The aforementioned “Ugly,” and the accompanying magazine campaign.
Fishbeard, Flying Pig, Precious, Dumpster Diver, Party Platter, Astro Pop — who comes up with these modern surfboard model names anyway? Savvy brand marketers, or the shaper’s third-grade kids on the way to school? In either case, the pervasive offering of specific models represents the most significant shift in surfboard sales since…well, since the last time the trend asserted itself.
This was back in the mid-1960s, when, much like today, virtually all the major manufacturers went fully anaerobic in the marketing race, desperately trying to outpace each other with eye-catching surfboard model names. Unlike today, however, the period’s big brands uniformly went serious rather than sophomoric, with names of top models like Weber’s “Performer,” Rick’s “Improviser,” Jacobs’ “442,” and Harbour’s “Trestle Special,” reflecting less emphasis on being clever and more on touting the performance qualities of each particular design. All except for one venerable label, that is, who broke every conventional marketing rule with the name of their competing model, which, without question, has to be the best worst surfboard model name ever.
A bit of backstory first. The early-to mid-1960s surfboard market had seen models before, but these were, for the most part, based on a top surfer’s endorsement: Hobie’s “Phil Edwards Model,” Jacob’s “Lance Carson Model,” Bing’s “Donald Takayama Model,”—you get the picture. But right around 1965 surfing entered a period characterized by what could only be considered a nose-riding craze, when virtually the entire direction of the sport seemed aimed at the front third of the board. For the sport’s best, the nose-ride was merely a showy element of their overall repertoire; for the rest of the herd, perhaps the only reasonable avenue of emulation.
Let me explain. By 1965, all those neophytes that had stuck with surfing after the initial post-Gidget boom were just starting to approach levels of, if not expertise, then at least competence. But their surfboards at the time were so unwieldy — heavy, stiff, and so hard to turn in any direction – that only very experienced surfers could use them well. But just about any wave-riding enthusiast could point their board north or south and shuffle toward the nose, feeling, as they did, that they were somehow participating in the period’s performance progression. That most surfers would end up running right off the end of their board, or pearling up to their kneecaps, didn’t cool the sport to this “pause on the schnoz” obsession, any more than a hundred-thousand forlorn closeout, shorebreak air-reverse attempts haven’t deterred so many of today’s less aerial-inclined surfers to keep at it, despite their lamentable success rates.
So, nose-riding was the big deal. Magazine articles, “Phil Picks The Top 10 Noseriders,” specialty nose-riding events (The Tom Morey Invitational, first held in Ventura, California in 1965, the modern sport’s first objectively judged surf contest), and, not surprisingly, specialty surfboards designed to facilitate that trip to the tip, and make hanging out there a little easier. Wide noses and exotic concaves were standard, along with deep fins placed so far back on the tail so as to serve more as an anchor than a directional device. And plenty of roll in the bottom back third — anything to slow the board down and keep it from running away from the curl, downward pressure maintained on the tail being essential to the true nose ride. Hobie, Bing, G&S, Greg Noll, Jacobs, Weber — they all had their versions. As did the popular Santa Monica label Con Surfboards. Only difference was, compared to the rest of their competitors, the folks at Con took a radically different approach to marketing their big-nosed baby.
Con Colburn came late to the party, having taken up surfing in 1956 at the advanced age of 22. He caught up fast, however, establishing his own surfboard label in 1958, and by 1965 had built up Con Surfboards into one of the sport’s most widely recognized brands. While not as flashy as other namesake manufacturers like Hobie Alter, Greg Noll and Dewey Weber, Con certainly had the cred to jump into the nose-riding ring, and in preparation for that first Morey Nose-Riding contest, assigned the job of designing a specialty sled to head production shaper Gary Seaman, in collaboration with team rider Bob Purvey. Seaman, an all-around waterman who also happened to be a pioneering catamaran hull designer, applied his considerable hydrodynamic acumen to the board, apparently giving little thought to contemporary aesthetics. Which is why the first prototype, with its startling 20-inch wide nose and almost completely parallel rails, may have looked like a giant tongue depressor, but rode the tip like crazy. Simply because that’s all it was meant to do.
But regardless of its nose-riding capabilities, how to market a surfboard this unattractive presented a bigger challenge than designing it. Purvey was talented, sure, but no Lance Carson, David Nuuhiwa or Mike Hynson, who all had their own models. So, in a move that was less PCH and more Madison Avenue, Con decided to lean into the board’s homely characteristics, producing one of the most counter-intuitive ad campaigns the sport has ever seen.
“It’s called the Ugly,” read the copy in an introductory, full-page surf magazine ad. “Everybody wants it anyway. No matter how you look at it, the only thing beautiful about the Ugly is the way it handles in the water. There is certainly nothing handsome about a 20-inch wide nose, one foot from the tip, able to support full weight on take-off or for cutbacks. Beauty prizes will never be given for the semi-parallel rails that hold smooth trim as the board glides down the wall of any wave, or give precision control in turning from the nose. And the really Ugly-est part is the silly looking, scooped-out, popped-up square tail that sets into the water and causes downward pressure on the tail for an opposite reaction to the nose…See the ugliest board ever built at your local CON Surfboard dealer.”
Well, maybe not everybody wanted an Ugly. Still, plenty of surfers did, enough to help make that particular model one of Con’s biggest sellers. Yet even though by 1967 a more user-friendly, less severe Ugly was on offer, by ’68 the nascent shortboard movement represented a tolling of the death knell for big boards, which virtually overnight became about as popular as a diet crouton. Aside from the ones that soulful backyard board builders stripped down to the foam and re-shaped into mini-guns, who knows what landfills or dusty garage rafters they all ended up in. The surfboard with the best worst model name in memory became just that — a distant memory.
Thankfully, Scott Bass, executive director of the annual California Gold Surf Auction, discovered that at least one of the first generation Uglys survived, and should certainly be one of the highlights of this year’s online event.
“An original Ugly is a real find,” says Bass, who in his role at California Gold has probably handled more classic surfboards than anyone else born after the year 1965. “It’s a really fine example of the model. It must’ve been stored in a boardbag somewhere, because this board is in excellent condition, nose and tail block un-dinged, a few small scratches and some minor rail shatters. At close to 60 years old, condition-wise I’d have to give it a nine out of ten.”
In other words, a beautiful Ugly.
The 2025 California Gold Surf Auction runs from April 5-19. To preview this beauty and all 48 lots, go to auctions.thevintagesurfauctions.com
