International Surfboard Builders Hall Of Fame Inductee Details
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| Inductee Name Bill Stewart | Event Year 2021 | Inductee Location San Clemente California | Inductee Contact stewartsurfboards.com |
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| Inductee Boardshop Stewart Surfboards |
Boardshop Link https://stewartsurfboards.com/ |
| Inductee Bio
So. how did Bill Stewart become "Father of the Modern Longboard" ? Like most surfers , the Father of the Modern Longboard started on a longboard , a 9 '2 " to be exact. He then rode professionally as, yep , a shortboarder. Stewart just didn't understand why 60's - style longboards were so slow and couldn't be surfed aggressively (1), so he set out to change things. The Father of the Modern Longboard wasn't born a great shaper. He admits that his first board. shaped in Florida. was barely rideable. He took an old log. grinded down the rails. peeled off the glass. took out the blank inside to reshape it. and covered the entire thing in laminating resin. It stuck to the sand. There was no way Stewart could've known that he'd come to shape thousands of highly-customized masterpieces and the surfing industry itself. During the shortboard revolution. when he wasn't working at a shop sanding. polishing. and airbrushing. he was experimenting with shorter surfcraft. and taking what he'd learned and then building on it. In the mid-seventies. Stewart and his friend Mike Beschen put on a surf contest at T-Street. Although Stewart won the contest. he wondered why his boards noserode great but didn't have the speed and maneuverability of a shortboard - he wanted to shortboard a longboard from the tail. with high-speed. figure-8 roundhouses despite the length. The Father of the Modern Longboard envisioned a model and created it. While everyone was riding longboards with big 9-10" single fins. he put a smaller 6" center fin. along with two 3 1/4 " side fins. 16" up from the tail. This. along with the super hard edges. narrow vee'd tail with double concave for release & speed. and ultra-light Clark Foam blanks with light glassing. completely changed the performance of a longboard to ride like a shortboard - The Father of the Modern Longboard called it the Hydro Hull. After he created this completely revolutionary high-performance longboard. Stewart worked with Clark Foam to design 11 plugs for blanks. One of those plugs. the 95-S. was the thinnest longboard blank ever made and had the perfect thickness flow nose to tail. ideal proportions. and just enough rocker. This blank became the go-to choice for high-performance longboard shapers worldwide. allowing other shapers to emulate The Father of the Modern Longboard's revolutionary designs in their own boards. That's when the worlds of shortboarding and longboarding collided. Using this new shaping technology. surfers had the best of both board worlds. Longboarders could now run up to noseride. step back for a shortboard-style cut-back. and then throw it off-the-lip. This revolution took The Father of the Modern Longboard international. as far as Japan. Australia. France. England. Peru. and more. to showcase its versatility. To this day it remains the design standard for modern longboards. A revolutionary board shape isn't the only chapter in the story of The Father of the Modern Longboard - Stewart also co-founded the Futures Fins box. There are only two types of fin boxes available worldwide. and Futures was designed to be lighter. stronger. and easier to install than the competition. It's now being used in many different surfboard brands around the world. Bill Stewart. The Father of the Modern Longboard. continues to handcraft and customize surfboards at his namesake surf shop Stewart in San Clemente. California. | |||
| For the complete biography, go to: https://stewartsurfboards.com/blogs/news/timeline-history-of-bill-stewart-father-of-the-modern-longboard | |||
Thanks to: Stewart Surfboards for the photo | |||
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