Shapers in the mid-’50s could barely keep pace with the demand for boards as the nationwide surfing population ballooned and its hungry market grew. Two men in particular would step ahead of the field as California’s (and, by extension, the rest of the country’s) go-to source for boards. One was Dale Velzy: the larger-than-life designer of the Pig, whose business went down in figurative flames after he defied the IRS. The other was Hobie Alter: the plain-spoken, industrious son of an orange farmer who foresaw that the surf market’s most prosperous days were still ahead. Below, from a section of his newest History of Surfing chapter, Matt Warshaw explains how the men’s polar styles gave America its first rivalry between boardmakers:
Velzy swooped down from Los Angeles in 1955 to open a new outlet in San Clemente, on Pacific Coast Highway, just five miles south of Hobie’s shop, for the express purpose of siphoning off potential customers driving up from San Diego. And thus began the start of the first great American boardmaker’s rivalry. Customers lined up behind one man or the other, Hobie or Velzy, giving their allegiance not just to a brand but a form of surfing leadership. Alter was earnest and respectable, and his shop was as clean as Alter himself was clean-cut. Velzy smoked cigars, wore a diamond pinky ring, and kept a roll of hundred-dollar bills in his back pocket. In 1957, to celebrate a big sales year, Velzy paid cash for a 300SL Mercedes; pulling up in front of his San Clemente shop, he’d pop open the driver’s side gullwing door and walk toward the factory jingling his keys in one hand and holding a half pint of bourbon in the other.

Their salesmanship styles differed, too. In a bit of ad copy, Alter described his boards as having “evolved through careful and original changes, using proven principles and vast experience.” Velzy, as even his most loyal followers would admit, was a hustler. But a smooth, likable hustler. He’d sidle up to a mink-coat-wearing divorcée looking to buy a board for her teenage son, touch her elbow, lean close, lower his voice, and say, “This here’s a good-riding son of a bitch, ma’am.”

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We asked Warshaw more about the legacies left by Velzy and Hobie, and how the two uniquely navigated surfing’s first commercial boom.

Former SURFER Editor Paul Holmes wrote the biographies for both Velzy (2006) and Hobie (2013). After both books were published, did Holmes say anything about the nature of the pair’s relationship after studying their lives in detail?

Nothing as far as I know, but that’s a great idea. I’d love to get Paul’s take on that. He did such a fantastic job with both those books. I’ve worn out my copies, stealing bits and pieces. But the two stories together in one book, or one movie — that would be so awesome. Velzy is a surfer-cowboy-biker-hustler, a total fireworks show. Hobie is Henry Fonda. They’re just so different. And in public they’re smiling at each other, but at some level you know they’re kind of at each other’s throats. I posted a Hobie interview yesterday in Above the Roar, from 2012, and he says, talking about when the IRS shut Velzy down, “We felt bad for Dale when he went under. You didn’t want to see that happen to anyone.” I read that and think, Oh, you big liar! The day Velzy went down, you know Hobie went out and bought three cases of Oly and it was beers all around at the factory.

In EOS, you mention a Drew Kampion quote from ‘88 that, “Perhaps more than anyone else, including Gidget, Dora, Frankie and Annette, even the Duke, Hobie Alter has been responsible for the growth and development of surfing.” Do you agree?

Maybe you’d change it to be “Growth and development of the surfing industry.” The way we ride waves, talk, watch surfing, think about surfing — that all would have happened the way it did without Hobie. But the business side of it, the surfboards, skateboards, clothes, all the manufacturing and retail, Hobie led the way there for 20 or 25 years.

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When was the moment Velzy realized that Hobie was the real deal?

I don’t know that he ever did. Or vice-versa. Dale clearly didn’t give a shit about business, and Hobie didn’t think Dale’s boards were all that great.

Who were the team riders for Hobie in the late ’50s? Velzy had a stacked roster between guys like Dora, Dewey, and Mick Munoz. Did Hobie manage to convince anyone to jump ship and ride under his name?

Hobie had Phil Edwards in the ‘50s, and that was like having Kelly Slater. And he had Linda Benson too, she was sort of the blonde Carissa Moore of the period. Those were Hobie’s two big names early on. Then of course in the ‘60s, the team leveled up in a huge way. The Hobie team was untouchable. More names then I could list here.

After the IRS sacked Velzy, what did his return to commercial board-making look like?

Low-key. I think he had a retail space for awhile, but nothing major. Mostly he did custom work.

Alter was also tireless in the skateboard culture for a time, and sailing culture in the late ’60s. He told Holmes that he always was intensely focused on whatever he was doing, and that he liked how there was never a lull, always something else to get into. Did Velzy’s collapse have anything to do with it? Hobie suddenly being alone at the top of the mountain?

No, Hobie was OCD, like just about all great entrepreneurs and achievers. You’re either working on something, planning something, solving a problem — or you’re unhappy.

Say that Velzy was a better steward of his finances. Who do you think would’ve emerged from the ’60s as the more successful board-maker?

Hobie, no question. Velzy had distractions. In a good way. He was social, he was unpredictable. You love him for that; Velzy isn’t Velzy without the rough edges. If he’d hired an accountant, paid all his bills on time, he’d still never be in the same league as Hobie in terms of business focus, drive, ambition. Like they say, Hobie was our Henry Ford. Henry Fonda and Henry Ford both. In surf trunks.

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