When people think of Jeff Clark they think of Mavericks. When they think of Mavericks they think of Jeff Clark. The two have become synonymous over years to the point that even lay people (non-surfers) know who he is. What most people don’t realize is that he’s been shaping boards for just as long as he’s been riding Mavericks (30-something years) and he actually surfs in small waves. I spoke with Jeff over the phone one evening after he’d gone kite-surfing with some friends.

Michael Machemer: I came across an *Andrew Kidman article in the The Surfer’s Journal about Wayne Lynch in NorCal for an Evolution tour and you bringing him one of his boards from 30 years prior.

Jeff Clark: Yeah, when Wayne Lynch came out I had one of these Evolutions. It’s a 5’10” and it’s from like, ’67 and I’ve got this thing hanging in my shop on display, and I said to Wayne, "Should we put a fin in this thing and ride it?" Wayne goes, “No man, one thing we learned from those boards is they don’t work, and why would I ride old technology when I can ride new technology?”

The whole Evolution thing is they evolved from longboard to shortboard, but it seems like shortboards took a long time to really evolve. You had the first set of twins and then you had the single fins, and then you have the second set of twins, the ones Mark Richards won the world title on, and before that it was Shaun Thompson on the single fin and Rabbit.

MM: Steve Lis having designed the first set of twin keel fish?

JC: Well, or Bob Simmons with the early, early designs.

MM: Yes, the Simmons twin keel hulls, which I guess certain shapers are kind of going back to a little bit. I’ve seen some boards based off that original design.

JC: They are going back to the twins because the twins are very valid, but unless you take what we’ve learned through sailboard fins too, I mean, sailboard fins are the fastest fins on the planet. They’re going 45 to 50 mph and they’re only 7” deep. I started using that technology in the late 80’s for my guns at Mavericks.

MM: Are you still shaping?

JC: Oh yeah, I have Jeffclarksurfboards.com. I’ve got a surfboard company with a complete line of pretty much every kind of surfboard you can imagine. I do a model called the Flying Fish which is your twin keel twin fin, but they don’t look like the retro stuff. Retro stuff really doesn’t work. It works well if you’re going straight down line, but if you want to do…

MM: More vertical turns…

JC: My fishes will snap in hook like a short board, but yet you can do it on 2-foot waves!

MM: How about the quads that you’ve been riding at Mavericks? How do those relate?

JC: You know it was so funny when FCS came out with the plastic fin system. I was having so much trouble surfing waves with power on plastic fins. So what I had to do was start putting two fins on the tail of the board, effectively making quads. Then I started riding bigger and bigger surf and for Mavericks the plastic fins were just not going work. So I started glassing quad sets on 10-foot guns.

MM: Were you making your own fins?

JC: No, you could buy quad sets. But for the single fins that I was riding at the time I would lay up my own fin panels, cut out my own fin templates and then foil the fins so that they would hold much better than what was available over the counter or that I could order from a fin company.

When it comes to quads and surfing big waves, I’ve been riding them for 15 years now. I was the first to ride quads in waves of 20 feet and now a lot of people have jumped on the bandwagon. Stretch from Santa Cruz got shaper of the year, but none of his guys rode quad guns before they rode mine at Mavericks. It’s kind of funny how that works, how the mags will blow up whoever they want to…whoever’s the flavor of the week.

The quad has been a tried concept, you know - build it, ride it, test it. I ride everything I build. I get first-hand feedback on whether the board will work. I’ve already thought it out in my brain, I’m going to spin and go on a giant wave at Mavericks, and I know this thing is going to work. There’s no second guessing. I can take a brand new board now, wax it up, paddle out at Mavs and have no qualms with just going to the peak and going, because I trust what I make.

MM: At what age did you start shaping?

JC: I think the first board I shaped when I was nine years old, with help from a friend who works with Jack Shipley and Surf Line Hawaii. I mean, we’re talking like 1969, and that was the first one. They were my little projects that I’d work on in the garage, and my dad would always get pissed off because I was dripping resin everywhere on the floor. I was just a kid making a mess of the garage and by the time I was sixteen I was making boards that actually worked a little bit. (Laughs) By the time I got out of high school I was making boards for my friends, and I had a shaping room behind the house or had a shaper to go to build boards. I’ve had my fingers in the resin all along.

MM: How’s the Clark thing affecting you?

JC: The Clark thing has definitely affected guns, because everybody’s jumped on the bandwagon trying to supply Merrick and Rusty and the short boards, but um, no one’s jumped on the bandwagon as of yet to supply big wave guns. I was able to actually buy some 10’6”s, some 9’8”s, and some 9’1”s that were very expensive, but worth every penny, because these are the last Clark big wave guns, and Clark made the best big wave guns.

MM: Sure

JC: I’ve got blanks that we’re going to make masters of, so I know that this winter I’m going to have a complete supply of big wave boards, and I’m pretty amped about that.

MM: Have you been getting any of the foam from Australia or South Africa or other places?

JC: I have been using surf blanks from Australia and also Just Foam here in Oceanside….Vista. We’ve got a guy who’s cranking out some really good foam, so a lot of the fishes are coming out light and nice. We have about eight companies trying to jump in the game right now, and most of them haven’t quite figured out their formulas. There’s a couple who’ve got it straight and we’re getting good foam.

MM: I didn’t know you were based down south. I thought you were still up north.

JC: I am, I have my surf shop right there at Mavericks, but I’m down in San Diego, because I can manufacture a lot of surfboards, and that’s kind of…

MM: Where the industry is…

JC: (Laughs) I’ve been shaping boards forever, and now I can use KKL just like Al Merrick does. There is nothing better than being able to produce, like they do for Kelly, board after board after board. They’re able to produce the matching boards time and time again. He’ll pull 5 at a time off of a batch of 30 or 40, and he’ll surf 5 at a time and hold the magic ones and the other ones go in the “for sale” room over at Channel Islands in Santa Barbara. Now, his boards are being made by Simon Anderson.

MM: Really?

JC: Yeah, I mean they’ve got Al Merrick labels on them but Simon Anderson is building them, or shaping them. I got to take a look at Kelly’s boards, and um, if you watch the way he surfed the Bells Contest…

MM: That was ridiculous.

JC: He made Joel look like he was standing still. The arcs that he was pulling out of the top of the hooks of those waves, I mean, no one surfs like that.

MM: No definitely not. He’s a freak.

JC: It’s almost tow surfing to come out of the hook; you know…it was just awesome to see that harnessing of the power.

MM: Where are your boards glassed?

JC: Global Glassing in Oceanside. WRV works out of there and a lot of Merricks actually go through that shop.

MM: Do you surf in small waves and ride the fish that you make?

JC: Absolutely. I’ve been riding a 5’10” quad right now, and it’s got the Speed dialer set up. They’re double bump swallow tails, but I bend the tail into a narrower swallow so that it keeps some curve in the tail of the board, and it allows you to actually turn on the back corner. Remember Tom Curren’s boards from Al Merrick? They had the big hip in them? You can make a fish and you put that hip in it and you’re going to have a board that really turns well, that actually performs. It skates like a fish, but performs like a shortboard.

MM: The way the water breaks off the tail affecting your turn. I’ve seen that in Manuel Caro’s boards, out of Santa Cruz…Mandala Surfboards. He’s been making a lot of interesting fish, Rich Pavel-inspired double bump, Speed-dialer type quads.

JC: I haven’t heard of him actually. I’m based down in San Diego. All the fish shapers, from Steve Lis from Kauai to Pavel and Rainbow are down here. It’s fish country so you’re seeing the best fish shapers trying to do it the best they can. I’ve taken what they’ve done and added double concave, and then pulled the tails in tighter. You still get the same lift and speed, but now you’ve got a board that’ll actually make a cutback instead of trying to cut back on that long, straight rail that you’ll find on the Kane Gardens and the Merricks and the Lis’ and you know, everybody else. A lot of people get stuck on retro, and like Wayne Lynch said, "We don’t ride those anymore because they don’t work."

MM: And also, you guys were around during the short board revolution and riding that stuff back then.

JC: When I started surfing, my first board was a 10’6” Gordon and Smith.

MM: And this was like in the mid 60’s?

JC: Mid 60’s, so you know, I’ve been shaping for 30 years, and it’s been quite an experience. It’s been good.

MM: I recently asked Tom Parrish on Maui to shape me a single fin and he goes, "You should be getting a thruster. Single fins don’t cut back as well, don’t turn as hard off the top, etc.", similar to what you’re saying. It’s funny to hear another person who’s been shaping for 30 years…

JC: It’s great if you want to hang it on the wall, you know?

MM: Or just ride with your front foot and maybe cruise some more?

JC: I still make single fins for Mavericks. I paddled out with Tom Curren at Mavericks and its solid 15 to 18 feet, 30-foot faces plus. Doc Renneker loaned him a 9’6” Tom Parrish and he can catch waves, like, no problem. I remember paddling back out from riding a wave, and I see him stroking into this giant wave on this board, right? And he jumps to his feet and starts to drop in, and I can see the thing is trying to swap rail to rail, and I can see the fin in his board is garbage. It will not handle where he’s at and what he’s doing, and I see Tom struggle this rail and that rail, this rail, that rail and finally he just jumps off. He got one good wave but did a cutback into the double up, and he said it was the worst wipeout he’s ever had. You don’t cut back into the bowl on the inside of Mavericks! It just annihilated him. The fin will not handle.

MM: Where was your worst wipeout?

JC: My worst wipeout? I’ve had a couple of bad ones at Mavericks, but I mean, the ones where I’ve hit the bottom and just been like…there’s a beach break called Montara, and it faces north. It comes out of deep water. It’s not uncommon to have 40-foot face waves break on the beach break.

MM: Wow. Not closing out?

JC: You gotta pick. It’s kinda like Puerto. Some are good, some are bad.

MM: Pay to play.

JC: And you gotta know, yeah. I spun and went on a wave that was almost a 30-foot face and I’m riding a 9’ Mavericks gun out there. I barely punched through the wave before, it crumbled down and unloaded so I just spun and went on the next one. Well, halfway down the face I ran into the foam from the wave before and you don’t want to be in foam on wave that big. (Laughs) It churns your knees like being on ball bearings. Needless to say I did a face plant and then went up and over the falls, and there were 3 more waves just like that on my head. When I got out of the water it literally felt like I had been trampled by a stampede. I mean, every muscle in my body hurt, I lost my board. So I walked up on the beach, picked my board up, looked back out there, and it was like, “No, not welcome!" Not to mention I was the only guy who paddled out anyway. Okay, the writing’s on the wall. I’ve been told. (Laughs)

MM: Relegated to the beach. That’s heavy, man. A heavier wipeout than ones you’ve taken out at Mavericks?

JC: Yeah, I definitely think so. Well, now, I don’t know. There’s still a handful that have been memorable. You know how someone will take a snake and try to pop the head off? I had a wave do that to me. It’s just like somebody grabbed my feet and slammed me on the bottom on my back and tried to snap my head off.

MM: From all the pressure coming down on you?

JC: And I hit the bottom so hard, it almost knocked me out. I came up, and I was like “Alright I’m up” then took another one on the head, but I was definitely not. Your body goes into shock and it’s like being in a car wreck, you know that sudden impact and all of a sudden your body just freakin’ goes into this mode of self preservation. You know, you’re just chill?

MM: You become very calm.

JC: You become very calm. You’re watching what’s happening. You’re taking impact, and you’re just like “Okay, just ride this out, we’ll make it." It’s just about all you can do. But it locks in the brain, I still have it all recorded. (Laughs)

*The Surfers Journal Vol.10, #1, "Kidman on tour"
For more information on Jeff Clark's Surfboards, please visit: www.jeffclarksurfboards.com.
Also check www.maverickssurf.com for more information on the Maverick's Surf Contest.

Michael Machemer is a New York surfer, writer, photographer, curator and a frequent contributor to Newyorksurf.com. Michael can be reached at mreesem@hotmail.com