Chapter: 3
Malibu Swing
- Freezing the Moment with Doc Ball
- A Touch of Glamour
- Bob Simmons, Gnarled Genius
- Darrylin, Oh Darrylin
- The Magic Wave
- Velzy's Pig
- Dewey Weber, Hotdog Jesus
- Tubesteak Abides
- A Rebel for All Seasons
- The Valley Cometh
- Hawaii Calls
- Rocket to Makaha
- Buzzy Trent, King of Beasts
- Surfing's Beat Generation
- France and Peru Join In
- A Restart for Australia
- Bud Browne Presents
- Point Surf '58
- The Viking King of Mead Hall
- An Exorcism at Waimea
- A Farewell to Clubs
Bob Simmons, Gnarled Genius
![Bob Simmons, Malibu. Photo: Bob Prosser](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/0bd41081650901df51b332ce0bc614d7b5aeeeac-900x506.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
Bob Simmons, Malibu. Photo: Bob Prosser
![Bob Simmons, 1953](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/4464d2d705d47507c4b242f1f038733d56d6f3cd-900x506.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
Bob Simmons, 1953
![Simmons board, 1951. Photo: John Elwell](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/372a073b61614215fa8858516afdd42a525ade6c-900x506.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
Simmons board, 1951. Photo: John Elwell
![Bob Simmons (below) and Joe Quigg, Malibu](https://cdn.sanity.io/images/f1hjpcr4/production/742a542cc42bfbff2b89e734117c433dee2ad844-900x506.jpg?w=640&h=360&q=65&auto=format)
Bob Simmons (below) and Joe Quigg, Malibu
Surfing was an empirical pursuit for Simmons. He never daydreamed about Waikiki, or strummed a ukulele, or wore a Hawaiian shirt. He just wanted a better, faster board, and to that end he attacked furiously with numbers and formulae.
Surfboard design rocketed forward in the postwar years. It was a group effort, but Bob Simmons, a knobby misanthropic engineer from Pasadena, was the person who got things started. Simmons was strange, brilliant, and experimental, permanently ungroomed, and often angry—he once answered some bullying by a group of Palos Verde Cove locals by splitting open the decks of their hollow boards with an ax...
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