Several years ago I was walking back from
the beach with a friend, and he mentioned finding a website
for the legendary 70’s shaper, Tom Parrish. He’d
wanted to order a board ever since overhearing Jock Sutherland
tell a guy in the line-up that the board he was riding, a
Parrish, was ‘truly something special.’ My friend
asked if I was interested, and although it was a tempting
offer, I had just picked up boards and couldn’t swing
it at the time. We remarked how amazing it was that TP was
still alive and making affordable handcrafted boards. “Please
contact us if you are interested in riding something unique,”
reads his homepage (www.tpsurf.com). A few months later, a
7’9” single fin arrived in New York.
I knew Tom shaped for Lightning Bolt and was known for his
classy single-fin guns favored by the likes of Mark Richards,
Jeff Hakman, and Shaun Tomson but figured he’d disappeared
into obscurity or perhaps worse. There was rumor that he left
Oahu, became an attorney, and was practicing law on Maui.
(This was later confirmed). You don’t read about him
in surf publications, and you won’t find many advertisements
for his product in them either. With the exception of the
random TP-equipped photo of MR or Becky Benson in the Surfer’s
Journal and Derek Hynd’s mention of him in TSJ Volume
11, Number 1 (2002), he remains relatively underground.
Perhaps TP’s most notable resurfacing for the younger
generation has been through Andrew Kidman’s 1995 video
“Litmus” in which Derek Hynd gracefully needles
an 8’8” pintail single-fin in sizeable JBay; tucking
in high and accelerating out of the barrel with exceptional
speed. Hynd’s performance has become a fierce articulation
of TP’s relevance, regardless of era or fin configuration.
I wonder how many of the collectors paying upwards of $5,000
for his 70’s Hawaiian guns have seen this footage? Derek
has been a major supporter of TP’s designs over the
years and was contacted for a comment as was Andrew Kidman,
who during the 1994 Bells Beach contest compiled a quiver
of Parrishs left from the 70’s by touring hawai’ians
and held a TP demo where individuals could experiment with
the boards.
It wasn’t until 2006, when looking for a step-up board,
something to ride on those blustery double-overhead winter
days, that I finally contacted Tom. He responded immediately
and was curious to hear exactly what I wanted. His views on
custom shaping are based on the concept of collaboration,
and he enjoys the challenge of making a board precisely as
the person requested it.
About a week after he received my deposit I bumped into a
guy learning to surf on a 6’8” Parrish single
fin from the 70’s. I sent Tom some photos of it and
asked about the board’s history, which got us talking
about the 70’s halcyon days on the North Shore of Oahu
and his early involvement with Quicksilver. He agreed to an
interview but was reticent when it came to talking about himself.
He suggested that I contact his friend Will Allison, an East
Coast surfing champion and shaper based out of North Carolina.
I spoke with Will on the phone, and he explained that he’s
known Tom since the 70’s but couldn’t afford his
boards back then. However, he now owns a mixed quiver of TP
singles and thrusters. He vacations on Maui each year and
reportedly surfs a mysto-left reef where Tom, a natural regular-foot,
rides goofy so he can face the wave. Tom surfs as well as
he shapes, and is known for being a ‘smooth-charger’
in waves of consequence.
This interview was conducted over email from October 2006-January
2007.
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