George Greenough, 1969. “George Greenough is the barefoot genius and inventor whom many pe
George Greenough, 1969. “George Greenough is the barefoot genius and inventor whom many people argue was the catalyst for the shortboard revolution of the mid-1960s. Born in Montecito in 1941 to a wealthy and well-connected family, young George was known to be somewhat of an outsider with a great affinity for the ocean. An eternal experimenter, Greenough designed and made his own equipment and throughout his entire life has always sought to rework and improve the things that he uses in an attempt to discover and produce the best possible tool for a job. In 1964 Greenough visited Australia where he became friends with Bob McTavish and Nat Young, both of whom were captivated by his high performance surfing on his kneeboard. Greenough ended up making a fin for Nat Young’s surfboard that he rode to victory in the 1966 World Championships in San Diego. His influence on Young and McTavish prompted them to search for ways to make their surfboards perform in a similar way to his kneeboards so that they could draw similar lines on a wave, and the result was the shortening of their surfboards and McTavish’s vee-bottom surfboard. Greenough’s experiments and desire to push the performance boundaries of waveriding were a direct cause of the shortboard revolution in the late 1960s and early 1970s.” “George’s fantastic little invention is a revolution.” - Bob McTavish, 1966. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cdd_wRjtUj-/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI= -- source link