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

Arabian Sea

Aragon, Janice

Arakawa, Eric

Archbold, Matt

Arena, Eduardo

Ashton, Juan

Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP)

Atlantic Ocean

August, Robert

Aurness, Rolf

Auster, Ken

Australia

Avalon, Frankie

Azores

backdoor

backside

backside attack, Pipeline

backwash

bail out

Bain, Rob

Baja California

Baker, Bernie

Baker, Grant “Twiggy”

Baker, Tim

Bali

Ball, John “Doc”

Ballard, Bill

Ballard, Rochelle

balsa

Baltic Sea

Banks, Jim

Barbados

Barilotti, Steve

Barland, Michel

Barreda, Sergio “Gordo”

Barry, Michael

Bartholomew, Wayne

Baxter, Jackie

Bay of Bengal

Beach Boys, The

Beacham, Debbie

beachboys

beachbreak

Beachcomber Bills Grand Prix

Beachley, Layne

beavertail

Becker, Phil

Bedford-Brown, Stuart

Belgium

Bells Beach

Bendall, Ma and Pa

Bennett, Barry

Benson, Becky

Benson, Blanche

Benson, Linda

Bermuda

Tireless and unobtrusive surfboard shaper from San Diego, California; best known as a leader of the longboard renaissance in the '70s and early '80s. Eaton was born (1934) in New York, New York, raised in Palos Verdes, California, and began surfing at age 14, helped along by seminal surf figure Tom Blake; Eaton used to transport his heavy wooden board to the Palos Verdes Cove using an army stretcher customized with a pair of rear-mounted wagon wheels.

Eton began shaping surfboards in 1955 for wetsuit magnate-to-be Jack O'Neill, out of O'Neill's San Francisco garage/surf shop. In the late '50s and early '60s, Eaton worked as a whale trainer at Marineland, a Palos Verdes ocean animal theme park, and not until 1965 did he become a full-time shaper, working simultaneously for Bing Surfboard and Rick Surfboards, both located in nearby Hermosa Beach. "I was in there full tilt," Eaton recalled in 1988, "shaping 20 boards a day, sometimes.

Throughout this period, and after, Eaton was also devoted to fast, customized cars. "Mike was a hot rodder," as the Jalopy Journal later put it, "who just happened to shape some of the best boards in the world."

By 1968, Eaton had left Rick and was shaping as many as 20 boards a day for Bing; in 1970 he introduced a wide-backed square-tail version of the twin-fin, which had a burst of popularity in 1971 and 1972; in 1973 he produced a ballyhooed but unsuccessful version of the bonzer, the first three-fin board. Bing Surfboards by that time had been purchased by San Diego–based Gordon and Smith Surfboards (G&S); Eaton was meanwhile having second thoughts about the late-'60s shortboard revolution—a 1974 G&S ad shows an 8'2" Eaton-made "Fun Shape," and asserts that "80% of all surfers would be better off with an eight-foot board."

While the longboard renaissance wouldn't begin in earnest for another few years, and Eaton continued to make shortboards—he crafted some of the finest big-wave guns of the '70s— Eaton-produced longboards sold in ever-higher numbers from 1975 on. Eaton Surfboards was founded in 1978 in San Diego, and by 2002 Eaton estimated he'd made more than 50,000 boards. Paddleboards were added to the Eaton line in 1989, and Eaton himself competed five times in the grueling 32-mile Catalina Classic paddleboard race, entering for the last time in 2005, at age 71.

In 2008, Eaton shut his factory and moved to Hawaii. His autobiography, "A Design of His Own," was published in 2018.

Eaton died in 2021, of a stroke, at age 86.

Eaton, Mike

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Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

The Sunday Joint

Encyclopedia of Surfing

History of Surfing

Interviews

The Sunday Joint