kneeboards on ebay

[barzop]

You have all probably typed in kneeboard into the ebay search engine and up have popped numerous boards for towing behind boats.

Well they do have their origins in kneeboard surfing.

I lived in California during 71 as an exchange student and had viewed ads for El Paipo Kneeboards in surfing magazines.

The company was owned by Bud Hulst who had a warehouse in Costa Mesa.

El Paipo produced their boards like like cars - a new model each year - they were as close to mass production as you could get at the time.

Bud also had a company called Knee Ski - this company produced the first roto moulded board for behind boats. The brand later became Hydraslide and ended up being owned by the company who owned Churchill fins.

I think they dropped the name El Paipo and called everything they produced Knee Ski from late 71.

I had visited Bud around easter and then came down to stay with him in Laguna in June.

I hadn't surfed in 6 months and Bud took me down to 7- 8 ft wedge pulled out his movie camera and wanted me to surf it on a board unlike anything that I had ever ridden before. Also i'm a natural knee so the last thing I wanted to do at the time was surf a close out mega left.

He then drove me down to the Santa Anna river mouth and I surfed there. He must have been a little pd because I had to walk back to Cost Mesa after my surf.

His shaper at the time Bob Moore shaped me a board to take to Hawaii for the summer but because it was nothing like their current model he had Bob destroy it before it was glassed.

So we shaped a compromise - a board I still have to this day. It had three fin boxes so could be surfed as a single or twin (who ever thought of putting a third fin?)
Kevin Barr