Dec 9, 2012

Sunday Mash-Up!!!

 Ace Of Cups, 1968
  
 
 Denise Kaufmann, same time
 
  
Denise Kaufmann -- 2005 


Vinny Bryant, Off The Wall -- early 70's
  

Dana Nicely -- same board, early 70's

 

                                                                      Animation From The Natural Art
 
  
Ok, so what do these images have in common?

Bob Green over at My Paipo and I have exchanged a few emails recently regarding Vinny Bryant and his radical boards/surfing.

Summarily, Bob put me onto an article dealing with Denise Kaufmann, The Ace of Cups, her relationship with Vinny, and the band's appearance in Fred Windisch's wonderful, late 60's surf film, The Natural Art. The article is long read...but full of interesting stuff.

Lots of Ace of Cups stuff here ... https://web.archive.org/web/20120214175240/http://www.lysergia.com/LamaWorkshop/AceOfCups/lamaAceOfCups.htm
  
Tangentially, I did a quick search on the etymology of the word "shindig," and found this story...

6 comments:

Geoffrey Levens said...

Friend of mine went to Cal Western College (Cal WeeWee) near Sunset Cliffs in that time period. Told of guys experimenting with similar boards but having a slot and handle on deck. They could as wanted/needed they could pull the handle, retract the fin and side-slip like a soap bar, then mashing the handle back down and re-engaging fin, off like a shot on the flat flat razor edged bottom take of down the line again

Paul Gross said...

Those would be "Bunker boards," which were designed and built by Bunker Sprekels...who was a part of the Vinny Bryant design posse in the Islands a year or two later...

Henry Hester said...

Eye witness...

Paul Gross said...

More details, please Henry!

Henry Hester said...

Voice activation texting so give me a break. It all happened at newbreak. Most of the design experimentation centered around Steve Lis"s is fish boards. However bunker and John riddle were developing different kinds of boards than Steve. We were on regular fish boards and toed in Twin Fins from G&S. As the other article correctly mentions bunkers boards were really thick kinda almost square railed. I saw 1 that had like a 5 inch square rail on the wave side and tapered across the board all the way to a thin blade on the open side.

This might have been the one that had the keel that would go up and down in the board. However I don't think this was used as a on-wave I just meant but something that they could use as an adjustment for how the waves were that day. Bunkers board, the plan shape was narrow in the nose and tail. Purple as I remember.

The boards they made were specifically designed for newbreak. That wave brakes in such a way that you can make a board that rides just for that wave only. Jeff Ching Larry gephart we're players there. I had a really cool fish shaped by a guy named Larry Duff.

Paul Gross said...

http://tradewindsurf.com.au/travelblog/bunker-spreckels-surfings-original-playboy

http://twelveplay.com/bunker_spreckels

Two links to articles about Bunker...more about his lifestyle than his surfing.