Hobie Alter / The Surfboard King

Hobie Alter, also, The Surfboard King. . , Raised at the Beach , Hobart Laidlaw Alter grew up on a citrus farm in Ontario, California. Fortunately for water-lovers everywhere, his family owned a house in Laguna Beach where he spent weekends and vacations playing in the waves., In Search of a Surfboard , True surfboards were difficult to find in 1950. So Hobie used what he could find: a hollow, flat, 55-pound, 12-foot paddleboard instead. Sometimes, in small waves, he could stand on it., Hobie's First Surfboard , Hoffman told Hobie how to make a surfboard and where to buy the balsa wood and fiberglass he needed. Hobie spent weeks meticulously crafting his first surfboard. Hobie has seen pictures, but didn't see anyone surf in person until he was 16. Shifting Weight, Weight means everything when you are catching a wave. A lightweight board is more buoyant than a heavy one, making paddling and wave riding easier., Did you know that surfboards were once made of solid wood, like redwood? Later, material shifted first to balsa wood covered with fiberglass skin and then to polyurethane foam, and other materials., The Surfboard King , Hard Work and Ingenuity , Can't build Boards Fast Enough , At first, Hobie ran his shop alone. As demand grew he hired the best surfers he knew to build surfboards. Always a stickler for quality, Hobie shaped most boards himself., The Right Man for the job , Hobie conscripted an employee, Gordon Clark, to perfect a form replacement for balsa. Clark was a science and math whiz, and Hobie knew Clark could help his business move beyond balsa wood., The Balsa Problem , The lightweight balsa wood Hobie relied upon became difficult to get and inconsistent in quality. Hobie needed an alternative when a salesman showed him a piece of watertight polyurethane foam., Eureka! , Away from the curious eyes of competitors in a non-descript building in Laguna Canyon, Hobie and Gordon developed a manufacturing process for a lightweight, strong foam that could be shaped into a surfboard., Hobie Hangs up His Wood Tools , In June 1958, Hobie began manufacturing foam surfboards exclusively. He wasn't the first to make foam boards, but he was the first to produce them efficently in high-quality quantities. Business boomed.