A DAY WITH LEGENDARY SURFER BILL HAMILTON ON KAUAI

#billhamilton #surfing #surflegend
I wanna wish a happy 77th Birthday to Bill Hamilton. In this episode we travel to Kauai to meet with the legend and learn about his many adventures and accomplishments spanning seven decades. The “Jesus of Cool”: A Surfer magazine article from 2014 dubbed Hamilton the “Jesus of Cool,” highlighting his sublime cutback that he reportedly modeled after a picture of Jesus giving the Sermon on the Mountain. An innovative shaper: Hamilton is an innovative and highly regarded shaper who has been crafting custom surfboards for decades. Wood-carving expert: He has a special focus on crafting high-end boards using exotic and harvested balsa and redwood. Some of these boards are considered art pieces and are sold for thousands of dollars. Preserving Hawaiian tradition: He has also shaped replicas of ancient Hawaiian boards, incorporating historical design with modern knowledge of hydrodynamics.

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Video Chapters
—————————————————————————–
0:00 Intro
1:17 Arrival
1:59 Balsa shop tour
3:33 Downstairs
3:59 Self Portrait by Jeff Rohar
4:35 The Bear logo
4:46 Big Wednesday
5:03 Staying active
5:43 Entrepreneurship
6:00 Careers along the way
6:13 Autobiography
6:36 Surfing heritage museum
6:40 LBC
7:00 Life in laguna
7:55 Dana Point Harbor 1959
8:00 Traveling Mexico K38 K39
8:17 Defining age of surfing
8:54 Surf explosion
9:09 A way of life
10:14 Joe Quigg
10:58 Hobie Alter
11:21 Lifelong surfer
11:30 Wind & Sea surf club
11:40 Makaha Championships
12:29 Surfing the North Shore with Jock Sutherland
13:16 North Shore arrival
14:03 Greg Mcgillvary & Jim Freeman
14:32 Meeting Laird for the 1st time
15:08 Surfing with Laird
16:00 Dennis the menace Laird
16:33 Gordan Smith
17:06 Finding the passion
17:28 Traveling
17:41 Meeting Duke Paoa Kahanamoku
19:48 Johnny Carson Show appearance
21:10 Hossegor France Bruce Brown, Mike Hynson and Robert August
22:19 Nazare Portugal
26:02 Arriving on Kauai
26:31 Riffle range
27:05 Attacked by Kiawe
28:15 Big Wednesday
30:06 Surfers aren’t actors
30:28 El Salvador 1977
33:31 Sick as a dog
39:07 1970
39:25 Laird & Lyon
39:51 The formula never changed
40:21 Bud Brown Films
41:01 Surfing a way of life
41:34 Modern Surf
42:01 All about Waimea
44:10 Emerging equipment change
44:33 History repeats itself
45:18 Still shaping
45:34 The missing link logo
46:18 Lightning Bolt
46:48 Surfboards Hawaii
47:04 Mike Hynson Mike Diffenderfer Skyp Frye
47:15 Dick Brewer
47:24 Shapers family tree
48:11 Wall of fame
50:55 Fabric rail patent
51:26 Memory Lane
52:27 Redwood tow in for Laird
55:07 Hamilton Coat of Arms

Good morning. How’s it going guys? It’s about 20 minutes before 5 a.m. and I am headed to Kauai. Happy home day. Well we got through TSA security. It wasn’t that bad. It’s a little bit after 5 and we’re heading to Kauai to document one of the longest lasting still healthy still going legends out there. So I’m looking forward to sitting out and talking story with him. I won’t do a reveal just yet. You guys will have to stick around and find out. Well of course you know by the title but yeah we’ll get there. Including carry-on and checked baggage to avoid transporting idols without their knowledge. Good morning. Good morning. We are finally seated ready to head on to Kauai. Alright so we’re in Kauai. Gonna shoot a message over to my taxi and we’re gonna grab some breakfast. Welcome to Kauai. That’s just how it is. Yeah technology is always advancing. Alright so me and Kyle are gonna grab some food before we head on over to meet with Bill. So what’s the name of this place Kyle? Olympic Cafe. See the Balsa here says island 1996. You’re part individually all about the all about the you know the the pieces of wood individual pieces of wood and you glue it back together again and make some wood lighter. Uh-huh. But in this case I think this one’s gonna be a wall hanger because it’s just too heavy of a board. And so I’m doing is I’m rotary now in here and I’ll inlay like coa inside here top and bottom. We’ll hide all this stuff. I’ll do some tail block action in here. Oh I see yeah. So kind of a work in process has been for a while. I’m up here excuse me. I came up here when I was… It’s like Vikram Yoga after a year or something. Oh! So I lose weight up here but anyway I’ll cover all this up. And we got the dinner now. Wow! So yeah I make you know I have monkey pod here. I have kernic co-ops. This is kernic redwood. I make little lions and all of them. This is my the other side of what I do. Oh wow yeah. My bread and butter is downstairs. This is my retirement fund. Oh! For the Zuckerberg board. Yeah. Downstairs we go. All righty. Let’s tell you this light on so you can see. I shop of many moving parts and you know I’ve got collectible boards here and boards that I’ve had for years. And I just sold my board I used in Big Wednesday for 11 grand. So that helps. And then this stuff. I had a famous football guy named Jeff Roy or Rohar. Cal Boys. Yeah. He said I met him he goes. “I like the way you look at me in my eyes. You look directly in my eyes. I’m gonna make a painting.” I’ll be honest with you. He said I just made one for John F Kennedy’s family and I made one for Putin. I’m gonna make one for you. I went. I’m not that famous. He goes no man I like your face. I’m getting alien. So you know that’s from a photograph. Oh wow. That’s what it is. That’s cool. Yeah. What was his name again? Jeff R-O-H-N-R. So I’ve had a few different logos. I had the I had the Bear logo when I was a Sun Devil for Jan Michael Vincent in Big Wednesday. So I got permission to use the Bear logo for a number of years and then got into a big lawsuit. You know money. I was making a lot of money and then director got to tell us. Yeah. Long story which we won’t go into. You can read it in my books later on next year. We’ll get it. Yeah. We’re gonna get that book. Yeah. So ongoing you know I probably could retire if I want to but I actually enjoy my work. I think it’s good to be creative and you know I enjoy being in the water and seeing people write my stuff because I know I’m giving them I’m enabling them to walk on water which is pretty cool. And yeah it keeps me in the water. That’s the reason I made surfboards when I was young. I was going how am I gonna you know continue to do what I love and work 40 hours a week. I tried the 40 hours a week pretty much and I decided that was going to be gainfully employed. So when I was 35 years old I’ve stopped working for people and work for myself. And here we are. Yeah. We’ve done a lot of stuff along the way. Commercial fishermen for about 20 years. Built custom homes but this is my first love. I’ve been doing this you know all over the world for the last 58 years and 20,000 boards later maybe. I’m writing a book right now. It’s a coffee table book. I’ve already written a rough draft of a biography. But the biography has a lot of information and because I was so photographed when I was growing up through the different decades of surfing I have a lot to choose from. A lot of people want to see that coffee table book. So yeah the surfing heritage museum is helping me collect photos and that kind of stuff. So I was born in Long Beach California in 1948 and my parents moved to South Laguna in 1949 and rented a house overlooking the ocean. A place called Thousand Steps Beach in Laguna. And that was my playground and that’s my earliest memories were all formed there you know. So I had sand and salt water on my body before I had diapers on. I was like I was an ocean person right. I learned how to dive and body surf and skimboard and fish and eventually you know by what we did as kids we’d have these canvas rafts we put them in the sun. They get really hard we take them out and try and stand up on them. So by the time I was about 10 years old I wrote a surfboard for the first time and it was like it made the raft look so easy. It was like it was like a whole extension of what I was doing what I was training for all that time. So I became a good surfer pretty quickly. I learned how to surf at Dana Point when it was the harbor 1959. And surf in Mexico in K39, K38 when there was nobody you know when from from Tijuana, all the way to Ensenada there was nothing there was just you know empty empty pasture land basically. So I got to be involved in surfing at a really kind of a defining age of time because when I was growing up the guys that I were surfing in the 50s all the old names of the year about they’re no longer with us are those are guys were young and they were in their 20s and they were surfing places that had never been surfed before like you know Malibu and those places have been discovered back in the 30s but surfing became more and more popular in the 50s. Then by 1962 when they made the film Gidget it became surfing would basically break loose and become very very popular throughout the world really. So I was born in a time when it was kind of like not quite a sport it was more like a way of life. So a lot of the guys you know who I fought in World War II who had actually survived the war and had a little bit of their youth left some of them just kicked out of society all together and lived on the beach would build houses out of driftwood guys they were stationed in Hawaii bring their ukuleles and their Hawaiian music and the surfing and they discovered that balsa wood was the main source of product used in life rafts in the navy. So there’s a lot of surplus life rafts that were being stripped down and surfboards were being made not in redwood anymore which were made in the 30s but balsa wood so the boards are getting lighter and lighter and it was all it was the beginning of when I was when I was old enough to surf and and and become you know part of that evolution I got to ride a nine foot six board because there was a guy named a shaper by the name of Joe Quigg who discovered in the 50s that the guys could ride the 10 foot boards but the girls it was like three or four girls that rode Malibu that were having a hard time so he made smaller boards for them and narrow boards and it made them more that more efficient for them but it also made more efficient for me as a kid so I really was you know my first board was a nine six and I learned how to surf in like basic you know Laguna Beach shore break stuff and I had to get really really good really quick because it was a kind of a shore break kind of a situation so and then I had all these different people to to relate to you know I had the Hobie factory in the south and I had the Joe Quigg on the north side and I had all the great surfers in Laguna guys that had been Joy Cabell and you know the Patterson brothers and I can go on and on lots of lots of people to to learn from so I basically was was training to be a lifelong surfer and I didn’t know it but I loved the sport and I continued to to grow and to evolve and I became a member of a very elite surf club called Winnensy Surf Club when I was 13 years old and so when I was 13 and 14 we charted a plane from San Diego to Hawaii to Oahu to compete in a macaw championships and I’ll never forget when I got out of the car and ran across the road and dove into macaws happened to be flat that day I was like I was changed forever I was it really really screwed up my schooling because all I could think about when I came back to California was how I’m going to get back to Hawaii so in a way it was good because it stamped me with the decision of knowing exactly what I was going to do in my life I wasn’t confused about what I was going to do I knew exactly where I was going so and that’s what I did I worked during the summer I saved my money I go and stay with a friend in Waikiki I’d surf the south shore and then during the spring break I go and stay with my friend jock Sutherland on the north shore, borrow boards, surf pipeline, Waimea and I was like I was starting to I was starting to become a north shore guy well I still lived in California so when I graduated in 1966 from Laguna my parents wanted me to go to college so I went to Orange Coast College for about 10 minutes and I ripped up the entrance exam put in the circular file got a job and told my parents I’m going I’m going to Hawaii and I’m going to live in Hawaii and kind of upset them a little bit but you know the birds literally get kicked out of the nest or they leave the nest I was leaving this so yeah so in 1966 I arrived to the north shore to live there right so I had stayed with you know different places on the north shore and it was right around I think it was December of 1966 I was staying at pipeline house where the original pipeline house before the famous pipe house existed that was actually a that was a empty piece of property that eventually became a corral for my first wife’s horse but anyway I got I got I was going down the the beach to see my friend Greg Mcgillivray and Jim Freeman were filming a film called Free and Easy and we’re going to come to Kauai that year and we’re about three days away from the trip so I’m walking down the beach to to go to his house and I see this little kid playing in the in the ocean by rocky point surf wasn’t that really that big you know maybe four feet that day but he was in this kind of rolling around the shore break and and I was going I never saw I never saw children on the north shore at all ever even as when I lived there I was very rare to see children um and I see this little kid so I go down I go hey what are you doing he goes a body surfer and I go what’s your name was Larry I go you want to learn how to body surf he goes yeah so I dove in the water and I said hold on to my neck I’ll show you how to body surf so I swam out to the reef at rocky point the waves are about you know shoulder high and they break and run right right across the reef and leave a little little whitewater into the deep water I’d wait for that and I’d jump on the back of it and we’d ride about 10 feet and it was just like we did that for about an hour and he was just like over the moon right so paddling back in we’re getting out of the water he grabs my hand he looks at me he goes I want you to be my dad all right yeah okay didn’t think much about it he’s running ahead of me I’m going I’m going to this place and he’s going to this place at the same time I’m going what the hell is going on here this kid’s like radar here from falling up he runs right up to the front door where I’m going he runs through the house I come up and I see Greg Mcgillver and I go so we’re going to uh kawaii when what time and I was asking all these things and here comes Laird brings his mom back mom this is bill you’re a little two and a half year old turns out to be like Dennis the man it’s on steroids but um yeah anyway that was the beginning of a whole decision you know when we make decisions you can go left or right it’s either going to be good or bad or otherwise this is one of those otherwise decisions that turn return back as monumental in the sense that I got married really when I was young 17 and a half in a bit eventually ran out of money uh left the north shore moved back to California stayed in Encinitas for about four and a half months I worked for Gordon Smith learned how to uh to uh finish boards and then I I was writing for them for a while hints and models and then um I switched gears and I went to uh sure for it’s Hawaii and I started finishing and learning how to sand and learning how to shape there for John Price and uh so by the time I left California I actually had a skill in making boards which you see today 58 years ago today here we go and uh and I’ve kept it you know I’ve been it turned out to be something that I enjoyed doing and I still enjoy doing it something you know they say that when you find something that you love and you pursue it and it becomes your life then you’re blessed so I’m blessed for having found and made that decision but so you know a lot lots of water and lots of history under the bridge for me I mean I’ve served in all over the world and worked in Japan had a business in Australia um I have met many many amazing people along the way um actually I met Duke on a moco one is about 19 he wanted to meet me he I was in the Duke on a moco contest for seven years and uh and his the guy who’s running his business uh chemo wilder Mcbae I was just getting out of the water sunset won my my semi-final he does going to go to the finals and I was just getting out of the water he comes out hey really come somebody wants me I go who he goes come follow me so I’m walking up the sand so chemo was this business guy from who handled don ho and uh and uh Duke on a moco stuff in Honolulu he wears white pants white shoes white socks white belt white shirt white jacket and an Arizona piece of turquoise right the only color and I’m watching him walk up in the sands crawling into shoes this guy’s a city slicker business guy I’m going god this guy must be so uncomfortable walking down we walk up and I see the the Duke on a moco white limousine right in the back doors open I see the white pant leg of Duke on a moco I go Duke wants to meet me goes come follow me so I go up and I and he goes chemo goes Duke this is Billy Hamilton and I put my hand in the shake Duke’s hand and Duke comes out with his hand that is about as big as a baseball net and grabs it my hand turns in there like a little baby and he’s looking me in the eyes he goes I appreciate very much how you surf you surf like an ocean bird you and Paul straw are my favorites in the tournament good luck to you and I went I went thank you so much Duke it’s an honor to meet you and um I don’t know what I said I basically just got crowned by the man himself I was thinking I don’t need to win anything from here on out I was like that was like one of the amazing moments of my life and then when we’re flying a second movie we made uh that that year actually we went to New York and we’re on the Johnny Carson show they just had two years before I had been had Mike Henson and Robert Hawkins and Bruce Brown on their show so they wanted to introduce the continuation of surfers making films right so we’re making this film kind of drafting and Bruce Brown’s wake and I’m in the elevator with uh Jim and his partner Jim and Greg and Mark Martinson and there’s this guy standing in the corner he’s like this old guy he’s in this older woman had to been 70 something um and I’m going I go excuse me sir you look really familiar for me I go what’s your name he goes he looks down he goes my name’s John Weissmuller and I went you’re John Weissmuller you’re Tarzan wow that’s incredible I met Duke Onomoko this year and I know you competed against him um can I shake your hand he goes yeah so once again that big swimmers meat that comes out and swallows my hand you know I was going how lucky am I to have that to meet these two water guys in the same year amazing so then we went off to France and discovered uh the surf break called Hossa Gore the only surfers that have been there before us was Bruce Brown and Mike Henson and Robert August and those are the guys that showed the French people really how to surf and how to make boards and that kind of thing so so when we were there where we had brought these uh at the time in 1968 we’re riding the wide back uh McTabbish uh George Greeno designs that were very popular for a while they were kind of a deep V wider wide kind of a surfboard with a wide back in it they’re super maneuverable single fans super maneuverable of course we didn’t have leashes in those days so um but they were very very and they were great for beach break work and you gotta say anything of any any size though you kind of had to kind of crouch down and hold hold your turn so those are the our discovery boards that we use to discover Hossa Gore and we surfed all these beautiful breaks and burets uh Cote de Basque and Chambel Amour and all these other Laffitania we never got to surf that break in uh Spain Mundaca but Greg and Jim decided they wanted to go and explore Portugal so we went to Portugal and we found a couple of different breaks um this was in August of 1968 so we uh we went to this place called Nazaree and we were down in uh in the very if you were to stand on top now where you see the lighthouse where most of the attention’s focused on that side we didn’t know what was going on over there we were we pulled down into this town we’re looking for a place to stay for a couple of nights the surf was small you know maybe waist high we arrived at this this bay that was about as big as maybe Hanle Bay maybe a little bit bigger and lots of little white houses all stacked together where we thought we’re like we were in the only hotel and we’re trying to register to stay at the hotel and the guy says well no uh there’s a big wine festival going on this weekend and and uh we have the main matadors has has rented the whole his this whole hotel for his entourage and when we’re talking here comes the matador coming down the hill in a osmobile convertible sitting with his fighting colors on with two beautiful women and we’re going I told I go Greg’s we’re not staying here so we got in the car and we went down the street and it just so happened on the other end of town was this brand new like four-star beautiful marble glass hotel modern it made everything it was such a huge contrast plus not only was it open but it was right across from the the town center of where they they brought in the the sheep and the goats the chickens and killed them and butchered it it was like third world country and they have this modern so we go in and Greg looks at the menu and he goes bottle of Portuguese wine is a buck we’re staying here so we stayed there for two nights and we’re right at the beach level and remember walking out early one one morning and these little kids that lived in the on the streets little earth sweethearts and I was walking with my board I’m blonde I got lots of hair during that time Mark’s dark hair and they’re calling him Batman they’re calling me Charzan and they watch us go on the beach so I’m surfing we’re surfing right so it’s getting about 10 or 11 o’clock and you know the beach there it’s a fishing community it hasn’t been for hundreds of years right so nets smells like sardine all these beautiful boats that are like blue and red and got little eyeballs balls painted on the bow so not really paying attention to the fact that there’s a whole lot of people in the water with their pant legs their dark black pants rolled up to their knees and they’re all fishermen they all eat little hats and black shirts and black pants and there’s probably about 150 of them all standing when we lost the board they’d pass the board around to each other and look at the board and they’d pass it reverently back to each other and they’re looking they turn it around look at because they’re seen for the first time surfers riding waves on piqueno boats right it’s like these little tiny boats but we were riding waves with a great deal of authority and it was kind of blowing their minds but I was thinking well there’s probably a lot of fishermen that died out of there because of the waves they had to deal with you know and here we are riding them playing on top of them it’s like and when it came they’d hand it back to me like it was like some kind of like a flying saucer it was pretty pretty incredible experience well when we came to kawaii in 1966 we surfed on lei and i mean we came to kawaii it was like it was removed from time it was nobody here it was like it was a whole island that just they actually just existed and we didn’t see any surfers um one day we saw a large fat hawaiian woman surfing on lei but mark and i were the only guys out we discovered a place on the west side called rifle range which we had there’s a navy base out there top secret navy base we we tried to gain access and they refused for us so we we went down about two miles and walked through the property because we when we were growing up we surfed a place called trestle so we’re used to military bases so we just kind of like no big deal right so i remember it was like this is going to be easy but we ran into this forest of kawaii kawaii they use it for firewood but it has thorns on it about that big so greg and jim the film men have tennis shoes on they’re dancing to the sand and i have got rubber slippers on and every step i’m getting stabbed so mark and i both we look at each other i go i got an idea let’s lay down we had both of us had 10 foot long boards so what we did is we turned the boards upside down so the fins are up and we just walk from one board to the other and made a we made a path out of our long boards and it took us about an hour and a half to get from the car to the ocean but when we came up with this hand doing it was like perfect perfect little you know shoulder high little barrels and we called that place whispering sands in the movie but today they call it rifle range because right around the corner is a place where they shoot guns anyway that and yeah we’ve had a you know done a lot of traveling so it’s been we’ve had a good run you know we’ve had and we’re still going yeah so let’s talk about a big Wednesday oh yeah big Wednesday so that um so once again my friend Greg McGillivray who has been very instrumental in making surfing films and now it makes all the large format iMacs films he always appreciated my surfing and my friend Mark as well passed away last year so he called me and he says Warner Brothers is making a movie another one of these surfing films and they’re looking for people that they can use that are good surfers but also can act and are good looking they they think that you’re able to do that and i said well i’ll do my best so they sent they sent me a ticket to go to Hollywood for a screen test and i went out i met the director John Millius and we talked a little bit and uh and we went out he gave me the script he says it was uh it was the one scene in big Wednesday where one of their buddies in Vietnam had gotten killed and i think it was Jan Michael Vincent he was drunk and he was saying like uh trying to talk to him like you know anyway i’d forget what the what the uh what was what was being said in the script but i was trying to talk drunk and i wasn’t really good at it you know and and i knew it wasn’t and i mean i’m not an actor right so so anyway down the way they decided that surfers are probably good surfers but they’re not such good actors so they had it was a you know a eight million dollar film that eventually went in over budget 12 million but it was like we need name actress so they got Gary Busey they got Jan Michael Vincent and William Catt and i was the stunt double for Jan Michael Vincent Gary Busey for uh uh Ian Carnes and then Peter Townin had uh William Catt but that was a film that was took a year to finish and we went we went to the first filming was in El Salvador in 1977 and we were down there for about nearly two months and um we were there during right at the very beginning of the uh San Dines D’Contra problems that were having that time so we went into we moved into this little compound it was like a club med kind of thing where it had a bunch of little huts that housed two people a centralized restaurant a big pool and it was basically a place for the wealthy people from El Salvador to come so when we when we checked in there was a couple of families there that you know they had these big bodyguards and suits with 45s hanging out you know they’re like okay the rich people are protected you know and so two days later they find the ambassador Guatemala at the base of the property with 12 bullet holes in it so we knew that we’d have heard some rumors about things going south down there and uh so every weekend we’d go in to get fresh water and supplies and take our film and send it off to get you know developed and and all the all the uh street corners had tanks and 50 caliber machine guns and it was they were preparing some for some kind of a you know civil war event and i was like going i don’t know about how everybody else felt but i was thinking i was always i always had a plan be where i was going to hide where i was going to fall what i mean it was always like i always had that in my mind and i remember it was like it was pretty touchy going and one day we were filming so we had a helicopter we had a zodiac um for the um the zodiac for the water shots and uh and for the and look out for the aerial and we’re surfing a place called La Libertad one day and one of the military guys hadn’t been informed about what we were doing we’re filming you know we’re filming this movie and we had was we had a direct liaison with the president so and she spoke fluent spanish fortunately so they thought they would be invaded so they sent four troop carriers down with guys with rifles and it was like it was like oh shoot before you talk kind of thing he was like don’t do that and it was like wait a minute we’re howl we got we got a helicopter boat but we’re not doing we’re just we’re making a film you know and so the interpreter got on the phone got el presidente on the phone and he talked to general mise-moune and they they ironed it out but it’s kind of like a strange time to be down there and good waves and we all we’re all doing fine up until we had a party one night and we used the local ice cubes without really thinking it and made this wine lemon punch and we all woke up the next day it would dysentery amoebic dysentery symptoms but it was a viral something that was caused by the water so we started dropping like flies first guy to go was bud brown who isn’t the oldest cameraman in the unit and he didn’t have any weight on his body and he was sick as a dog and i remember he and i used to play cards a lot together in his room he was a great guy i knew him when i was like a young kid and uh he’d always tease me because i had a little roll i always had a little roll of fat around my waist he always i’d go he always goes what’s that amilton i go that’s my flotation device so poor bud brown is getting let out of the compound and it’s like you know he’s basically holding on to two people and i’m sitting on the corner i go hey bud he looks at me he goes i go this is my life preserver it wasn’t funny at the time but in retrospect you know funny but so i was losing you know i went down there weighing about 180 pounds and i was losing nearly two pounds a day and we were trying to we were trying to film right i remember one one time greg we had this you know 35 millimeter housing it was like big and it weighed 60 pounds and he’s got on a surfboard and got petertown and over here and and ian clarence and they’re both sick as dogs i’m i mean we’re all just it was like and here comes a wave about this big and literally washes all of us ashore and i looked at greg i go greg we’re done we can’t do this we’re too weak we can’t do this so we all packed it up a couple of days later and left and went back started doing the filming and uh on santa barber at the holister ranch and doing a lot of stuff there and we ended up going to uh the north shore towards the end of the film and filming all supposedly it was going to be big waves but the whole time we’re there you know i think we surfed wam you know small wam one day we did a lot of a lot of the shots at sunset and uh pipeline turnaround negative turnaround jackie none did some stuff and i did a boat stunt um it happened on a wednesday it was a week before they wrapped it up so this guy named terry linner who did a lot of stunts uh in hollywood very well respected guy he and i had talked early on the film that we were going to do a uh a stunt drive up the face of a wave in wamia and jump out he was going to get 25 grand i was going to get 25 grand but he didn’t know how to swim i said i said terry that’s going to end up so good for you you know he goes don’t worry hamilton i can do it he said you know great guy anyway i i bought a boat i actually went to millius i said listen did you scrub this done he said yeah we had i said i’ll tell you what i’ll do it i’ll except i’ll do it for five grand here’s what i’ll do i’ll put the boat here i’ll put the boat here and um and then i’ll bring it to about here and then i’ll jump off and i’ll let the wave get caught inside i’ll let the boat get caught inside by the way and he goes you only do that i said yeah i said you gotta pay for the whole stunt i said yeah i’ll i’ll get the boat so went and got the boat bought it for 115 bucks from a portuguese guy in holly i couldn’t believe it his wife was using it as a flower bed that’s perfect i can destroy that and uh yeah so got towed up by jeff johnson from holly and had bought an engine from flippy offman for 50 bucks the stunt really didn’t cost much i think the whole thing and i had to hire mike myers for a thousand dollars so anyway when we go um we’re we’re getting being towed up to sunset and um jeff is talking about something and all of a sudden he looks and he starts driving out the sea and we’re outside pipeline we go up this well like it’s starting to get bigger we go up this wall and come back down oh sunset’s going to be giant you know so we get into and sure enough the regular regular sunset is closed out and it’s on the second reef so i’m motoring around trying to find a position to do that and i’m getting lost in the trough so they radio the boat and they say tell hamilton to go over there when it’s flat where he surfs normally and wait for waves and which i did and uh i got a picture of the way right there on the wall there you can take a photo of it later you can you spliced all this stuff right yeah so you can take it later anyway so yeah so then you know i moved here in 1970 we were the second white family to move into whaniya in the history of the island so it was kind of a you know it was a it was a rough go at first because being a howling and all that stuff but we we managed you know have a zane stick and stay and make a bay and we we we we we weathered all the storms and we you know lared has done absolutely wonderful things lion as uh there’s another my second son who i had when i was 22 he lives in uh in the philippines he’s a wonderful portrait painter and so i’m lucky my kids grew up to be to have the ocean experience and they’ve both done well and uh yeah so they’re a wonderful run so and here we are still surfing still making boards i didn’t i didn’t change the formula much i didn’t make i didn’t make a whole lot of critical decisions about doing what i was doing in life because i i knew exactly what i wanted to do when i was young and i just thought i’ve followed that path ever since and it’s been good to me you know i’ve met a lot of beautiful people i’ve been all over the world surf beautiful waves i’ve had a pretty stress-free life so bud was one of the very first uh film um makers um in the 50s and so the guys that came up after him like um grant roll-off and uh dale davis and aseverson and ruse brown and all the filmmakers after bud were i’ve known all of them i mean i’ve known all of them all the guys you know when i was growing up i knew all the guys that were famous in the 50s um i even knew some of the guys that were well known in the 30s right so but i gotta say that when i was growing up surfing really wasn’t considered a sport it was considered a way of life it was considered a kind of like a following so a lot of people that that did it were it was like that’s what they did that that was if that was their sport it was beyond that because they lived it right they lived at the beach they camped out at the beach they they ate and you know they ate from the ocean and yeah it was a it was a full-on lifestyle and that’s what i did i created a lifestyle nowadays it’s more it’s become more of like a something that we do as a sport like i’m gonna go skiing or i’m gonna go skating i’m gonna play tennis i’m gonna go surfing that that geniere of that idea that philosophy is slowly dying you know there’s probably just people of grassroots guys that are still doing that you know but i feel really fortunate to have lived that life you know still doing it yeah and i got to know all the things is that when i moved when i was raised on surfing by brown films receivers in films the whole thing in huai the whole emphasis was writing wyomia it was all about wyomia they never really showed that they huge that the seven mile miracle of the north shore was never really portrayed if you’re there you know they named vellsey land after dale vellsey because he went out there one day you know it’s made for these guys are riding real long artillery visas they were heavy weight 50 pounds and uh so when i started when i moved to the north shore to live there i my friend my neighbor was jose angel and another guy named warren harlow these guys were the original veterans of riding wyomia so i i borrow gun a gun a pat kern gun from uh um from jose and then every year every winter i’d meet you know i started making boards for ricky greg uh fred van dyke would come by my house kelo keo tiger uh um tiger aspara kelo keo chemo hollinger all the names you ever heard i knew all those guys eddie ikow and i and and jock so and we’re and we know avalera we’re the youngest guys in the water and we learned from from those guys but at the same time we were also developing the shorter equipment and as the as the boards became smaller we were able to ride like sunset and pipeline and all these other waves on the north shore with a lot more authority and and it was a lot more fun than just going out to wyomia and jumping into the elevator and you know getting your ass kicked you’re getting a moment of glory which was great you know but we were getting we were starting to define more the um the emphasis of actually communicating with the wave with the surfboard and that was that was um i was a part of that um emerging emerging equipment change and uh you know there’s a handful of us that were part of guys in town and guys on the north shore and then throughout the world you know they’re you know their boards were being tested in california twin fins and there was so much change during the late 60s early 70s and on and it continued onward up till today you know and now history repeats itself we’re so we’re getting a lot of retro stuff coming back the longboard for instance that was a big that’s a big repetition in the history of what’s happened this board but it’s all come back with better boards better design ideas better working boards well you know i have a i have a a large group of followers as far as you know i have older people younger people children girls guys and um i don’t make as many surfboards as i did before because i had five guys working for me and i was advertising and out there and you know um but um i make i make i love making big wave guns um i get a lot of repeat customers for my long boards these boards are becoming really more and more popular this is what i call this is the called the missing link the missing link board is uh i did i designed the first one in 1973 and this is the the sticker i drew up if you look at it carefully it’s a link there’s a short board and long board and i see yeah yeah but this is these are all they they call these um fun boards so there’s a lot of this stuff going on and the shorter boards are changing a little bit in this on and still the bottom the bottom contours of the single concave going in the double concave but the noses have gotten a little bit wider for paddleability uh more wider throughout really and then yeah i mean you know lightning bolt right so i am i made boards for lightning bolts when i lived the pipeline in 1971 right so those guys asked me would you make a you know round of boards for us so there was about i think six or seven shapers that were involved at that period of time so i made about 50 of these boards now and this is a replica of one that that i would have made so the what i learned finishing wise had came really in handy for this kind of stuff because when i was working for surfboard was a while i was doing a lot of pen like pen work and color work and uh pen lines and stuff like that so i had the finishing down but the glassing part i’m still learning that’s i don’t have that master yet but i’m not trying yeah the early shapers of any note or mike kenson mike difender for skip fry and then there’s a lot of mainland shavers like terry martin on and on and on there’s a lot of guys then dig brewer who was you know way up there here’s a This is a right here is a shaper of salmon trees. So basically every shaper that this the beginning of shaping started with these names. And then this guy influenced this guy and this guy, this guy influenced these people here. And so it goes, you know, and it goes on and on in over time. So this is I started surfing, started shaping in 1967, along with all these guys. Right. So I don’t have my glasses on, but, you know, this is me down here. I was I was I was taught by John Price was taught by these. So there’s all these sub sub phylum of of the evolution of shapers all the way up until probably 10 years ago. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I didn’t know something like that existed. I’ve always worried about. Yeah. Yeah. OK. Here’s a picture of me and surfing free and easy. In 1968, and I think Greg Mcgillver took this photo. This is me surfing on a. Mark is over here and me and the old here right here, I like I always like that photo. Wow. And then this is me surfing at the end of the road on the other side of the coin in 1966. This is a pretty cool photo. I’m. Greg Greg took this. This is his favorite photo of all time. Favorite still of all time. It’s in his book. But it was really hard to ride the nose and say I’m on a Henson model and it was shorebreak. Can I remember I was up there for about one thousand one one thousand two. And out of my I’m on I’m high on LSD right here and and out of my peripheral, I saw Mark Martinson standing about knee high water about 30 feet away from me. He’s got blood all over his chest. And I remember after this shot was taken, I backpedaled really quickly and straighten off. Came up next to him and I went, where’d you get it? He goes back to my head and I looked back behind his head, pulled his hair apart. And I said, you got about an eight stitch cash in there, Mark. We can’t surf anymore. We got to quit filming. So we went to the hospital and my man, he got stitched up. But that you know, it’s funny, I’m writing this coffee table book right now where I’m selecting photos and I’m writing the back story. So that’s the back story to that photo. But every photo has a back story. Wow. Yeah. This is me at the ball. I’m trying to remember the name. Michio Sato took this photo and he was right. He was right under me. I almost hit him. Oh, yeah. I mean, he was always trying to get a close shot of me. I mean, I think his head was, I mean, right there when I cut back. Wow. This is a picture of Lared at tunnels when he was younger. Water shot. And who took that? Nice. What else we got here? Here’s a shot. This I’ve always liked this. This is a overwriting in 1968 in France. The wide deep beadboard. This is like an 86, but I had to get way forward so the board didn’t spin out. I actually made that way. Some I didn’t. And then. So I do I do a fabric rail, which I got a patent for in 19. You know, 20 something years ago, but it’s a it’s it’s called a I called it outriggers, but. I put my putting fabric around the edge of the board, it creates a sea beam, so it actually makes the board 28 percent stronger. And because of that, I was able to get a utility fountain, which is really hard to do in surfboards and then a design patent. So I licensed that out to Roxy for a few years and some other clothing companies. And then we can come in here. Other photos, this is one. This is my one of my favorite photos. And why now? This is this is a board I I’m I borrowed from Jose Angel. This is a 10 six pack current board. And this board worked really, really well. Wow. Amazing. Yeah. And then. OK. I’ll show you this here. Take this shot. This is that if you can get in there and see this. I’ll pull this out. It isn’t pretty. It’s a shitty, shitty photo. Actually, you can get that off my Instagram. Wow. OK. So this redwood surfboard, this one is a tow in board. This is a replica of the tow in board that I made. Laird that he rode that wave in tahiti in 2002. I think it was called the Millennium Wave. But this is that board I made out of Balsa this board is made out of. This is the old is made from a wine tank that was made by the Marisoo Winery in 1832. And it’s made out of heart. Heart grain redwood from the old, old growth trees, you know, the big hundred footers that are 25 feet in diameter from the center part of the of the tree. So every grain, every every line in here is this. This wood is about 2500 years old and it held red wine for 100 years. So these streaks, you see here, these dark streaks. That’s all that’s all like red wine. This. This board, along with it was part of a collection of 100 boards made by the probably the best known shapers throughout the world. And this was in the San Francisco Museum of Fine Arts for a while. I understand that. This Smithsonian Institute is may have it on. But these boards are. When we’re making these boards, they would have me represent the boards in different venues who go to hotels and talk about, well, how much are these boards worth? And I said, these boards basically are priceless. So if you think about it, you have the best shapers on the planet shaping wood that will never be made for this event ever again. And there may not even in two or three hundred years, there may not even be red woods anymore. So this is basically I’m talking about. I’m talking about a painting that is made by Suzanne or Van Gogh or Renoir. I’m talking about something that, you know, might be worth to you right now a few thousand dollars. But, you know, when when we’re all dead, they’re all going to become become priceless. You won’t be able to buy them. They’ll all be in in in museums. So this is this is basically the boards that I’ve made. There’s a tall footer up there that I made. And this is kind of like the legacy of what I’ve done. This is my finest work on the finest piece of legendary wood ever. So, yeah, this is Hamilton, the tribe of Hamilton in the early days in Scotland were all tree cutters. So if you look at the emblem, that’s my that’s my coat of arms for my family. Right. So it’s a tree. It has a saw running to the center of it and it has a belt buckle running around it. So inside that belt buckle is the word through. So when you saw a brave heart, they’re walking to the forest, right? And they stopped and there was a guy in the forest that went through and they all stopped. That big tree fell. That’s who my ancestors were. They were cutting trees back in those days. So I have I’ve always had an affinity for wood and I actually go up in the forest and I I I well, the trees have already fallen because they’re old. And I don’t take new trees. But anyway, working with wood is a very, very enjoy that. So this this one will be about probably thirty thousand dollars. And that that’s like that’s like Cezanne giving away a painting. And sometimes Cezanne. But, you know, I’m saying it’s like a relative, relatively speaking. It’s it’s going to become a board like this would become prices because it’s one of a kind. Hey guys Ramon here, thank you all for tuning in to today’s video. Hit that subscribe button and notification bell to stay updated with what’s happening here on O’ahu. If you would like to watch more videos check out our playlist and last but not least consider becoming a member of the O’ahu Surf Films Ohana.