"It was the best surfing of my life - Rincon, California, January 1968. The notorious Plastic Machine design had proven too clunky, too limited to big simple arcs, but it had powerfully demonstrated how we could ride much shorter boards than the traditional nine-foot-plus logs that had previously been the only game in town. My month of December ‘67 in Hawaii hanging with Dick Brewer had convinced me to sleek the template by pointing the nose and refining the tail into a basic rounded -square, the most friendly all round shape. George Greenough had introduced me to Karl Pope who had the hot brand Morey-Pope in Ventura, and I shaped my new Rincon board in his factory.

Rincon turned on for the next six weeks - George and I were making it all the way down the point, from the Indicator, past the creek, through the bowl, and ripping down the inside, all the way to the highway, wave-after-wave. The power of the board’s potential was electric.

Move the clock forward to The World Contest, Puerto Rico, December 1968. The name of the break? Rincon. “Little Corner” in Spanish. An eclectic mix of shapes appeared - Brewer had gone into tiny guns with his tiny test rider Reno Abellira going like greased lightning. Others had more conservative designs in the mid eight-foot realm, like eventual winner Fred Hemmings from Hawaii. But the stand-out design, mainly ridden by the Aussies like Nat, Wayne Lynch, Ted Spencer, Russell Hughes and Midget, was much like my Rincon board. Pointed but full nose, nice parallel template with the wide point about 5” forward, clean driving lines into a rounded square tail. All dressed up with a moderately low rocker, soft roll forward, nice small round rails, and a sleek efficient single-fin. These boards have sweet trimming speed, grace, flow and manoeuvrability, and the surfing at the event was exciting and world-class. No wonder we’ve called our new release the Rincon!!” Bob McTavish

Photo's by LeRoy Grannis and Lockie Marley