Surfboard designer Dale Velzy rode wave to success

MISSION VIEJO, Calif. — Master surfboard designer Dale Velzy, who helped popularize surfing along the California coast and at one time was the world's largest maker of surfboards, has died. He was 77.

Mr. Velzy died of lung cancer Thursday in Mission Viejo.

"I can't tell you strongly enough how he was the original surfer-cowboy-hot-rodder in Southern California," said Allan Seymour, who had known Mr. Velzy since he was in eighth grade and now deals in rare and vintage surfing memorabilia. "When we grew up, you couldn't get a higher compliment than, 'You're a Dale Velzy guy.' "

"Velzy's lasting legacy is the billion-dollar surf industry," said Sam George, global editor for Surfer Magazine. "He created the archetype and everyone has followed it: Get the hottest guys to ride your equipment, get a photo of it, and market it."

Mr. Velzy, a surfer since childhood, began repairing and reshaping surfboards in a garage in 1949 and later opened a shop under the Manhattan Beach Pier in Los Angeles County.

He expanded the business to Venice and Hermosa Beach, joining Harold Jacobs in 1953 to produce boards under the Velzy-Jacobs label until buying out his partner six years later.

Mr. Velzy's most famous board was the "Pig," which debuted in 1955 and is now a collectors' item priced at more than $3,000.

In 1956, with money flooding in as his boards surfed out the door, Mr. Velzy befriended photographer Bruce Brown. He had hired Brown to sweep up the shop. Mr. Velzy helped launch the surfing-movie genre by giving Brown $5,000 to buy camera equipment and fly five surfers to Hawaii to shoot his 1957 "Slippery When Wet."

Brown made more surfing documentaries, including the popular 1964 "Endless Summer."

By the late 1950s, Mr. Velzy was considered the world's largest surfboard manufacturer, operating five shops and two factories that sold as many as 200 custom-built boards a week. He made boards for famous surfers such as Duke Kahanamoku, George Downing, Mickey Dora and Harry Robello.

Mr. Velzy may have been an innovative craftsman and stylish salesman and surfing promoter. But a businessman he was not. When his manufacturing operation peaked in 1960, the Internal Revenue Service landed on him for unpaid back taxes. His shops were padlocked, and most of the contents were auctioned off.

Near financial ruin, Mr. Velzy went on shaping boards, but as an employee of others. Mr. Velzy continued to teach youngsters the craft in his Surfboards by Dale shop in Newport Beach, and eventually made Velzy boards again, working in his own back yard.

Mr. Velzy is survived by his longtime companion, Fran Hoff, and his son and daughter.