However, that article got it right about the Sunset District being a neighborhood of surfers and families looking for affordable housing. One such family that Ocean Beach Bulletin happened upon lives three blocks from the Great Highway in the middle section of the mostly gray, almost always frigid, sandy stretch of Ocean Beach.

True to the neighborhood picture painted by The Times, Josh Nelson indeed is a family man and surfer. A knock on the door produces a concert of cacophonous chaos: Josh belching out like Jackie Gleason of “The Honeymooners” to his wife, overlaid with a barnyard concert composed of two dogs going completely insane while scrambling and skating on hardwood oak floors, a bird squawking, and a daughter professing loudly that someone’s at the door.

It would warm anyone’s heart (even a New Yorker’s) despite the weather.

A short-haired, dirty-blonde Josh cracks open the door, turns back and screams at the dogs to chill, and we all head over to the beach to talk about surfing, the San Francisco surfing community, the San Francisco surfing lifestyle and his boards.

“Stella” longboard

This is a longboard for Stella [Josh's wife]. She’s used it a couple of times, but I kind of took it over over the years. It was my go-to board for a while. It works really really well in Southern California on the mushier stuff like San Onofre down at Trails, Malibu, North L.A. County. … It’s more like a hybrid, you can run up on the nose a little bit. … When a longboard is called for, that’s the board I’ll take out.

Pink INT board

The pink board was purchased for Bailey[Josh’s daughter] . She’s used it a couple of times. She rides it mostly like boogie board, and she hasn’t come close to standing up on it, but we’re working on it. In my quiver, it’s the equivalent of my scooter. … It’s bright pink, and it’s fun to ride but it’s goofy to ride. It doesn’t really go that fast. It’s a little bit too small, and it doesn’t go from the get-go. … It bogs down. But once you get it going, it goes OK. It flexes a lot. It’s a boogie board. It’s a boogie board with fins.

OBB: What is your vision for her? Do you envision her surfing here at OB?
Josh: I think eventually, yes. I’m doing the best I can to ease her into it. I’ve taken a couple people out at OB over the years and it hasn’t worked out that well, so I’m trying to take it as slow as I can. We’ve backed out of using pinky, and now we’ve moved to more of getting down the wave mechanics, and body surfing on the stuff that’s really close in. We’re just taking it slow so it’s enjoyable. I want her to pick it up at her own pace. So it’s two steps forward, one step back, three steps forward, four steps back, five steps forward. Over time she’ll pick it up if she wants to. She loves it. She’s out there on a lot of days. … A lot of days when it’s freezing she’s got no wetsuit and still having a blast. She’s growing up around it.

OBB: If you’re a parent, and you want to teach your kid to surf, give me the recipe for that.
Josh: Don’t force it. Make it appetizing as much as you can. If that means getting them a really nice, high-end wetsuit that’s going to keep them super warm, then do that. [Bailey] doesn’t seem to have a problem with the water temperature because since she was a baby, she’s been running around in cold water. She doesn’t really know the difference, which is awesome. But don’t push anything. … A lot of the people at the beach (when they see you surfing) the first question out of their mouths is, ‘How cold is the water, does that wetsuit keep you warm?’ … So far Bailey’s stoked about it, so I’m optimistic.

Larry Mabel Kane Garden 5’10” fish.

Josh: This board was a gift from King Of Kooks.

OBB: Who’s King Of Kooks?

Josh: I can’t reveal who King Of Kooks is. It’s a wonderful board. It was posted as a recession special on Stoke Report. I was there when the ad went up. I shot him an email right away, I said I could really use it, I just damaged the board I used every day and it was going to take a while to fix it, and he said come on over. That was it.

The thing that was so awesome was that the week before, we were out at Sunset Shapers and they were having a garage sale of boards, and they had almost the identical board, but nowhere near as nice, laying down out in front, and I said to my wife, “That would be the perfect board for Bailey.” Then she said, “Really? Then we should get it.” And I said, “No, not really, but it would be really nice for me.”

So I passed on it, and a week later I had a board that was 10 times as nice, super awesome in my hands and I surfed it the next day. It stays super close to the curl, it’s super skatey, it really pivots off of each fin. …I love it, I’ve had a lot of fun on it.

Roger Hinds 7’0”
My wife got it for me as a one-year wedding-anniversary present. I knew I wanted a board that was going to last a long time. I had them put on fairly thick glass on both sides and a really thick stringer on it. It’s a good go-to board for a lot of stuff. It’s not all that maneuverable, but it gets into a lot of stuff, and it’s functional at OB from 2- to 3-foot, pushing 10- to 12-foot, but it gets a little sketchy at that point just because it’s not as fast. You really want a board that’s going to take off. This doesn’t do that as much. It’s a little heavy, a little cumbersome, but fun.

OBB: What do you like about the surfing community in San Francisco?

Josh: It’s mellow and super low-key, but there’s a lot going on under the surface: a really thriving art community, guys making really cool boards like Hess and Sunset Shapers, people making clothes right here like San Franpsycho, Betabrand and Mollusk. It’s all happening here, you just have to look a little bit and you’ll find really beautiful things being created right here in the city. Same with the surfers. … There’s a great community here that’s really thriving, but you have to look a little bit.

OBB: So you live in the Sunset District, with your wife, Stella, your daughter, Bailey, two dogs and bird. Tell me why you chose to bring your family to the Sunset.

Josh: This is where my dad was born. They moved out here when it was brand-new. It was the first house that my grandfather got when he came back from World War II, to raise his family. It just had so much to offer to raise kids: the beach, the zoo, Golden Gate Park. … It’s safe, it’s really easy to bike around. I taught my daughter to ride a bike here on a really low minus tide at the beach. It’s easy to do tons of stuff without having to drive anywhere. I’ve got her down at the beach almost every day. … It’s ideal.

All photos: Josh Teitelbaum

Regardless of the prospects for the morning, I decided to not set my alarm. It was going to be Saturday and I thought I’d let fate and tiredness from work determine when I got up. I usually got up with my internal clock anyway, as surfers tend to do, and on this occasion, I managed to get up early on my own without the crutch of an alarm.

Having stretched, and closed down all my computer’s windows, I looked at the windows outside.

The windows at work in SoMA revealed a man pushing a shopping cart that rattled as it went down the street. I could see the breath of the guy pushing it, probably mixed in cigarette smoke spoiling the crisp, now vacant December downtown air.

I got up and decided it was time to get out of here, out of the cold concrete, and onto the cold and open Ocean Beach. I gathered my stuff, racked up my surfboard on the motorcycle, and headed south for another December day at the beach.

When I got to the beach, the sun was out but the short winter days meant its appearance would be brief. I looked out into the waves in the distance, and I could see the pack already trading off rides on the outside.

The inner bar was folding, and there was a middle too, which clearly had to be negotiated in order to get out to the pack. It wouldn’t be easy getting out today. When I eventually made it to the outside I thought of how unrelenting, unforgiving, cold and daunting it was just to get to the nice bowl that was being lifted and formed on the set waves.

That’s when I saw her.

Elizabeth had been waiting her turn among the mostly male pack in their black neoprene hoods, and when a set wave came, the bowl was forming. No one else paddled for it from the pack.

It built and started to curl. She stood right on top of it and almost stalled on the lip, but then she put her front foot on the gas and dropped right into the still-building bowl, which was well overhead at this point.

The Ocean Beach Bulletin recently caught up with Elizabeth Henlein to talk about surfing, her boards and what it’s like to surf at Ocean Beach as a woman among the nearly all-male surfing population. Here’s what she had to say, in her own words.

OBB: What’s it like to be a woman surfer in San Francisco?

Elizabeth: That’s a very difficult question. … I don’t always view myself as a woman surfer, at first I view myself as a surfer. And usually I consider myself a woman surfer when I think about not having the upper strength to get out at Ocean Beach, or when I’m in the middle of the lineup and I’m the only girl there, or when I’m going shopping for a wetsuit and my choices are kind of smaller.

OBB: Do you find that you’re treated differently in the lineup?

Elizabeth: Absolutely I’d say I’m treated differently in the lineup. … There are certain people I’ve been surfing with around/with in the past decade and whom I know by now, and don’t treat me differently in the lineup. But generally speaking, more eyes are on you and a lot of people are shocked when you surf well, definitely more surprised, especially at Ocean Beach, when I do well. I find it’s more surprising [for them], and I’ve had multiple people say to me, “I always see you out here in the mornings all the time,” and I say back, “I see you out here in the mornings, you must be here too!” And in my head I’m like, “Why is it noteworthy that I’m out here, when it’s regular that you’re out here?”

OBB: When did you first start surfing?

Elizabeth: I guess I’ve been surfing about a decade now. I took about six months to work my way up to Ocean Beach. I didn’t start out there. I started out surfing easier breaks like Bolinas and Linda Mar and places like that, and then a good friend of mine who’s now in San Diego, who’s a very old-school surfer, deemed me ready and took me out to Ocean Beach. And I have to say, he’s pretty old-school and he told me about rips, he told me about the different people who surf there, and I accidently got my board and started to run out to Kelly’s because I saw people ripping out there. He caught up to me and said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa! Who do you think you are? You just don’t go paddle out at Kelly’s first time. No, we’re going north kinda up and front by Wise [surf shop].” And he gave me a lecture about respect. … I don’t know if people do that anymore.

OBB: What are the maximum conditions you surf at Ocean Beach?

Elizabeth: At Ocean Beach, eight feet. I don’t go over eight feet mostly because I feel I don’t have enough strength to do so, and also because I obsessively and compulsively surf 6’1” boards, and you need to step up. Actually, I was out last winter in the lineup — guys were on step-up boards and were like, “What are you doing?” and I was like, “But this is my board! This is the board I surf, it doesn’t matter if it’s eight feet or two feet [conditions]” There’s disadvantages to that. Usually five to eight feet … and that’s it. I just don’t have the power to get out, or if I get caught in a rip it’s serious business.

OBB: What’s your self-described style of surfing, what are you trying to accomplish?

Elizabeth: I feel like for a while I was trying to do floaters, hit the lip, but now I’d say I’m really more conscious of my form on the board and that’s the first thing I think of when I pop up. … I’m making sure I’m always looking down the line. I’ve been told I have what looks like a broken arm while I surf, so I’m not really conscious of a lot of things. I like stylistic surfing. I watch competitive surfing, not that I can do it, but I think it looks really cool. I wouldn’t say I’m someone who strives to do Mavericks or big waves or anything, I strive to do turns and the little things I can do.

Maurice Cole 6’5”

This is a sentimental board. I got this board in Sydney and it was the transitional board from a longboard to a shortboard. Anyone who’s ever done that knows how frustrating and trying of an experience it can be. So I don’t really surf it anymore, but I take it with me everywhere I go just to kind of remind me how far I’ve come.

OBB: What was happening during that process?

Elizabeth: At first it was pure pain. … I became very stubborn about it and I thought the only way to succeed was if I only surf this board, and I kind of learned this board. And I did. It’s one of those things which I find generally happens in surfing, it’s probably why it’s so addictive. … I’d get to a point and [I’d think], “I’ve got this down, this is great,” and I’d go out the next morning and kook it up, and be like, “Oh my gosh, I’m back to the beginning again.” It’s a little bigger, and it has more volume. … I remember the first time I took it out I got a ride. It was one of those things. … I remember I took it out and got a right, and thought, “This is doable,” but it was the only ride of the day.

6’1” Hess

My dad bought this for me for my birthday four years ago. He was reading an article on an airplane in Outside magazine about Danny Hess, and was like, “Do you want a board for your birthday?” And I said, “Of course I want a board for my birthday!” So I met with [Hess] and I got the board, and now it’s my travel board because it’s sturdy … and it catches anything. Also, I travel a lot … and everyone in San Francisco knows about Danny Hess, and I go to other countries and they trip out [when they see the board]. … It’s kind of a reality check that not everyone lives the kind of life we live here in San Francisco. … I can ride this as a thruster but I like to ride it as a quad. … I like the quad setup because this board rides slow and smooth … and I find for whatever reason the thruster moves around more quickly, but I don’t want to move around as quickly on this board. I kind of want to chill it out.

OBB: You say this is your travel board. Where have you gone with it?

Elizabeth: I’ve gone to South Africa … Portugal … Panama … Nicaragua. It was in South Africa and Portugal people tripped out. … People had never heard about it before, they couldn’t figure out what it was made of. … In my head, I thought everyone knew about Danny Hess. I don’t know, we’re really lucky here.

Lost Mayhem 6’2”

It’s the shark series. I always like when I talk to guys in the lineup, they’re like, “What kind of board are you on?” And I’m like, “The shark, and it eats fishes.” [Laughing.] …I used to have a Mark Richards board and this was its backup, but the Mark Richards board died in January so I’ve been riding this as I look for [something else]. … Even though I love this board, I was completely in tune with the [Mark Richards] board. This has volume. … Since I broke that board in January, it’s been out at OB in solid overhead conditions. … It works, it’s light, I can move it, I can get fancy. … This is the board I was riding when it was five to eight feet and I was next to a couple of guys who were on step-up boards, and they were like, “What are you riding?!” … It handles well. … It’s my everyday board.

OBB: Can you give me an anecdote of how surfing has helped you.

Elizabeth: I don’t know if I have a specific story, but over the years it’s helped build my confidence. Especially going out at Ocean Beach and getting a bunch of good waves. …I feel like I conquer the world. I feel like I can be the president of the United States. … I think surfing can give you so much inner power, that’s one thing I wish  —  that more people would do it, in one sense, because the confidence level is amazing.

OBB: As a woman do you think there’s a lack of that message for women?

Elizabeth: I would like to see [that message] conveyed to other women. The media for women surfers right now is really crap. It’s either like totally young, super cute girl rippers that definitely do rip, but I guess for boys, it’s cute boys doing really well. … And then you kind of have this other spectrum, and you have girls who go out and charge Mavericks, which is like the other end of the spectrum, and there’s not this middle ground like people who are like myself, who are out there almost every day, kind of surfing in all kinds of conditions, sometimes traveling, sometimes by myself and sometimes with other people. … I think it would be important for a lot of girls to see that: You don’t have to be super cute or like charge 20-foot waves, and that’s the only way you’re going to be recognized.

Affection, peace, compassion,mercy, teaching and sharing. That aloha spirit is the essence of Arne Jin An Wong.

However, Arne’s story is rich and remarkable, and inextricably intertwined with the history of surfing in San Francisco. It began when getting to his favorite after-school break required a hike down a rocky slope, before wastewater-pollution control plants were erected, before the advent of  the Internet and cell phones, and before wetsuits and high-performance shortboards.

Arne’s parents came to San Francisco from Toisan, China, but he was born and raised in the city and began surfing San Francisco’s frigid waters in the 1960s.

When classes at the Richmond District’s Washington High School let out, a rambunctious yet innocent Arne and his friends would dash away from the bustling city and head downward, toward the raw and open Ocean Beach. They would ultimately end up at Kelly’s Cove, right below the Cliff House, and “clock in.” There, Arne would help gather wood for a bonfire, catch up with friends and prepare himself to surf wearing nothing more than shorts.

Then, unlike now, San Francisco surfing was distinctly a group effort. It required friends to gather wood, friends to bring their lumbering boards, friends to watch over the hot fire, friends to help retrieve leashless, bobbing boards in the shoals, and friends to watch out for each other. There were no wetsuits, so it was essential that there was a fire prepared to keep the surfers warm when they managed to get themselves back on shore. Everyone took a turn. After someone caught their one wave and sometimes swam back in, it was time to share the board, and hand it off to the next guy waiting his turn, around the fire.

It was this kind of ritual, this group effort, that instilled Arne with a sense of sharing and community. No single man or woman could pull off surfing in this environment, with the equipment of the day, without the serious risk of hypothermia. It was the presence and warmth that the group brought that allowed them all to persevere, have fun as kids and be part of something bigger than themselves on the San Francisco’s western edge.

Today, Arne is married, has a daughter and lives his life in this spirit of sharing and community. An active artist, he’s a teacher at The Academy of Art and Expression Art College, where he instructs students in animation.

Arne is heavily involved in the BalikBayod project, which uses the allure of surfing as an incentive for kids in the Philippines to do well in school. He donates his skills as an artist to help raise money to fix up beat-up boards here, then ship them out to the Philippines. Youths enrolled in the program are loaned boards as long as they keep up their grades.

Arne is also the main organizer of the Kelly’s Cove reunion, a gathering of old-school Kelly’s Cove surfers that has become an annual tradition every fall at Ocean Beach.

Here’s what Arne had to say about some of his favorite surfboards, in his own words:

Morey-Pope shaped by John Peck, 1965

It’s a double stringer, and look at the tail. … It’s got that old classic tail. This was in the Pedro Point contest. … This board has been handed back and forth at this beach here because it’s a local board. It ended up in someone’s garage for a long time. … The guy who owned it didn’t want it anymore, and he said, “I’ll trade you for it,” so I gave him a soft-top for it, and he let me have this!

This one really is a knee-paddler. I took it out to Bolinas and I actually knee-paddled it. I hadn’t knee-paddled a board since the ’60s and it’s like a whole [different] world. We used to always knee-paddle before the shortboard. And those days, everyone knee-paddled, and that’s how we would go out without a wetsuit. You really didn’t get wet until you wiped out. So no matter what the weather was, if you knee-paddled, you’re out of the water, and you could catch the wave knee-paddling and then ride it, but once you wiped out, that’s it, it was over. And there’s no leash. … So if you washed up on the beach, you let the next guy have it and let the next guy have a chance. … Back then everyone borrowed boards.

That top there is Slip Check. … It didn’t work real well, and if you caught a wave and fell and it hit your face, it would sand off your skin, so we all kind of said that didn’t work.

OBB: How many guys were surfing in San Francisco at this time?

There wasn’t that many. When I was there as a grommet, there were about 10 or 15 of us grommets and a few older guys we used to follow that took us under their wing and tell us about surfing. Then there was another generation of 10 or 15 and then there was another generation that was less, and each generation older was less and less. And the older guys like Stan Ross, they were mat surfers, they didn’t even surf on surfboards. They surfed on mats. They had these giant air mattresses and they would go out on 20-foot days and drop in on them.

Modified Bill Hickey, 1975

This is a Bill Hickey. It was custom made in 1975 and it was originally about 6’10” and 22″ … and originally a swallowtail, and I cut it off for some reason and I made it a thumb. …

I drew that [dragon] on a tracing paper, and he just glassed it on. … Tracing paper becomes clear … and as long as you use water-based ink, it doesn’t mess with the resin. …

This is the oldest board I have. I’ve surfed this right here in Kelly’s Cove and I took it with me everywhere I went, except Hawaii. … All around Southern California. …

These were single-fin boards back then. This one is loose, it gives. That was before the tri-fin boards were coming in.

Guy Okazaki pintail

This has a pretty mild rocker and soft rails. … I gave [Guy Okazaki] the color plan. I had this board made in Venice Beach. I lived right on Venice Beach on 20th and Speedway. There was a break right out in front. It was the perfect Southern California surf pad. …

I ran my own company back then. I made TV commercials as an animator. … When I had my own studio, that’s when I would just surf whenever I wanted, and I had a shop, and there were people working in it. I’d just show up and came and went when I wanted, and I had my boards at my work, or at home. It was just like that back then. I’d say, “The surf’s up, see you in a couple of hours.”

Thomas Meyerhoffer

When I first started surfing, we had longboards, then we went long to short. And when we went long to short, it was an innovative time, it was an exciting time. … We were like cutting boards turning them into all kinds of shapes. … So board shapes were going through a lot of changes, and they mellowed out into something like that [ Here Arne points to an Al Merrick Channel Island thruster] … and they kind of stayed like that. …

When I saw this board, I said, “Now here’s an innovation,” and not a lot of people liked it. … It was a shortboard bottom with a longboard top. So [Wise Surfboards] had one for tryout and I took it out, and what was great was that I could paddle [like on a] longboard so I could get out easily, and I could take off way before shortboarders even started … and once I got up, I got the shortboard turning. … The problem is when you get to the middle, … you start to slow down … so you can only stand all the way at the top, or all the way at the back, and there’s no middle. That’s the drawback on that board.

People constantly stop me and ask me, “What is that,” but I was at Marin Surf Shop, and hanging on the wall is a 7’0″ version of this that was made in the ’70s. Somebody had thought of this back then, but it just never flew, and then I saw in Surfer Magazine a collection of boards from Dave Bellsey, an old shaper from the ’60s, he actually made a board like this, so Meyerhoffer isn’t the first guy.

Al Merrick Channel Island thruster

This board here is the Channel Islands board. This one belonged to a friend of mine, Mark Jones. He died of leukemia. He and I used to surf all the time at Malibu. When he died his wife gave me his wetsuit and his board. … It’s a special board, and I’m riding it for him. Whenever I go out with it, I always say to myself “Mark, I’m riding this for you.” He was so young, only 30-something. …

We met doing Tai Chi at a Tai Chi school in L.A. He came up to me and asked me, “Are you Arne Wong? the guy who did the cartoons?” because I made surf cartoons. … I’m infamous in the surf world because I made the first surf cartoon in 1969 that played in “The Natural Art.” …

I made a couple more surf cartoons … and after that no one wanted any more, so I stopped and went to L.A. to become an animator. … Everyone remembered the surf cartoons. … Laird Hamilton, on an interview with Oprah, he say,s “When I was about 8 years old, I saw this cartoon of this guy on this wave,” and he said, “I gotta do that!” … So the cartoon kind of inspired people.

OBB: When so many other guys have dropped out and are no longer surfing, why are you still doing it? What has kept you coming back?

For me, surfing is my religion. … My father is from China. When they came here, they just put us in the nearest church. They kept moving every four years. … What they didn’t know was that every church was different. … As I got to the fifth one, they were all using the same book, but telling different stories, so I never really got that. …

So as I got older, it was through surfing, this guy David Elfick who made “Morning of the Earth,” that surf film, … he gave me a book about Tao Te Ching, which is about the Chinese philosophy, the Tao. … And it was through that I got a sense that there is something to spirituality and the mysteries of life and it coordinated with surfing. …

After that, I got involved in some Native American stuff, and sweat lodges and vision quests, and again, it was all similar to surfing. … And after that, I realized that surfing really was my religion, and the church is in the tube and paddling and surfing is all about the prayer. … Passion and inspiration, that’s what keeps you alive, keeps you young, and when I jump in the water I’ve got this big smile, and it’s like I’m back to being 15 every time.

***

All photos: Tom Prete / Ocean Beach Bulletin

Maybe there are a few captains listening in their boats far away, at the darkened helms of their vessels paying close attention to their surroundings at sea. But on land there are fewer still who are even awake, and none listening to this quiet concert with more intent and purpose than Mark Adams. Mark starts his day alone, standing in the cold and dark predawn fog where the only faint light is a weak amber cast from the continuously humming sodium street lights in a parking lot. There he prepares himself, listening to the waves funnel and turn, reveling in this nearly daily ritual, preparing for what is to come.

Having waxed up his board and suited up in the cold, Mark makes his way down to the water well before any other surfers have even arrived. He paddles out in the dark, with the sole intent of garnering the ocean’s first offerings to him and him alone.

There’s enough clean groundswell in the water to produce six- to nine-foot faces, but the waves are going top to bottom here, and this is exactly where Mark shines. He likes it critical, with a challenge, as if each wave he makes in these conditions is an affirmation of his long surfing past, the years spent earning the skill he uses here. Looking at the waves, it’s clear this is not for the faint at heart. On these waves, this day, it appears that most of the time you will airdrop, but Mark’s experience lends itself not only to safe landings, but also a ride into the coveted place all surfers aspire to touch and reach for: The Tube.

Some surfers are looking to make mincemeat out of their waves. They want to go top to bottom with major hacks, throwing a rooster tail at every possible moment, while others want to execute more finely executed shorter cutbacks and minor adjustments while setting up for the big payoff. That’s the kind of surfer Mark Adams is. He’s looking to make fine adjustments and really employ the performance boards he’s made so that he can stall, adjust, go rail to rail, and then pump and pounce on the tubes he has hunted. Simply put, he’s a barrel predator. He wants it, he waits for it  and then he goes for it, and the tools he has tuned and crafted over the years get him exactly the accurate kills he’s looking for. Mark’s creations, and some photos of the kind of surfing they allow, can be seen at his Greenroom Surfboards website.

Here are some of Mark’s thoughts about surfing and a few of his favorite boards, in his own words:

5’9″ Rasta Quad

This is the board I use the most. This is kind of a hybrid shape combining the old Mark Richards [board]. The shape of that (pointing to the Mark Richards) but the tail of this one (pointing to a nearby David Pu’u board). It’s taken a long time to find someone to make one of these boards for me the way I envisioned it, and a few people tried and most failed. I think the guy that got the closest was Randy Cone. He was an awesome surfer and shaper. Then I just decided to do it myself. A lot of trial and error. I have 80 boards under my belt now. It’s nice to be able to make a board when you want one.

That’s a double-bump swallowtail. It allows you make a board with a lot more volume and narrow the tail with the double bumps, and once you get it on the edge and on its tail, it turns very sharply. It’s kind of like two boards in one. You can have all your volume and beef up front, but it’s nice and narrow at the tail.

Josh: So I see these are glassed on fins. Do you prefer glassed on as opposed to boxes?
Mark: You know, if you’re going to travel, sure you need boxes. You know, I remember as a kid, all the boards you got, they were either awesome or they weren’t, and it seemed to have a lot less to do with fins and switching fins, because they were static and glassed on. I find that static fins have a lot more drive down the line, they’re fast, they’re more stable and they respond differently, and I think a board is meant to have glassed-on fins. I’ve kind of switched my approach from the versatility of switching out fins to the thought, “I’ll make a board to travel with, if that’s what I want to do,” and for staying at home, surfing the beach, I want glass-on fins.

I think [a quad setup] lends itself to more of a retro style, surfing rail to rail kind of surfing style, where you’re doing big turns, you’re not really surfing top to bottom. You’re not going way to the bottom of the wave to way to the top of the wave. It has a little bit more flow, and I rode quads in high school as a kid, and kind of fell in love with them, and stuck with my surfing style. I tried thrusters all the time, and really enjoy the difference, but I find myself always wanting to go back to the quad. I had a 7’2” gun that had glassed-on fins that I chopped off because I wanted to turn into a quad that I could travel with, and take it to Bali because I wanted a bigger board. Quads are a lot of fun. …

It depends on what kind of board you’re riding and what kind of tail you ride. But yes, there’s one extra fin there, you kind kind of side-slip the face. When it’s small and rippable, a quad is a nice thing to have.

6’7” pintail

6’7” 19 ⅝ x 2 ½. I made the 2 ½ kind of full, I made it a little thicker out to the rails, I didn’t give it a flat deck, but it’s not domed either. Decent amount of rocker, and a little bit of a kick in the tail, The thinned-out tail helps lay it out on the edge and turn a lot faster. As you can see even with a larger-wave board, and the thruster, I still go with my traditional bottom which is a V and a concave in the V as well with nice hard edges. This goes back to my surfing style, which is more rail to rail, a little retro … speed down the line kind of style, looking for the big sections, to do what you gotta do.

Josh: So you’re not looking for monster cutties off the lip?
Mark: Yeah for the most part, I’m a tube hound, yes, but when the opportunity presents itself cutties will be done. This is a new board, hasn’t been ridden yet. I’m looking forward to riding this on some big beach.

Josh: How do you fit into the OB community?
Mark: I’m not in need of a lot of community and friendship, really. I’m kind of a loner in that respect. I have a lot of tight friends, but I pretty much keep to myself. I fit into the community throughout the years by surfing a lot, and being seen around and when it’s good, I’m out there. I tend to let my surfing talk for me. There’s always going to be a crew in town that either like you or don’t, that comes with any territory you’re in, so yeah I have some interesting relationships with some people around town, but most of them are very good.

Josh: What drives you to OB and surfing?
Mark: It’s a special place to be, we’re all from the ocean. One of my favorite things to do is surf early, in the ocean and surf all by myself, because that’s when you’re alone and there’s no distractions. It’s just you and the waves and the ocean and hopefully some dolphins. It calms me down, because living in the city can be a little stressful sometimes, so it’s my therapy.

Josh: Are you married, do you want to talk about your family?
Mark: I have a lovely wife, Jessica, whom I’ve been with 21 years. We have two young daughters, Petra aged 3, Athena aged 7. We had kids later in life, and we enjoyed ourselves when we came to town. We didn’t get married and have kids right away.

We are always on the hunt for interesting people who love interesting boards, so if you know of someone who might be a good fit for the next installment of “Show Us Your Quiver,” let us know by sending an email to submissions@oceanbeachbulletin.com

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Editor’s Note: Josh Teitelbaum is an avid San Francisco surfer and cyclist.  He lives on 47th Avenue, breathes San Francisco fog, listens to the Melvins and pretends to be a writer.

All photos: Tom Prete / Ocean Beach Bulletin