A-frame

Aaberg, Denny

Aaberg, Kemp

Abberton, Koby

Abbruzzi, Sid

Abellira, Reno

Abubo, Megan

academia and surfing

Adler, Tom

advertising and surfing

Aeder, Erik

aerial

Aguerre, Fernando

Aichner, Scott

Aikau, Clyde

Aikau, Eddie

Aipa, Ben

air-drop

airbrush

Airshow

Ala Moana

Alabama

alaia board

Alaska

alcohol and surfing

Alexander, Kala

Alexandre, João (Dapin)

Allen, Chuck

Alms, Paige

aloha shirt

Alter, Hobie

Alvarez, Pepe

Ancell, Kevin

Andaman Islands

Andersen, Lisa

Anderson, Craig

Anderson, Simon

Andino, Kolohe

Angel, Jose

angle

Angola

Angourie

Antarctica

Apocalypse Now

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Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

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Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

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Azores

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backside attack, Pipeline

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bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

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Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

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Banks, Jim

Barbados

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Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

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Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

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Belgium

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Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Surfboard shaper and manufacturer from San Diego County, California; founder of Hansen Surfboards, and a leader of the signature model era in the mid-1960s. Hansen was born (1937) and raised in South Dakota, lettered in boxing, track, and football, and earned up to $600 a week as a mink trapper. He began surfing at age 18, after graduating high school and hitchhiking to San Diego.

In 1958, while stationed at Fort Ord army base, Hansen began shaping boards in nearby Santa Cruz, at Jack O'Neill's shop. In 1961, after short stints with Southern California boardmakers Hobie and Jacobs, Hansen moved to Oahu, where he made and sold boards under his own label. The following year he moved back to San Diego and opened Hansen Surfboards in the beachside town of Cardiff; four years later the company was grossing more than $500,000 a year. “I’ve always felt like I’ve had an advantage over a lot of the guys I knew in the surfing industry," Hansen later said. “I always thought I could outwork 'em. I'd grew up on a farm. I knew what it was like to work all day in the field under a hot sun.”

Hansen Surfboards sponsored some of California's hottest riders, including Mike Doyle, Rusty Miller, Linda Benson, and Margo Godfrey, and offered some of the most popular surfboard models, like the Master, the Hustler, the Powerflex, and the 50/50. Hansen was also good with the media: his advertisements were well-designed and clever, Hansen himself made the cover of 

 in 1962, and he was one of 10 board manufacturers featured on a 1965 

 portrait cover. Hansen continued to surf often, and in 1967, he and Diane Bolton won the tandem event at the United States Surfing Championships. In the early '70s, Hansen was an early investor in Ocean Pacific beachwear.

But Hansen Surfboards, along with the rest of the old guard surf retailers, fell into decline during the late-'60s shortboard revolution, when faster-moving backyard boardmakers were better able to respond to a whipsawing market. Hansen meanwhile seemed uncomfortable with the era's cultural changes. "More than a year has passed since surfdom was hit by a psychedelic tidal wave," he wrote in a 1969 surf magazine article. "There is certainly nothing wrong with this, [but] the last thing a kid needs are six strings of beads to weigh him down as he tries to catch a wave."

Hansen moved back to the midwest, but kept the shop, which rebounded in the decades to come, and remains in the family.

In 2011, the California Surf Museum in Oceanside staged ""Don Hansen—a 50-year Restrospective."

Hansen, Don

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

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