Surfing – June 1979

DK: Hello, George! What’s shakin’?

GG: Oh, not a lot, actually. I was just waiting here for Greg (Huglin) to come
by and we’re gonna go down and check the waves.

DK: How’s the surf down your way?

GG: Well, frankly, it’s too perfect. It’s medium-sized and glassy and there’ve been a lot of guys out surfing who haven’t been out in
six months. I don’t like it when it’s too perfect – For one thing, it’s too easy to ride; it doesn’t have that gutsy gnarl, which is what I
like to ride.

DK: Get any Rincon lately?

GG: Naw, it’s been too crowded to surf there. It’s all half-throttle where you’re just holding back when it’s like that.

DK: Been building anything lately?

GG: Well, I built two more of those carbon-graphite boards like the one I brought up there to Santa Cruz.

DK: Those are really light, yes?

GG: Right, they’re totally space-age compared to what I was doing before – Plus I built a carbon-graphite skateboard. A friend of mine showed
me his skateboard and said he couldn’t believe how good it worked. He said it only weighed three pounds, and I told him it’d make a good sanding block. It was really heavy, made out of plywood; so I offered to make him one out of the carbon- graphite material. I did some customizing on the new one too, like it has a contour deck scooped
out of the foam core. I don’t know how long it’ll last or even if it’s still in one piece, but it only weighed a pound and a half and it worked
unreal.

DK: Are your new boards pretty much duplicates of what you’ve been riding for the past few
years, or are they radically different in any way besides materials?

GG: Basically, the new boards are almost the same as what I’ve been riding in
recent years, but there are a lot of minor changes. The bottom’s exactly the same, but the plan shape has some slight changes.

DK: Have you gotten into any other uses of this carbon-graphite material yet?

GG: Well, I’ve made some superlight camera equipment that’s a hell of a lot easier to use in the water: a lot lighter and more compact. I made two l6mm housings and a 35mm housing with the graphite fiber body.

DK: Craphite fiber? Is that the same as carbon graphite?

GG: It’s either graphite or carbon fiber. There’re actually two products and they’re identically the same in material, but there’s some difference in the molecular structure. It’s carbon fiber to a certain size and then it’s graphite fiber,
so I just call it carbon graphite. You can call Hexcel if you want to find out;
they’re right up there in your area.

DK: Maybe I’ll do that. I’ll start manufacturing carbon graphite disco dance shoes. What’re you gonna
do with the housings?

GG: Oh, I’ll probably be working on various commercials and things like that where they need some special photography. I think I might be getting a job, maybe to go back over to Hawaii. I got a call yesterday from some guy who was feeling me out on the subject of whether I did water photography and what I’d done and like
that.

DK: What have you done so far in recent months?

GG: Well, like I did that commercial for Coca-Cola of Japan; that’s when I saw you in Hawaii in the
winter. I did all the water photography for them. And then I did some of Greg Huglin’s water photography for his new film
(Fantasea), the point-of-view stuff from the air mattress riding segment. That stuff came out pretty good. Maybe you can get down for the screening in a couple of
weeks.

DK: Sounds good. On that carbon graphite fiber stuff, is it hard to work with, or how do you do what you do when you do what you do?

GG: No, it’s just like working with regular fiberglass, except that because it’s much stronger and stiffer than regular fiberglass, you have to cut way down on the density to get the same degree of flex and responsiveness out of my board. Like, if I duplicated my board out of the carbon graphite using all the same thicknesses as compared to fiberglass, it’d be terrible,- it wouldn’t work. It’d be dead in the water.

DK: With this flaw equipment, have you developed any new maneuvers or approaches in your surfing? I know that when you first learn to surf there’s a lot of stress on learning how to do new things, but once you get a repertoire down, then the changes get pretty
subtle.

GG: I don’t know. Not really. But playing around with the board, there’s bound to be new maneuvers. Mostly, it depends on the surf. I’d say that 90% of it depends on the surf for me. If there are big waves and it’s uncrowded and it’s
gnar1y and animal I’ll try new things. But basically, {he principle is that doing things differently involves using higher speed. The evolution of the thing is in the direction of going faster. Like on the freeway, if you’re in a crowd of traffic you don’t do
anything different and you drive fairly conservatively. But when it’s the middle of the night or a deserted stretch of road,
well …

DK: Well …

GG: I don’t use hardly any of the performance that’s built into my board unless it’s really
uncrowded. In fact, I don’t even go out when it’s crowded. I haven’t surfed Rincon this whole swell, as a matter of fact. I just go
somewhere else.

DK: The Ranch?

GG: I went to the Ranch once. There were waves, but there were also a lot of people. I don’t even bother with Rights and Lefts or Little Drakes. I mean,
I can find uncrowded surf right around here that’s just as good or better, so why should I drive all the way up there? There’s plenty of surf
here.

DK: When are you going to Australia this year?

GG: I’ll probably go around the middle of April. I’ll know in a few days one way or the other, depending on different things. I’ve got jobs to do around here, and a lot of other work I can do around here. Working on the boards and cameras takes a real lot of time and energy.

DK: Are you going to do any work in Australia?

GG: Well, that’s one thing I’m waiting to hear on. I did the water photography for the Coke contest last year and they’re not sure exactly what they’re going to do with it as far as television this year. I guess they’re waiting to decide when they figure out how well they did on the coverage last year.

DK: Do you like filming the commercials?

GG: Yeah, they’re fine. I’ve got some funny pictures I could show you. Like in Hawaii shooting for Coca-Cola of Japan, I had a still camera and a movie camera out in the water with me and I had this other guy take some pictures from a certain angle with that same Nikon I had with me in Santa Cruz, and it came out really good; the color’s really far out. I usually take the two cameras out now because I was going in and out everytime I needed to reload, and at Sunset that takes at least 15 minutes and you miss a lot. I also worked it out where I took my mat out and dropped a line with a rock on it to keep it off the shoulder of the waves where they break there inside. We used a beer bottle as a
bouy. Worked really good.

DK: How’s your mother and father?

GG: They’re fine. Everything’s really fine.

DK: Okay, well, I gotta say bye.

GG: Okay

DK: Goodbye

GG: Goodbye.