Steve Pezman interview Joe Quigg in 1997 for "Turning Points," which ran in Surfer's Journal in December, 2011. This version has been slightly edited and shortened.

You took a lot of great photos during a period when surfing was being defined in California. 

[Note: Quigg was a skilled amateur photographer as well as a surfer and boardmaker]

I was a Photographer’s Mate in the Navy during the war and studied at Art Center afterward. I made those images after the war. You know, I was there [at the beach] for so many years. Can I just go ahead and chat? In fact, you might as well record, even if you don’t print what I’m going to say, just so you’ll know.

Absolutely, go wherever you want. I’ll move the recorder closer to you.

I haven’t said anything profound yet [laughing].

You know how long I’ve been surfing? Not many have been at it for seven decades. I dug into this box full of junk (Quigg has arrived with a folder of old snapshots, 8 x 10 prints, hand-drawn sketches, and pages torn from magazines). I did have an entire huge barrel full of stuff, but the termites got into it. Anyway, I was born in 1925. We moved to Santa Monica when I was three. My mother loved to swim so she began taking me down to the beach, and I started making these little boats and paipo boards in my father’s garage. So my mother and brother loved to go to the Del Mar Club, and I’d go scampering out into the shorebreak with my little paipo. I was just 3 or 4 years old. I hadn’t learned to swim yet, so I’d just go sliding in the whitewater. That was in 1928 or 1929. I’d watch the lifeguards and surf guys that hung out there.

There were just a few breaks in California being surfed then?

San Onofre and Palos Verdes became the first well-known breaks. Hermosa and Manhattan got popular a bit later. Groups of guys would come and go. Years ago I was at this party, and an older guy brought out some Don James footage of Venice that showed Bud Browne jumping off Crystal Pier. Bud used to lifeguard there. A gang of paddleboard guys rode that break and they couldn’t ride very well, then they tore the pier down. But there was a bathhouse and some rentals there. I once saw a picture in a restaurant dated 1905 of people standing around with these little boards. They’d wade out and bellyboard back to shore, like I was doing in Santa Monica as a kid. Our boards were homemade, but this one looks like it was commercially produced. 

(Pointing to a picture of Joe, Jack Quigg, and Anslie Moon at Santa Monica Beach dated 1932.)

Tell me about making lighter boards, and how that all happened.

Everybody gives Simmons credit for inventing the light board when the pre-war Swastika boards were already balsa-redwood laminates and showing a trend toward lightness. 

(Joe picks out another photo showing two surfers and a row of boards.)

 This is my brother Jack and the guy across the street, Ed Fearon. As teenagers, they started working at the Bel-Air Bay Club. They were my idols. Two of these boards here are heavy redwood, but the rest are all balsa and actually really light. This is years before Simmons started going light.

Pete Peterson would've known all about this stuff.

Yeah, it's too bad Zahn and Peterson are dead. Tom idolized Pete and could have dragged all that history out of him. There was another guy, John Stinton, he made these boards we called “Stinton Spinners” because they were so light—a very thin veneer of redwood over super-light balsa.

Peterson and Stinton were both into making light boards. I mean, those Swastika boards, near the end, those planks, were balsa-redwood, except the only redwood was out toward the edge, so like I said, the weight was coming down already.

(Joe stops to look at an overview of Santa Monica beach, points to the middle of the photo)

There was a paddleboard club right there and the boards were mostly Blakes, but there were a couple of balsa-filled box boards too. Blake's boards leaked and weighed a hundred pounds. They were the very worst! Peterson made much lighter plywood paddleboards. The lifeguards preferred Pete's boards for rescues.

Some historians feel that Blake had a tendency to patent things that he didn’t totally invent. Pete is said to have responded to Blake’s fin patent with a comment like, “Ah, hell, I had a fin on my first surfboard!”

I asked Pete that very question not long before he died because Blake kept claiming he'd invented the fin. I remember as a child in the early ’30s, even then there were old-looking boards with fins. What I think happened is, like boat work, some people think that if they mass produce a thing, then they’ve invented it. If they refine it a little, they’ve reinvented it. And Blake did make a bunch of refined fin castings for his paddleboards. He did a cast-aluminum fin, and he also had an optional wooden fin that was shallow and about a foot long.

There’s an image from Blake’s scrapbook showing the back of a Blake paddleboard with a metal fin bolted to it. It looked like a water-ski fin, and printed over the picture in his hand it says, “First fin, 1934.”

See, I think he convinced them to give him a patent on that aluminum fin, and from then on he just assumed that he'd invented the first fin. It would be more accurate to say he invented the first aluminum fin. Getting back to Peterson, he told me, “When I was 19, I had a fin on my board." At that point, I don’t think Blake had even come West yet. 

[Note: Peterson turned 19 in 1930, Blake arrived in Los Angeles in 1921.]

Besides Peterson, who did you admire as a surfer when you were young?

In high school, I palled around with a guy named Dave Sykes, who lived at Topanga right next to this house that my brother Jack, Ed Fearon, and Don James rented. Sykes was the best surfer I had seen at the time because he surfed all day, every day. He could just glide and glide. This was right before the war. After Pearl Harbor, he went in the Merchant Marine and came back bigger and heavier, all grown up. The same thing happened to Ricky Grigg when he went off to Stanford and came back. He was never quite the same. Still great, but not the same.

When I was 6 or 7 years old, I watched Peterson ride at Santa Monica pier. He lifeguarded there and he'd jumped in from the pier. Pete was just magic to me—so easy, so talented, and such a great athlete. Perfectly controlled. I mean, every thread in place, hair combed just right, and he rode so smoothly. Watching him, I just fell in love with the whole thing. I’d be fishing and watching him.

Then sometimes Lorrin Harrison would come up to see Peterson. Lorrin was a little wilder in his surfing and his personality. He’d wave and jump and tear all around—when he was young he was quite a wild guy. Peterson was a better surfer than Lorrin but didn’t try to be wild like that.

I thought Gard was the living end. He would come up to Malibu and just run circles around everyone. Gard Chapin was able to ride these long, heavy balsa-redwood boards. He was such a wild man, but he was also so talented. That’s another thing. Some people are just more talented than others. The whole sport has taken a turn toward wildness, what I consider high performance. So going back to the early days, Chapin, Pete Peterson, Tulie Clark, Bud Morrissey—growing up, they were my heroes. But when I got a little older, I knew there was something even better going on and that I’d better get with it.

Looking back, what did you bring to the table? How would you describe your contribution?

The thing that I did was to introduce flowing rail rocker.

See, these guys that wrote about Simmons were sorta kooks themselves. They didn’t really understand that Matt Kivlin and I had started into a much wilder level, one that Rabbit Kekai had keyed us into. Some people resist change. From Palos Verdes south, surfers were more backward, except for WindanSea. But at San Onofre, they’d just say 

, “I’ve been ridin’ my board for 15 years. You guys keep making all these new boards.” 

(Joe makes a sweeping gesture of dismissal with his hand)

No, you're right, Burrhead and Gard Chapin were the exceptions. There were probably a couple of others. And the San Onofre surfers, I mean, they were all neat guys, you know? But the guys I was hanging around with, Matt and Tommy and others, we'd already begun searching for new materials. Don James and his gang, too.

That's what young surfers are supposed to do, figure out newer and better ways to make boards.

Sure. I mean, one mistake people might make would be to presume that those Stinton Spinners were solid redwood. They weren't. It was a thin veneer of redwood with balsa underneath, so those guys were already pushing lighter. But by the time Simmons came into the whole deal during WWII, these guys were all gone. Bob’s first board, which he bought from Gard Chapin, was a redwood with a piece of plywood on the deck. Gard’s boards were really heavy. Meanwhile, a friend of mine had gotten a balsa board from Bud Morrissey, and one time when Bud happened by I said, “Gee, I thought you just made redwood boards?” He said, “No, I’ve made four or five of these all-balsas.” That would have been the late ’30s.

So, those prewar boards represent the earliest beginnings of today’s surfing, as influenced by Rabbit Kekai riding short redwood hot curls at Queens. Lorrin and Pete had been going to Hawaii since the early '30s and picked up a lot of ideas in terms of boards and how to ride. Does that sound about right?

You know, there’s something about Hawaii that teaches you a lesson. A bit later, Peterson made the first fiberglass board. It was hollow. Pete made an all-glass board about a month before Simmons had gotten glass at all. Fact! There had been a boat show in New York, and these boat people—salesmen, reps—had been back there and seen all this new stuff. A guy named Brent Goldsworthy brought Pete the cloth and resin. Somebody else, I don't know the name, brought some to Simmons, too, but a little later.

Yes. Why were people so into Simmons? What was it?

Well, he was a mysterious figure who died in the surf. The story is dramatic and he was evidently a real different personality and interesting, bright and inventive.

People that were around him became enamored of him, and he became a cult figure. John Elwell obviously. And Les Williams, another person who was . . .

Simmons had fresh thinking and a pronounced way of doing things that contributed to the evolution of foiled surfboards. As far as being the “father” of the modern surfboard, many people who knew him do think of him in those terms.

Well, I knew him quite well, hung out with him pretty much, and we surfed in the same area up there. I’d run into him a lot out surfing, and I’d go hang out at his shop. I would say this about him: For someone to be that devoted was inspiring to me. I couldn’t handle his board shapes. They didn’t work for me.

But his rails and foil, and the rest of his plan shape, other than for the real wide tails—the boards were advanced.

But, see, for his first five years he was building these solid 120-pound redwoods. And the thing about Simmons’ math, Simmons only used that math on heavy boards. He was reading all the math books and the naval architecture books and hanging out with the planing hull speedboat guys. So he's trying to mix it all together in a high-speed board. I liked Simmons. Sometimes we’d sit up all night long talking board theory. He was a very inspiring guy. That’s what Simmons taught me. I got inspirational encouragement from Bob. But his Cal Tech math was all backwards. I’m no mathematician. I’m a hands-on, trial-and-error man. I don’t know what makes a light board go faster. I mean, I can’t explain it mathematically. I just know from watching it.

Sure, for tearing out across a flat-faced wave. But a smaller board is faster when there’s a hot athlete on it, developing acceleration when he needs to. You can’t do that with the heavy board. I don’t know how to explain that mathematically, but it’s a torque thing. 

[Quigg fishes through a stack of memorabilia.]

 This is a letter I got from Simmons to me, when I was in Honolulu, dated June 7, 1949. 

[Quigg explains that, in the letter, Bob is listing the boards he’s made, along with each board's weight, and discussing the fact that he’s now going light.]

 God, here’s some of Simmons’ math! I don’t understand it at all. I once talked to Peter Cole about this, and he named all these boards without having seen this letter. Bob built a 55-pound board for Cole in 1948; then Dick Jaekel, 45 pounds; Tim Lyons, 43 pounds; George Beck, 40 pounds; Howard Terrell, 35 pounds; and a 34-pound for Buzzy Trent. Then Bob ends up getting down to 30 pounds for himself. But for a long time before that, his boards were really heavy. I rode a Simmons for six months.

Fortunately, I broke it in half under the pier. Built myself a better, lighter, more maneuverable board. I mean, that thing Bob made me weighed 120 pounds! My shoulder still hurts from carrying it. Still, I loved talking to him.

Georgie Downing was good on those boards, really good. He had this one board, sold redwood, but thin and so streamlined. He loaned it to me a couple of times; it would get up to speed and hold it. But—well, you can’t turn a hot curl. Not really.

Well, Rabbit was incredible. But he had a funny turn.

George explained to me once that he and his little crew didn’t have any one beach they hung out at. They just drove around looking for big waves.

That's right. George was the big-wave king.

Whereas Rabbit hung out at Queens, stayed on his turf, and the hot-dog culture started there?

We went over and there was Rabbit, and we watched and learned, then took it all back to Malibu. But what I was trying to say about Rabbit's turn—how he did was, he'd just stomp on the tail of that little hot curl so hard that the board would stop. Then as it came back down, he’d twist his body, and it would land going the other way. It was weird, but he could turn a board. Rabbit was the best surfer all through the 1940s.

Yes. You know how some of those old-time guys at San Onofre would build little boards for their kids? I remember one day Peterson and I were down there, and he went over and asked one of the dads 

(Joe slips into an impersonation of Pete’s distinctive high-pitched stutter)

, “Can I b-b-borrow your son’s b-b-board?” He paddled this little teeny board out and just rode the hell out of it. He was turning fast and going through barrels, stuff that he didn’t do on his big balsa board. Pete back then usually rode pretty much straight in, posing like a Hawaiian king.

See, I’m trying to lay some groundwork for you. When I die, nobody’s going to be here to tell you what I just told you. (Points to a photo of himself, Zahn, and Kivlin in straw hats, aboard the Lurline, sailing to Hawaii)

These guys were largely responsible for the first complete combination of good stuff in a surfboard. That first one I built for Zahn, to give to Darrylin Zanuck, was lighter, had nice rails, and a blended rocker.

It was my camera, and one of the ladies with us took the picture. Isn’t it wonderful? It’s my favorite picture. See, Simmons didn’t go to Hawaii 'til five years later.

How did the three of your guys get along?

Tom was not crazy about Matt. When he was young, Matt was pretty wild and I think he scared the hell out of Tom. Tom, being a health advocate all his life, was not a drinker. But yeah, I consider these three guys 

(referencing himself in the third person)

 as the key. Now mind you, Simmons was this powerful, guru figure, he inspired everyone, and right after the war his wide boards helped guys get back in shape, including myself. But we were the guys that actually went to Hawaii where Rabbit taught us how to ride. Rabbit was the best hot-dog rider, getting deliberately barreled, wave after wave, doing it on a shortboard when everyone else was just sort of going straight off. At that time, Wally [Froiseth] and Georgie [Downing] were riding 11-foot boards, and chasing bigger waves, and that's about it.

Where does Les Williams come into the picture? People say he was the guy who more or less invented turning.

Well, that might be a bit much. But I've got to give Les credit, he got into the power turning thing before the rest of us.

Les started doing that stuff while riding one of the "girlfriend" boards you guys made?

Matt brought all these girls up to Malibu, Aggie included. And as fate would have it—well, the birds and the bees, and so forth. 

[Quigg and Bane married in 1950; he was 25, she was 17.]

 Aggie and a whole bunch of her friends ordered boards from me, right when I was in the midst of glassing Simmons’ plywood boards.

Vicki, Claire Cassidy, Aggie, a couple of others. Those girls’ boards ended up being half the weight of the plywood boards. Matt and I had talked for years about making lighter boards, 20-pound boards. This was the beginning of us actually doing it.

And all the guys started borrowing them because they turned so much easier.

So, it was the combination of those "girlfriend" boards and Les Williams. He was the guy who started doing that power turn.

Right. Drop knee, exaggerated, getting a real change of direction. He figured out how to do that turn because, like I say, those new boards were half the weight of what we were all riding. The weight, plus I'd added in the blended tail rocker.

Joe Quigg (1997)

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