one person, the ability to conceive of a final design, the ability to work with their hands, and the ability to create the process and tools to execute a particular design. To have the capacity to do this with "found" bits and pieces of tools and materials vastly extends his potential to create. To top off all of the shop time, he is a consummate waterman. He is not scared of sharks or waves. He is not scared to look different and take risks in either the water or in design. George is the real deal in every aspect. George is not scared. George has an interesting sense of humor. He is really funny in a wry, almost English way. He is delighted to find a crack in a personality and needle his way in, until he "lights them up". My wife Kelly loves rabbits, and the dialogue concerning rabbit sandwiches and good-luck key chains is always hilarious, and he seems to leave the subject just before she "blows". I don’t think George is wired for children ("germ holes" is how he refers to infants). "Never handle babies if you want to stay healthy" is his sage wisdom. Even so, he takes time to pay attention when approached by kids; he just doesn’t pick them up and kiss them. Seeing George with a cat is a complete crack-up. Inevitably he will pick up a cat and hold it. As the cat begins to squirm he will match the struggle with a firmer grip and say to the cat "don’t struggle" as the cat gets more and more frantic. For some reason this predictable response just puts him into hysteria. Not only has George offered his experience and wisdom to the surfing world in the most unselfish way, he also brings humor

18/1/05

4:07 PM

Page 91

and encourages critical thinking in the world at large. He is painfully logical yet nuanced. He is a real person who happens to have the opportunity to offer the world the fruits of his unique gifts. He does this selflessly. That generosity is the piece of George that awes me and leaves me with nothing but respect for him." – Stan Pleskunas (surfer, sailor, broad-spectrum innovator)

"When we look back in time, we find that there were a select few surfers that made a profound effect on the evolution of the surfboard. Like Tom Blake’s hollow paddleboards in the ’30s, Bob Simmons’ radical foiled light boards in the late ’40s, George Downing’s Hawaiian big-wave shapes in the’50s… to name just three. In the mid-’60s, board designs in California were stagnant – heavy, straight, with half-moon-shaped fins right on the tail of the board. Along comes George Greenough. Exiting high school (which he found very boring) loaded with ideas – one being a better way to surf a breaking wave – his scooped-out kneeboard with a flexible fiberglass fin got my attention and a lot of others, also, especially in Australia. So should George be given full credit for the birth of the modern shortboard era? Maybe not entirely; others contributed

in the progression. But George pulled the trigger – fired the first shot by proving that what he could do on his kneeboard could be utilized in stand-up surfing also. Since George has no appetite for wine, women, or song, he gives full attention to his projects. How about his work on waterproof cameras? Look at what his early developments have led to in today’s state-of-the-art surf photography. Eccentric? Yes, but so were the others that preceded him, that made a difference. George definitely made things happen, and he’s not through yet. Credit needs to be given where credit is deserved." – Renny Yater (legendary surfer and boardbuilder)

The Santa Barbara Maritime Museum has mounted the first ever retrospective on surfing icon and innovator George Greenough, plus an art exhibit entitled “Inspired,” which features artistic interpretations using Greenough as focal point. The exhibit’s run has been extended until April 30th, 2005. Developed by Barry Haun at the Huntington Beach International Surfing Museum, the list of contributors of exhibit items is a virtual “Who’s Who” of surfing culture: Dennis Aaberg, Chuck Ames, Bernie Baker, Steve Bissell, Ian Cairns, Spencer Croul, Albert Falzon, Skip Frye, LeRoy Grannis, Greg Huglin, Bob McTavish, Dan Merkel, Steve Pezman, Peter Townend, Renny Yater, and Nat Young, as well as George Greenough himself, and many others. Note: Huge thanks to Barry Haun of the Surfing Heritage Foundation in assembling this feature on Mr. Greenough. Learn more at: www.surfing-heritage.com

MICHAEL HALSBAND SURF BOOK

GEORGE

T H E S U R F E R’ S PAT H