And Still Champion Sea Creatures

Surfing is one of the most difficult sports one will ever attempt.  You can be fit and coordinated and excel in every other sport, and still never master the subtle timing required to ride a wave well. And, anyone who’s ever tried it soon realizes that switching stance on a surfboard is among the most difficult of all maneuvers. Sixties-plus year old Dale Dobson switches so effortlessly that I have never known if he was goofy foot (right foot forward) or regular foot (left foot forward.) Dobson, who grew up in and around La Jolla apparently learned to switch from legendary La Jollan and first king of the Pipeline, Butch Van Artsdalen. Proving it a great rarity to master switching stance, I can only think of one other surfer, Hawaiian born Jock Sutherland, who was ever as proficient at that move as Butch and Dale.

 I first became aware of Dobson through surf magazines where he was regularly featured in living color.  But it wasn’t until the mid 1970s, while surfing the La Jolla reefs that I started to understand what a wave genius he really was. From Pacific Beach to Windansea and beyond, Dobson dominated whatever break he happened to ride.

Unlike many surf stars at the time, Dale had easily made the mid ’60s transition from longboards to shortboards. Still, by the mid ‘80s it seemed that even his fame had finally run its course. He was approaching his 40s by then and while still brilliant in the water, the surf media was naturally focused on new blood. Then something occurred that gave Dale and other stars of his era another shot at stardom. Termed the Longboard Renaissance, ‘60s style longboards again roared back into the lineup with Dobson as one of its leaders as he reached a second peak, this time on nine-foot-plus boards that took him to the winner’s circle in every surf contest he entered.

          I can still recall the day I paddled out to Cardiff and watched him do things I had never seen on a nine-six. It was around that time, in the early ‘90s when I found myself working as the announcer for many of the local surf contests while at the helm of the longboard magazine, Longboarder. Because of my work and my love for surfing I was regularly in the lineup with Dobson, to witness his mastery firsthand. Few could touch him in those days and it would be a while until kids like Kevin Connely and Joel Tudor would eventually catch and surpass him. By then Dale Dobson had been hovering around the top of the surfing world for nearly four decades.

          It was somewhere around the 1980s when collecting old longboards became popular and restoration of them turned into a business. Requiring steady hands, great attention to detail and a vast knowledge of the era and the materials needed, Dobson showed himself the master of his craft as he patched, glossed and polished these fine and long forgotten craft until they again looked showroom new.

          A few years ago somebody gave me an old and battered Dale Dobson Surfboard. It had some unpatched dings and the fin was loose, and so it hung out in the rafters of my garage collecting dust until I gave it to Dobson. A few months later Dale appeared at my door to reveal the restored surfboard. It was beautiful. It soon occurred to me that it took a great deal of work before that surfboard could once again take its place at the head of most any lineup. Not many boards get that chance. Neither do their riders.