Velzy Surfboards

Dale "Hawk" Velzy is basically the founding father of the surf industry as we know it. He opened the first professional surf shop in Manhattan Beach, California in 1950, hand fashioning surfboards from wood and synthetic materials, and by 1960 owned five retail shops and three production facilities across California and Hawaii.

His revolutionary "pig" model, designed in 1955, was the main development of the decade and an essential turning point in the way surfers rode waves. The pig design dropped the board's wide point back toward the tail, further improving maneuverability. "It changed the sport," fellow shaper Joe Quigg later said. "Suddenly you had thousands of these kids out there riding pigs."

As Surfer's Journal once wrote, "Dale could out-drink, out-shoot, out-ride, out-shape, out-sell and out-finesse all comers. And he made it all up as he went along." His legendary friends and riders included Mickey Munoz, Donald Takayama, Dewey Weber, and Mickey Dora, and he is even credited with purchasing Bruce Brown his very first video camera and funding his early film work. Velzyland, a famous surf spot on the North Shore of Oahu, is named in his honor. A true original, Velzy didn't just shape surfboards, he shaped an entire culture.

Dale "Hawk" Velzy is the godfather of the surf industry, the man who opened the world's first surf shop in 1950 and invented the pig design that changed the way the world rides waves.