"Ryan Dotson: Surfer/Shaper" ran in the April 1969 issue of Petersen's Surfing, when Dotson was 23. The author is uncredited.

I first came to the North Shore a few years ago, surfed just like everyone else, then went back to the Mainland and made plans to come back to stay. The next winter I stayed a little longer, but again went back to California because I still regarded it as home. On my third trip over, I decided to stay. That's when I moved to Maui.

Tell us how you decided to take up shaping.

For a few years I did everything there was to do in a shop, except shape. When I started riding a smaller board, I knew it was time. We were riding pintails, so the first board I shaped was a 9'4" pin. It turned out to be a good board, and I just progressed from there. Everything about shaping was a little difficult for me because I completely taught myself! I set up right on the point at Sunset, in a vacant shack. Later I made an arrangement to sell my shapes through Surf Line Hawaii.

We understand that you and Joey Cabell have collaborated on some boards! Has he been much help to you in shaping and designing?

Not with the actual shaping. But he's given me a lot of ideas, a lot of good ones! Joey is so talented, design-wise. We've both worked together on this small board thing, getting our boards down from nine-foot to eight-foot. We've made everything from round bottoms with razor-sharp rails to exactly the opposite. I made a board for Joey with rails so sharp you couldn't hold it for very long because it hurt in the crease of your hand. It was unbelievably sharp! Unfortunately, the thing didn't work at all. With a round bottom and sharp rails, it did exactly opposite of what we wanted it to do. It tracked completely; it was just a terrible board. We learned, though. We'll never go back to a round-bottom board for speed. Flat bottoms are definitely the answer for what we're trying to do.

Surfing has just gone through a very traumatic year in surfboard designing. What contributions are you presently trying to attain with your designs?

I'm just going to make the fastest board for getting in the tightest places on the wave! I'm a long way from perfection, especially in larger surf. The next move, I feel, is to make the board lighter. Even in larger surf, if the board is designed correctly, it will ride. I'm sure an eight-pound board will ride fifteen- or twenty-foot surf.

Won't you have a big problem with weakness?

Right. With the light boards, they, the board really easily. What we've got to do now is develop materials that will keep them in one piece, yet still be light.

I've changed the wood in my stringers. I've gone from redwood to fir and spruce. Fir has a different grain structure and is much stronger. It's a harder wood. But there has to be a lot of research into new and better glass and resin, too. And of course the construction can always be improved. Right now, different combinations of glass is the big thing. Like I've used every combination of glass from two-ounce to ten-ounce cloth: eight and five, eight and four, six and two — every possible combination. Right now I'm using a single layer of eight on the bottom, and a six and eight on the top.

Let me put it this way. I'm presently riding a board that is 18-and-a-quarter inches. Now, I wouldn't fire the public onto a board like that. An average guy would get on it and sink up to his chin and wonder what the hell I'd sold them. I'm making boards for the professional and semi-professional surfer because I can build them what they want. But then, they usually ride pretty close to what I'm riding, or they wouldn't come to me.

Living here on the North Shore must limit your business.

Yeah, I don't sell many of my own boards. The only people I build boards for personally are my friends. The majority of what I make goes through Surf Line Hawaii. I'd love for all of my customers to come out and watch me shape their board, but having a long talk with each customer would just take too much time. I only want my market to be big enough to keep me going, so I can keep just surfing and designing boards.

Then your boards are almost all going out to pretty advanced surfers, right?

Yes, I don't cater to the surfer who's only been surfing for a few years. Once you get into the stages of speed and rail designs I'm using, a kook could hardly ride one; it's past him. I deal only in these truths. I'm only interested in what really works for the advanced surfer. The boards have to be radical.

One last question. Can you give us a prediction? Design-wise, where is it all going to end?

I don't think it ever will come to an end. Things will just keep progressing. Radical surfing is here to stay.

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