Tuesday I swung by Pack Ratt Records on El Cajon Blvd., to drop off some works of the late Hunter Thompson, and I see this big, blue, and beautiful Wilderness Surfboards downrailer. These vintage surfboards are pretty rare.
Mikey fills me in on his visit to the iconic Wilderness Surfboard house when he was a 16 year old skater visiting for a contest (sponsored by G&S), and he gets permission to stay in here. It was an original California wooden bungalow in Santa Barbara that was right on the side of where Highway 101 passed. In the 1960’s it had been converted into a surfboard factory by removing common residential rooms for cooking, living and sleeping, where transformed into rooms for surfboard laminating, painting and sanding. Word going down on El Cajon Blvd. that day was that some time world championship surfer Tom Curren had lived in this house.
The Wilderness House in Santa Barbara
When Mikey went to stay at the Wilderness House it for his skateboard competition in the very early 1990s, it was no longer an active surfboard factory, though the construction facilities had not been returned for residential either. It was filled with vintage surfboards in all manner of rooms and rafters. There was a very strict rule in place at the house which was no matter what don’t mess with these surfboards.
In the leaving room which was a wrap around rack of standing surfboards back to back. Mikey goes to examine a spoon by George Greenaugh but gets reminded not to touch the surfboards. In the laminating room (former kitchen), there are surfboards on all the tables, again there is this other surfboard that Mikey can barely contain himself not to wrap himself around. Then while passing a section of open roof rafters piled with surfboards, there was another George Greenough spoon that Mikey just begged the guy to let him take it to Kinko’s to just copy it. He was again reminded not mess with the Wilderness Surfboards house boards.
George Greenough Spoon Surfboards
George Greenough was an innovator and mid-century modern master crafts person working in underwater recording gear, surfboards, fins, and boats. Notable for not wearing shoes, socks, or ever much more than a resin tinted pair of Levi’s original 501 jeans tide together with a rope. In the 1966 San Diego World Surfing championships contest, Nat Young who was riding one of George’s new fins, became world champion.
When Mikey gets to the point of the story of wanting to run off to Kinko’s with as many boards as he can carry, this other guy stops by the shop with two relatively recently created George Greenough spoon surfboards. With George’s permission, and a template honorarium to the creator, these two spoons were ready to ride. Mikey suggested shutting down the shop for the day to go ride, but instead went on a with a how he would prefer to paint one of them.
Hunter was heading out from the shop in his VW van on up to Santa Cruz, where it will be timed with an amazing offshore wind and wave event. Swell times ahead for those spoons!
During my weekly Zoom crew checkup, I asked my buddy Dino (who went to school in Santa Barbara), if he had heard of Wilderness Surfboards, and he told me the story of meeting George Greenough and Rusty Miller about the same time Mikey was visiting the Wilderness surfboards house.
But this was in Brisbane Bay Australia.
In the early 1990’s the Surfrider Foundation had fund raised and built a new type of aluminum catamaran sailboat that would travel the world as a surfing emissary. My sea scout shipmate Dino had found his way on as an officer, and recalled the day he pulled into Byron Bay Australia, and George Greenhough himself came out in a craft of his own design to inspect this new visitor. Later in port Dino made dinner for George and another famous surfer, world championship surfer Rusty Miller.
