RIP: Rich Harbour (1943-2021)
Rich Harbour’s Seal Beach garage: where his whole ride got started.
Sam George
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There’s an article in a 1969 issue of SURFER Magazine, in which filmmakers Greg MacGillivray and Jim Freeman traveled to France while shooting their latest feature “Waves of Change.” Accompanying them were surfers Mark Martinson and Billy Hamilton. While posted up in Biarritz they encountered Australian champion Keith Paull, who joined the film team sampling waves along the Cote d’Basque. These were early days in the “Shortboard Revolution”, and Martinson was riding an ungainly, square-tailed, deep vee-bottom design, shaped by longtime board sponsor Rich Harbour. Paull, by contrast, was riding a much more refined, smoother-surfing roundtail, which at one point Martinson borrowed and didn’t want to give back.
RIP: Rich Harbour (1942-2021)
Rich Harbour’s Seal Beach garage: where his whole ride got started.
Sam George
Link copied to clipboard
There’s an article in a 1969 issue of SURFER Magazine, in which filmmakers Greg MacGillivray and Jim Freeman traveled to France while shooting their latest feature “Waves of Change.” Accompanying them were surfers Mark Martinson and Billy Hamilton. While posted up in Biarritz they encountered Australian champion Keith Paull, who joined the film team sampling waves along the Cote d’Basque. These were early days in the “Shortboard Revolution”, and Martinson was riding an ungainly, square-tailed, deep vee-bottom design, shaped by longtime board sponsor Rich Harbour. Paull, by contrast, was riding a much more refined, smoother-surfing roundtail, which at one point Martinson borrowed and didn’t want to give back.
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Rich Harbour, who started one of the most legendary surf shops in Southern California over 60 years ago, died Sunday at 77.
Harbour started shaping boards from scratch back in 1959, after his first board was stolen from his parents house.
In a 2017 interview with our newsroom, Harbour called his first attempt terrible.
“There was no how-to guide at the time, he recalled. A 16-year-old kid making a board with no instructions. You can imagine.”
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He said he spent the next few months studying every professionally-made surfboard I could see to analyze how this thing was made. What steps did they do that I didn’t?”
Rich Harbour, Iconic Seal Beach Shaper, Dies at 77 theinertia.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theinertia.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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