Dale Velzy, 77; Master Surfboard Shaper Helped Popularize the Sport

Dale "The Hawk" Velzy, the pioneering master shaper of surfboards who helped popularize the Hawaiian sport of surfing along the California coast, has died. He was 77.

Velzy, a longtime smoker, died of lung cancer Thursday at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo.

"I can't tell you strongly enough how he was the original surfer-cowboy-hot-rodder in Southern California," said Allan Seymour, who had known Velzy since the eighth grade and now produces a vintage surfboard and memorabilia auction. "When we grew up, you couldn't get a higher compliment than, 'You're a Dale Velzy guy.' "

A pioneering surfer off Manhattan and Hermosa beaches, Velzy was the first to put a brand on his boards, establishing him as surfing's first commercial shaper or builder.

His most famous board, the Pig, hit the waves in 1955 and is now a collectible -- what Velzy called "wall hangers," priced at more than $3,000 each. Another Velzy specialty board was the Bump.

In 1960, when he ran five shops and two factories and sold up to 200 boards a week in the made-by-hand industry, Velzy was considered the world's largest surfboard manufacturer.

Born in Hermosa Beach on Sept. 24, 1927, Velzy started hopping on older surfers' boards as a tyke, and by age 8 had acquired his own surfboard, carved by his father, a lifeguard and dory builder. With the woodworking tools of his cabinetmaker grandfather, Velzy and his dad started shaping boards.

"I got into building boards like that," he once told surfing historian Craig Stecyk, "shaping down old planks into smaller, lighter boards I could use."

Over the years, Velzy would adapt his technique as boards changed from wood to polyurethane foam and from long to short and back again. He shaped boards for such legendary surfers as Duke Kahanamoku, George Downing, Mickey Dora and Harry Robello.

Nicknamed The Hawk -- as he would carefully explain, it was for his keen eyesight, not the shape of his nose -- Velzy served in the merchant marine during World War II and then worked as a lifeguard.

He began repairing and reshaping surfboards commercially in the family garage in 1949 and soon set up shop at the Manhattan Beach Surf Club under the Manhattan Beach Pier. He took his itinerant business to Venice and then Hermosa Beach, where in 1953 he joined Harold "Hap" Jacobs to produce custom boards under the Velzy-Jacobs label until he bought Jacobs out in 1959.