Surfing News

Home

Quizzes

Newsletter

Hobie And Velzy: The Surfboard Business’s Greatest Rivalry

Originally posted on SURFER | By Jake Howard | Last updated Feb 22, 2024 5:26 PM ET

Local rivalries are a glorious thing, and when it comes to surf, perhaps no other rivalry has burned as bright or shaped the world we know and ride waves in quite like the epic headbutting of Hobie Alter and Dale Velzy. Two of the most iconic surfboard builders during the sport’s Golden Age of the 1960s, it's been 70 years this month since Alter opened Hobie Surf Shop—and Dale subsequently opened a Velzy shop five miles south in San Clemente the following year.

The two men couldn’t have been more opposite in their temperament or business philosophies. Hobie was quiet, thoughtful, calculated. Velzy had more of a bombastic, Wild West, cowboy take on things. And while only a few short miles separated their shops on Coast Highway, they were world's apart.

“Velzy swooped down from Los Angeles in 1955 to open a new outlet in San Clemente, on Pacific Coast Highway for the express purpose of siphoning off potential customers driving up from San Diego,” surf historian Matt Warshaw wrote in 2021. “And thus began the start of the first great American boardmaker’s rivalry. Customers lined up behind one man or the other, Hobie or Velzy, giving their allegiance not just to a brand but a form of surfing leadership.

“Alter was earnest and respectable, and his shop was as clean as Alter himself was clean-cut. Velzy smoked cigars, wore a diamond pinky ring, and kept a roll of hundred-dollar bills in his back pocket,” continued Warshaw.

“Their salesmanship styles differed, too. In a bit of ad copy, Alter described his boards as having ‘evolved through careful and original changes, using proven principles and vast experience.' Velzy, as even his most loyal followers would admit, was a hustler. But a smooth, likable hustler. He’d sidle up to a mink coat-wearing divorcée looking to buy a board for her teenage son, touch her elbow, lean close, lower his voice, and say, ‘This here’s a good-riding son of a (expletive), ma’am.’ True to form, Velzy wasn’t just bad at bookkeeping, but spectacularly bad, as he ignored creditors, snubbed the IRS, and threw away all notices and warnings. Then, in late 1960, his entire mainland operation, five outlets in all, collapsed overnight.”

Velzy recalled that federal agents “hit all the shops at the same time and padlocked the doors.” Showroom boards, tools and machines, his beloved gullwing Mercedes; everything was confiscated and put up for auction … The Velzy Surfboards meltdown was a surf-world sensation, but it didn’t cause any break in the supply line—thanks in part to Alter,” surmises Warshw.

Today, Hobie Surfboards' crack team of craftsmen have reproduced some of Velzy’s most famous models. The shaping duties are being headed up by Adam Davenport and Gary Larson. Initially, they offered two models, the Pig and Malibu Express.

“We’re working on a noserider and Malibu Chip as well,” explained Carlow.

“All of us are really excited,” adds Carlow. “There is so much history between Hobie and Velzy and now it’s all going to be together under one roof.”

This article first appeared on SURFER and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: