Hap Jacobs

Hap Jacobs is a Cal­i­for­nia surfer/shaper who was one of the pio­neers of mod­ern surf­board mak­ing. Along with his busi­ness part­ner Dale Velzy, Jacobs helped cre­ated the Cal­i­for­nia surf scene in the 60s with his skilled crafts­man­ship and smooth surf­ing. We spoke with Hap to learn more about his life and times.

What was your child­hood like?
I was lucky enough to have par­ents who moved me to the beach when I was in the fourth grade. I didn’t really want to move to the beach because I had some really “great” friends back in West L.A. You know doing things that lit­tle kids do—breaking win­dows on new houses and stuff. (Laughs).

Back then, all the kids had the can­vas surf mats, so I did that. I got my first job when I was 16, in high school, work­ing at one of the surf mat places called Cal­i­for­nia Surfrider. I would sweep the mats and pump them up with air. The ben­e­fit was that we got to ride them. Velzy and his friends were all surf­ing at the pier with their heavy red­wood boards—this was in the mid 40’s. He would tell us kids, “Get outta here or we’re gonna run over ya.” He was the first ter­ri­to­r­ial man I’ve ever met.

Who did you look up to when you were a young man?
I would say Dale. Every­body wanted to be his friend. He was the kind of guy that had a lot of charisma. Good surfer—seemed like he did every­thing well. He didn’t seem to go to school much. (The tru­ant offi­cer was always look­ing for him.) He always had the best look­ing girls and rode motor­cy­cles and hot rod cars. Dale was prob­a­bly the first guy I had seen who could walk up and down on a board. He was just one of those guys.

What was the feel­ing you had when you first stood up on a surf­board?
“Help!” I was on one of those ter­ri­ble boards back then. You would get up and you could just push your way into the white­wa­ter. You would pretty much go whichever way the board went. They had big, thick rails and were very sharp. But you would get up and go, “Whoa – this is really something.”

There are so many accom­plish­ments in surf­ing that it never ends. You start with things and it kinda goes on and on. You can actu­ally improve pretty rapidly if you keep at it. And that gives most peo­ple quite a bit of encouragement.

Tell us about surf­ing as a teenager.
When I got a fairly decent board, before we had cars, these guys would take us to The Cove. There was the Palos Verdes Surf­ing Club. Guys like Hoppy Swarts and Leroy Gran­nis were there. They would tell us, “If you get into any trou­ble, we’re not tak­ing you again.” The biggest thing in surf­ing back then was learn­ing how to turn those boards. We couldn’t turn very well back so we tried to stay out of their way.

Where did you learn the skills to make a board?
I started in Hawaii and made a few boards. When I came back to Cal­i­for­nia, I worked for a year at UCLA, but even­tu­ally left to do more surf­ing. They asked me why I would quit a job that included med­ical and retire­ment ben­e­fits. I told them I am going to make drift­wood fur­ni­ture and surf­boards. You can imag­ine the look on their faces!

Bev Mor­gan was a surfer and excel­lent diver, and he started mak­ing wet­suits, so we rented a lit­tle shop in Redondo Beach which even­tu­ally became known as Dive ‘N’ Surf. That was 1953. Bev made the wet­suits and I made the surf­boards. The late Billy Meistrell of Body Glove got me hooked up with Dale Velzy. Dale thought it was great idea to work together because one per­son could watch the shop while the other went surf­ing! We each made six boards a week and that’s how the Velzy-Jacobs busi­ness got started.

When did you stop shap­ing?
When the 70’s started, we stopped mak­ing boards when the short­boards came in. The drug scene started up then. Every­body wanted shap­ing appoint­ments, and they were going to come in and tell you how to shape a board. It was just stuff that seemed kind of ridicu­lous. About long­boards, Phil Edwards once said in an arti­cle, “You couldn’t give them away.” So I went fishing.

What attracted Greg Noll, Bruce Brown, Mark Mar­tin­son, Dewey Weber and your­self to com­mer­cial fish­ing?
Doing some­thing on the ocean, I think. When I was a kid, I liked fish­ing a lot so I started doing com­mer­cial sword­fish­ing, and that was a lot of fun and we could make some money at it. Greg started crab­bing above Eureka and he came down here with his sword­fish boat, but he didn’t like it. It’s a kind of thing where you can drive around for a cou­ple of days and not see any­thing; it’s can be super, super bor­ing. But when you see one … it’s a whole dif­fer­ent thing.

What got you started shap­ing again?
Every­body kept ask­ing me to start shap­ing again. I was friends with Grubby Clark, so I asked him to give me a good deal on some blanks. He said, “Look, I’ve got  two peo­ple right now and they are dri­ving me crazy. One of them is Dale Velzy and the other one is Phil Edwards. I don’t need a third!”

In 1991, Don­ald Takayama called me and said, “You bet­ter come down, we’re going to have a con­test.” My wife and I went down there and we said to each other, “Maybe we’ll know some­body down there … at least Henry Ford and Don­ald. We got down there and, of course, we knew about three-quarters of the peo­ple there—most of whom I hadn’t seen in years.

Tell us the Ben Aipa story…
Don­ald told me had a Skil planer to give to me along with a bucket full of parts. When I got it back home, I noticed it said “Aipa” on it. Well, I was using it for three or four years and all of a sud­den Aipa shows up at the shop, just to talk. He would just talk and he kept look­ing over at my planer. I said, “Ben, I notice you keep look­ing at my planer.” I then showed him his name writ­ten on it. He didn’t know what to say exactly. I quickly replied, “There was noth­ing in it when I got it, Don­ald just gave it to me with a bunch of parts.” Ben finally said, “Well, I guess it’s in good hands!” He then gave me one of his stick­ers and he placed it on my wall.

Tell us about your famous Jacobs logo design.
I had to sit and think of some­thing when Velzy and I parted our busi­ness together. If I am going to start mak­ing boards on my own, I bet­ter start think­ing about my logo. I started draw­ing a dia­mond for some rea­son. One of our most pop­u­lar items was a visor that we would put our logo on. We sold tons of those things. Every kid on the beach had one.

How impor­tant is crafts­man­ship to you?
Oh, very. Some­times it takes a lit­tle longer. If you are going to do some­thing, you might as well do it right.

How would you describe a good surfer?
Style and know­ing what they are doing. With short­boards, it’s kind of like “turn and spray.” Then they’ll do some tricks, fins first, whip around and get a lot of air. It’s dif­fer­ent. If you watch some­one like Phil Edwards or Miki Dora, some­one who is really smooth and knows exactly what they are doing and they catch the right waves, it’s just per­fect. Style to me is impor­tant. It’s some­thing I’d rather watch.

Who do you feel is shap­ing the path for surf­ing today?
Jon Wegener. He surfs the bay over here. He used to shape the medium range boards for me. I kept my eye on him and he just kept improv­ing over time. Now, he’s got these alaia boards. He’s pretty inven­tive; he’s always try­ing to improve things that nobody else is doing.

Matt Cal­vani is a great shaper. He’s got a great eye and is very par­tic­u­lar. They do their own glass­ing up there and every­thing they do, they do well. It doesn’t leave the door unless Matt has taken a good look at it.

Of all the places you have trav­eled to what place stands out and why?
Hawaii. I was in the Coast Guard on buoy patrol and we would travel to all of the dif­fer­ent islands. We really got to see how island life was back in the 50’s. I shared the boat with George Down­ing, prob­a­bly the best water­man at the time, and I met my wife there too.

Tak­ing a cou­ple of months off from the boat, I was able to meet many of the most well-known surfers real quick. I had a board in town in a locker at Waikiki and I kept a heavy, curl-type board over there in Makaha at a friend’s house that George Down­ing shaped for me. It was per­fect. Prob­a­bly the best time in my life.

What inspires you?
Surf­ing. It’s what I enjoy doing. And, of course, shap­ing. It’s still fun putting a plan shape on a board. When I shape, I am always think­ing of way to make a bet­ter board, espe­cially if I am going to do a board for myself.

Mostly, I really enjoy doing cus­tom boards. I get to meet the peo­ple and I get to find out exactly what they want, their abil­ity, what they pre­fer and how they surf. And I get to see their faces when they come and pick up their board. It’s a good feeling.

What mean­ing does surf­ing hold for you and how has it changed your life?
I don’t know. It’s kind of a con­tin­u­a­tion that just keeps going on. There’s some­thing about the ocean—it’s some­thing you can look at. It’s where the land ends and every­thing is done there. It’s mes­mer­iz­ing. I really can’t explain it.

What’s the great­est thing you have learned in your life?
Not to argue with my wife. That’s it.

What are you most proud of?
Hav­ing fun. And still being able to make a liv­ing doing some­thing I love.

More infor­ma­tion about Hap Jacobs Surf­boards can be found here. Vin­tage pho­tog­ra­phy pro­vided by Steve Wilk­ings.