SURFERMAG.COM ONLINE EXCLUSIVES

SURFERMAG.COM: I’ve heard mention, from the pin to the pin on a swallowtail, it’s got to be X amount of inches for it to be a Fish. Can you elaborate on that, is that a true statement, and if so, who laid down that number?

RICH PAVEL: I think when you start quantifying stuff, you get into a cagey, dodgy area because there’s correct application and misapplications all over the place wherever you go. And it’s kind of like saying, so and so is the best guy or whatever, I don’t know if there’s anyone doing the best, but there are guys that are doing impeccable work. And there are parameters for the width of the tail to make it a true Fish, and I would say that the valid remark remains intact, yes, once you start getting narrower and narrower and narrower, you have gotten away from the Fish concept. Simmons was so adamant about the scale and proportion and ratio of such things that people thought less of him because he was so…

SURFERMAG.COM: …Mathematical.

RICH PAVEL: Well, and steadfast in his belief, it wasn’t a dogma, it really wasn’t. But you had a guy living in a time where he didn’t have any peers. If Simmons were to get hauled into court and the judge were to explain to him that he was going to be tried and during the course of this trial he was going to be judged and that these 12 jurors were going to be his peers. Simmons would be able to say bullshit. You know, “Pardon me your honor, but find me 12 peers.” You can’t. And that was the case with Stevie Lis at the time. And that will give you some insight as to why the Fish is not known to the industry. And I would hasten to say even to this day, it’s being popularized again, and that’s cool, that’s really a good thing, but I think that that should be an acknowledgment. The thing about the width of the tail and whether it’s a Fish, yeah it does need a certain width to it. And if you want to put it at 8 inches, 9 inches, 10 inches, I don’t know that it’s fair to put a number to it. But the concept, yeah, it does kind of go back to Simmons and the way he was able to define small planning hulls, which in turn, draws on heavily from the work of Lindsay Lloyd, but yeah, it does, it takes a certain amount of width there. And if you go too narrow you got yourself a swallowtail.

SURFERMAG.COM: Or a Rocket-Fish?

RICH PAVEL: Well, there were guys that were trying to come up with a Fish concept that was workable to them, guys like Clyde Beatty, they put a ton of energy into that and did good work from what I hear. But it wasn’t a Fish in the sense of what was brought into existence, in the strictest sense, early on. Yet, yeah, those guys were building Fishes, they were doing Fishes.

SURFERMAG.COM: Let’s get back to your Speed-Dialer or Quan and explain to the reader why the board has four fins as opposed to a keel fin setup or just two regular wooden (Larry) Gephardt fins on it.

RICH PAVEL: Okay. Let me grab some. [Gets up, grabs fins.] These are the fins I was using and building when I was living in Santa Barbara and it’s the outcome of that influence that I had, Larry Gephardt and stuff. He’s got such beautiful foiled fins, and they float. I wouldn’t put something on your board that doesn’t float. But also I surfed a lot of rocky areas, pretty hard on a set of fins. I liked having this glass bead or halo around it. I kind of resort to that because it was hard for me to have the time and the resources and the energy to stick with the wood fins all the time. So this was kind of a nice compromise. The question was, how do we get to four fins? What you have with the classic keel is a low-aspect ratio fin, and I got spending time with George (Greenough) up there, quite a bit, not heaps, but some time with Greenough, compared to no time is a lot of time [laughs]. That was good, and Stan Pleskunas who was a longtime friend of Greenough’s has also been, in fact that whole family, has been a good influence. The low-aspect ratio fins are kind of like your delta tip fighters: they’re fast and they have good recovery; the high-aspect ratio concept, it’ll hold in much better and for a longer period of time, you can push it a lot further than the low-aspect ratio, but when the high-aspect ratio fails, dude—you’re done. You’re done. Whereas the low-aspect ratio fins, they can be failing and correcting in almost the same moment and literally in the same space. So…

SURFERMAG.COM: They’re more forgiving.

RICH PAVEL: Yeah. Those keels, there were times when you’d overload the fin and they’d kind of flush out and it’s not so great. But any time you had a wave that cupped or had a long pocket, the keels were ripping. And then there were times, being born in La Jolla and spending so much time there riding those reefs, there were a lot of high tide days at those reefs, especially Windansea where it didn’t have that cuppy, pockety, where you could lay the rail up against it and it was more that tapered two-thirds slope, more Sunset-like compared to Pipe. So what about riding a Fish in a broader range of conditions more effectively, making it more, ‘cause it was maybe more marginalized in certain conditions. Because it certainly wasn’t the ideal board in all conditions, and yet a phenomenal design. And really a gift to surfing. Out of that thinking of, say, conversations with (Stan)Pleskunas and (George) Greenough and Stevie (Lis) and (Larry) Gephardt, but you know, guys who were really into it. We’re talking about guys that would bring sandpaper, a set of files and tools down to the beach and would be whittling on their fins, tuning them in on a day-in-day-out basis, really sweetening them up and getting that much more out of them. So I did something really simple, I just took that Fish-fin concept and started plotting around the cord length, the cord length just being defined as the distance between the leading and the trailing edge and I would divide it in half, I would change the ratio up, I would shift it back and shift it forward. And in doing that, just take this one low-aspect ratio fin and come up with two high-aspect ratio fins in place of it. So you went from having a two-fin keel to having really in some respects the same fin but just set up in this different way. And then all of a sudden, you haven’t really changed the concept, all you’ve done is you’ve made high-aspect ratio fins out of what was a low-aspect ratio fin.

SURFERMAG.COM: Can you talk a little bit about the placement of the fins?

RICH PAVEL: In doing that you would leave the trailer-fin the very same place that the Fish-fin goes. The back fin just sits in the very same place. And then you move this one [the other high-aspect ratio fin] out toward the rail. And you put a little breathing room there. And in some ways, that whole thinking was influenced by the Campbells, you know, you need a certain amount of breathing room between the fins. Very, very simple. It’s in fact so simple, it’s like, how come nobody thought of that before? And you don’t really think you thought up anything, you feel like you discovered something, like it was revealed to you. You hear people talk about intuiting stuff in and out of the universe, it’s probably one of those, you just channeled it. Bling, it just came to you.

SURFERMAG.COM: Speaking of fin systems. I know there are some really quality systems out there. I’m wondering which fin system or which number of different fin systems is the best?

RICH PAVEL: It kind of begs intellectual and emotional honesty. A lot of these guys, you know they’ve got a nice rap, but where does the rubber meet the road with their rap? ‘Cause you get a lot of hype out there, especially with commercializing products. ‘Cause the objective is to, how can we take something to market and make some money with it? There’s guys that just sit around thinking, what can I make a lot of money on? I’m kind of not interested in those guys. And yet at the same time, a lot of my work, whether it failed or succeeded wasn’t the point. Talk to Greenough. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I don’t know, try it. There’s been so many times where I’ve been talking to George and he’d say, “You know, you should do that, you might come up with something better than what I’ve got.” At the time it seemed sort of like blasphemy, and yet he’s really sincere about that; he’s really ingenuous. Like, why don’t you try? But of all the things I’ve tried…I think the guys at LockBox deserve a tremendous amount of credit. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to move forward with guys in different camps, and most of them weren’t paying attention.

SURFERMAG.COM: So the LockBox system seems to make a lot of sense. And the reasons why?

RICH PAVEL: The fins are relatively light, but everyone’s trying to do that. They’ve all done a lot of work on trying to get their fins light, but they’ve satisfied that. The guys I talked to not only surf, but they surf a lot—Casey, he’ll put the screws to it. Peter St. Pierre (Moonlight Glassing) says, “I saw James Robertson surfing down at Swamis the other day. Surfing good.” And what’s Jimmy all about? His fins. Super into it.

SURFERMAG.COM: What is your take on the whole pop-out industry, whether they are good or bad I don’t think that’s for me to say, but it’s intimidated certain aspects of the surfboard industry.
RICH PAVEL: Maybe the most unfortunate thing about it is there’s a lot of guys who have a lot of hope riding on being a board-builder and they love building boards and that’s what they want to do. And probably the one place that you can look to and be assured of doing some work is if you’re building a kind of fun shape, a board that is a good entry-level board. And there’s something special about the way that things are shared and the way people pass along the whole concept of surfing.

SURFERMAG.COM: You mean from shaper to surfer?

RICH PAVEL: That can be one way. I’ve heard Al say that shaping’s not soulful. The act of surfing is what is soulful. I wouldn’t say that. I would never say that. But then you’re also looking at a guy that is getting 600 boards a week milled and it’s not enough. So go to China? How much is enough?

SURFERMAG.COM: So the entry-level board, that segment, could be an apprenticeship type of deal for the young shaper, that segment of the market, is being taken away.

RICH PAVEL: It’s unfortunate, it doesn’t bode very well for that guy who has a lot of heartfelt consideration for how he shares surfing and that it might be done through, I want to build a board for you, even if it is your first board. Especially because it’s your first board. Especially because it’s your first board. And you look at those boards that, say, Al has gone to China with.

SURFERMAG.COM: You mean his SurfTechs?

RICH PAVEL: Yeah. I would say out of his range, those represent those buyers. And for a guy that is probably the largest surfboard manufacturer. Yeah, I know he wants to build a brand and he doesn’t have a clothing deal and if he can get ‘em on a Merrick even if it’s a Frisbee [laughs]…

SURFERMAG.COM: Still got the name.

RICH PAVEL: And he said it, in a recent interview, those haven’t eaten into his sales, he says, what he says is it’s familiarized people with the brand that give it that much more validation so that when it’s time for them to step up, maybe they come to them. But he’s got a good product so it’s not like he hasn’t earned market share. But I do see it as sort of a sad or unfortunate circumstance when you have people that you know, they’re not going to drive someone over to Costco or Wal-Mart. Nobody goes, “Oh my gosh, I have something that you are going to love so much and I want you to know that I didn’t make it from my own two hands, it comes from China.” That’s a whole introduction to surfing. It’s kind of like a rocket’s trajectory. If it’s this much off the track at Cape Canaveral, where would it have ended up without correcting? It’d be more than a world apart.

SURFERMAG.COM: Well, there’s a lot to be said about that specifically with materials and flex patterns and so forth, and I really don’t want to get into it now because it’s all been talked about, but I do want to mention one thing and get your take on it. And I might be paraphrasing but I believe Skip (Frye) said something about a board being at its magical moment the week before it delaminates, because it’s at that place where it has stretched itself out and burped and done its yoga and the two weeks before it delaminates it’s just perfect flex pattern.

RICH PAVEL: That’s the quintessential moment in that board’s existence, that’s cool.

SURFERMAG.COM: Last thing, what’s your relationship with the Rainbow label?

RICH PAVEL: They’ve just commissioned me to do part of their range and what the guys at Rainbow get from me, what they pay me for, is primarily to have access to, not necessarily my designs but either boards I design or the designs that I understand. I wouldn’t be so presumptuous as to say that the boards I make for them are strictly my design. But I would say that they have someone who understands that design really well and is making a valid application of that design. So in that sense, what they’re paying me for is access to my designs or the designs that I build and understand. That’s my relationship with them.

SURFERMAG.COM: I read somewhere that you’ve got a blank with Clark.

RICH PAVEL: There’s actually three and the most recent one is the 6’ 5”-P and the one that’s been in use most recently is the 6’ 8”-P and the 6’ 5” is coming out and that’s going to be a thing of joy.

SURFERMAG.COM: What goes behind creating a blank for Clark? I mean obviously, to the layperson, and I’m one of them, I’m kind of curious to the concept.

RICH PAVEL: It’s gnarly, it’s really gnarly.

SURFERMAG.COM: Is it an honor when they come to you and say, “We want a blank”, what do you do? Explain to me the process?

RICH PAVEL: It is one of the great honors that our industry acknowledges someone in that capacity. It’s one thing to be a really great shaper, and there are a lot of really great shapers, and it’s one thing to say that the guy is a hell of a designer. All I can tell you is that I’ve taken what I’ve been given, I consider it a gift, and tried to cultivate it and respect it and bring it along and if I have a deeper understanding or a better knowledge base, you know, yeah, I’ve managed to work some of that out and it’s just a gift. It’s a blessing. And doing the thing for Clark, I’m super stoked to do it. I think Grubbie is arguably the single greatest benefactor to surfing ever. He’s just incredible with his contributions. We’re really lucky to have him. So what goes into it? There’s a lot that goes into it, certainly more than meets the eye. What I’ve tried to do and maybe this is a little bit of a break or a departure from what they do ordinarily, a lot of the research that’s done is done in-house there. And this is one of the times when they’ve maybe looked to me to source and procure the input that they have. A lot of people that they want to make sure their input’s included. So it means, getting that input and not only getting it, but “getting it.” It’s kind of like what women mean when they say “communicate.” [Laughs.]

SURFERMAG.COM: You’ve lost me there [laughs].

RICH PAVEL: Honey, we really need to talk [laughs] So, yeah, there’s different ways of listening, and I think probably that’s one of the things I have is I actually can and do listen. I like to really, really listen.

SURFERMAG.COM: On of the most underestimated character qualities, my wife always says, is a good listener. All right, well, thanks so much for your time, I really enjoyed spending time with you and talk and stuff…

RICH PAVEL: Yeah, me too Scott. Thanks. Let’s go surf.