Carl Ekstrom

Interview by Glenn Sakamoto

Carl Ekstrom is a San Diego-based designer best known as the inventor of the asymmetrical surfboard. His boardmaking career began as a glasser with Al Nelson. He was mentored by such luminaries as Bobby Patterson, Pat Curren, and Dale Velzy. A mostly self-taught designer, he collaborates with surfer/shaper Ryan Burch and surfer/historian Richard Kenvin to further develop today’s modern surfboard. We spoke with Carl to learn more.

Can you tell us a bit about your childhood?

I grew up in a house on Grevilla Street up from Windansea with my father, mother, and brothers. My dad was from Sweden and was an excellent house painter. He was particularly good with color. I once observed him adding tiny amounts of white to the paint as he worked towards the ceiling. He told me he was “lightening up” the wall as it retreated from the light. 

I almost drowned as a child while playing in the Windansea shorebreak. The lifeguards had to pull me out. I taught myself to swim by wearing swim fins at the local pool and would take them off one at a time until I could finally swim on my own. 

How did you get into surfing?

My brothers were surfers so I was influenced by them. In the plank days, my brother Woody was a really good surfer with a lot of style. There were so many good surfers at Windansea – I just wanted to be like them. 

Tell us about your first board.

It was a plank – a cut-down board with redwood rails and real square-looking. I was an eleven-year-old kid with no money when a guy named Fat Wally sold his board to me. I rode it and the board immediately took out one of my front teeth. The lifeguard told my mother, “Did you know he could’ve been killed?” She replied, “Yeah – but he wasn’t.” (laughs) 

“My brothers were surfers so I was influenced by them. In the plank days, my brother Woody was a really good surfer with a lot of style. There were so many good surfers at Windansea – I just wanted to be like them.” 

Did you know Butch Van Artsdalen?

I became friends with Butch at La Jolla High School. Butch was from a military family and he had to show everyone how strong he was. He became a good fighter and could easily take care of himself. Butch was also a big-hearted guy.

I got Butch in the water for his first surf. I took him to Windansea on an almost flat day and got him standing up on a board and he did his switchfoot thing. He was almost ambidextrous with his feet as he could surf either way. 

What about the Patterson Brothers?

The two top surfers at that time were Bobby Patterson and Phil Edwards. In fact, they were so good that they would both stop to watch the other surf from the beach.

When Bobby saw the piece-of-crap redwood plank I was riding, he said, “Ekstrom, I’m giving you my board.” It was a board he had shaped for himself at Mike Diffenderfer’s house in La Jolla. I told him, “I don’t have any money to buy your board.” He replied, “You don’t understand, I’m giving it to you.”

“The two top surfers at that time were Bobby Patterson and Phil Edwards. In fact, they were so good that they would both stop to watch the other surf from the beach.”

Bobby would become my mentor. He took me to surfing events and he introduced me to Dale Velzy. He even gave me a book on etiquette. He told me that in Hawaii, you never know if the Queen of England might show up. I needed to know how to deal with “people at the top.”

The other Patterson brothers included Raymond and Ronald. Raymond was the artist and did incredible work with Hobie on surfboards. Ronald was really bright and into electronics. He liked my boards because they had thin rails. A lot of the boards coming from up north had the thick rails and those didn’t work well at Windansea. 

The waves at Windansea informed your ideas on board design?

Yes. Windansea was a great testing ground. We also had Simmons Point and a bunch of other reef breaks all through La Jolla. They were challenging to surf and they were all different. We had the best places to test surfboards than anywhere on the West Coast.

Tell us about your involvement with skateboarding.

A lot of people won’t acknowledge this, but it was La Jolla surfer Peter Parkin who was the first person to skateboard. How do I know this? I was there! I saw him riding his board in 1947 down La Jolla Boulevard.

Back then, skateboards were a piece of lumber (usually a 2x4) that we would attach metal roller skates, the ones that would hook onto your shoes.

We started riding downhill and then riding curbs. We wanted to get closer to the ground so we’d shave the rubbers on the trucks to get better control. Back then it was all-metal wheels so we went looking for smooth concrete to ride.

Bobby Burns and John Van Hammersveld would come down from Palos Verdes with their friends and skate with us. They would take San Diego skateboarding back to the South Bay and it would later spread to other parts of California.

Tell us about your shaping career.

I was a glasser for Al Nelson before I was a shaper. He and Pat Curren were running the show here and they would make frequent trips to Hawaii to ride big Waimea. Both Al and Pat had a huge influence on us with their balsa guns.

Later I had a business partnership with Al and we created Nelson/Ekstrom. In time, Al would spend less and less time at the shop and I had to figure out whether I should buy out his stake in the company. He told me, “No need, just let me use the shop once and a while. That would be payment for me.”

“Velzy and Renny Yater did the shaping and I was with Bobby Patterson glassing boards. Velzy was a true original. Pat Curren would say about Velzy: ‘He’s still the king.’”

After the shop closed, I worked at Velzy in San Clemente. Dale and Hap had just split up their former partnership, Velzy/Jacobs. Velzy and Renny Yater did the shaping and I was with Bobby Patterson glassing boards. Velzy was a true original. Pat Curren would say about Velzy: “He’s still the king.”  

I did some shaping in Laguna Canyon after leaving Velzy but I got fired because I wasn’t very good at it. I did some shaping for Ole Surfboards in Seal Beach, too. He had just cut his finger off and he needed someone to help. I did about 18 boards for him. When Hobie purchased Gordie Surfboards, I learned they took some of my boards and reshaped them. They made them narrower and added thicker rails because they didn’t like my thinner rails.

When I interviewed for a job at Con Surfboards in Santa Monica, I had a little more shaping experience by then and I showed Con what I was making. Con was a perfectionist and did real nice work, but it would take him a couple of days to make a single surfboard. I brought with me some production techniques from the other shops, especially from Velzy and I took him from about 3 boards a week to 30 boards a week.

Eventually, Con brought in another guy and wanted to move me across the street in another building. He didn’t ask me if that’s what I wanted. One can make judgments by actions and not from words. So I left.

I was told that you were a bit of a vagabond, hitchhiking your way up and down the coast..

That’s just the way it used to be. You didn’t have to have the expense of owning a car and if you wanted to get somewhere – you just stuck out your thumb! When I was 17, I hitchhiked to Hermosa Beach and ended up there around 3AM. I got stopped by the police while looking for a place to sleep on the strand. After getting bailed out of jail by my mother and brother a couple of times, I decided it was time to go back to live in La Jolla.

What did you learn traveling the coast?

It was interesting because every community you would surf, it would be like visiting a different country. They each had their own culture, their own boards, and their own way of surfing. 

In my opinion, La Jolla had all the best surfers at the time with a lot of them coming from Pacific Beach, Ocean Beach, and Imperial Beach. 

The South Bay had their Pendletons, white pocket tees, Levi’s, white socks. Laguna Beach surfers were the intellectuals with their literature and fine wine. 

Malibu, on the other hand, was all glamour and Hollywood. There was a guy there who wore silk shirts and wanted to start a group called “Strictly Glamour.” It was, of course, all tongue-in-cheek. 

“The beauty of design is that you can always revisit it and ask,
‘Was it good or bad? What can I learn from it’”?

How did you become interested in design?

I’ve always liked automotive design, especially European vintage cars. There was a hand-built 1947 Jaguar Mark IV that I really wanted. I was also interested in furniture design and architecture. I guess just design in general.

One thing I’m not into is computers. My wife handles all of that. I don’t want to go down the computer route because I’d rather have ideas come from my own head.

The beauty of design is that you can always revisit it and ask, “Was it good or bad? What can I learn from it”? 

Where were you educated?

I had a couple years at state college, but I’m mostly self-taught. 

At La Jolla High School I had the record for the most absentees because at that time I was building surfboards. 

I was out learning stuff in the real world. I was learning things from people that actually made money doing what they were doing.

Tell us about your involvement with the asymmetric surfboard.

It started in the longboard days back in 1965. Conventional surfboards go well on the frontside, but on the backside, they just want to go forward and lock into the wave. For my surfing, I wanted more curve on the backside and a twist in the tail so that the tail would be higher on the heel side, so I designed the first asymmetrical surfboard.

While in Maui, I broke my board in half at Honolua Bay so I brought it into Ole’s shop to get it repaired. He took one look at my asymmetric board and said, “That’s interesting.” He went on to build asymmetric sailboards for champions Matt Schweiter and Robbie Nash.

“I’ve always been more interested in the future than the past. The past is really interesting but I wanna know what’s coming next. There’s still a whole lot of room to do new things!”

I also designed standing wave boards. Before asymmetrics, they had a hard time getting out of the tube. I said all you have to do is straighten out the back rail. I made one for the famous snowboarder Terje Haakenson. He rode it in a contest and won. 

I went to a surf shop here about two years ago and the guy working there said to me, “You know you made it really difficult for us to sell your boards. They’re a pain to display and we have to explain your theory to people. It’s just so hard.” (laughs)

What’s next for Carl Ekstrom?

I’ve always been more interested in the future than the past. The past is really interesting but I wanna know what’s coming next. There’s still a whole lot of room to do new things!