Excerpted from Craig Stecyk's "Tales of the Hawk," which ran in the Fall 1994 issue of Surfer's Journal. Velzy was 67.


Simmons made 'em light, I made 'em turn.”


I was born September 23, 1927, in Hermosa Beach, and started surfing when I was just a little squirt. When I’d see a board wash in on the beach. I’d run down and stand on it until the older surfer would come up and kick me off. As I got a little stronger and older. I’d jump on ’em and try to push it out to them. That was fun and they got to liking me. The older Kerwins started giving me rides and then I got heavy into skimboards and bellyboards. When I was eight or nine, my dad decided it was time I got a board and he whittled me one out of a couple of planks. It was really heavy and I had to drag it down to the surf. Every couple of months he’d reshape it into something better. Finally he got one there that really worked for me and I really got into surfing. My dad built dories and lifeguarded some, and I’d go with him when he was on duty all over the South Bay, Venice and Santa Monica. Because my grandfather was a cabinet maker, we had a full set of wood tools. He built caskets, including President Teddy Roosevelt’s. So when we’d travel to the different beaches, I’d find a new design one of the older guys was using, we’d go home and try to shape something like it. I got into building boards like that, shaping down old planks into smaller, lighter boards I could use.


My father lifeguarded at Santa Monica Canyon a lot. It was there that I met Dave Rochlen and Jack Quigg, around 1937. I always saw Pete Peterson around the pier, and got to know him pretty well. When Peterson and some of the guards there weren’t working, they’d go up to Malibu and sometimes I’d tag along. It was great there for a kid to be able to catch a wave and not get kamikazeed. Hermosa was straight-off Adolph, you know? Manhattan had a curl to it, but you really had to haul ass to do it. We were too little to make many waves, but when we did, we were stoked. Going to Malibu was a thrill.


I had a Duece roadster. I was tired of it cause you couldn’t haul boards in it. Every time you’d load it up, you’d lift the front wheels. I’d decided to trade it off for a coupé where I could slide the boards all the way through and sleep in back. I spotted this ’40 Merc and had to have it. I traded my Duece roadster, which was worth $550, and paid the balance of $3,500. That was a lot of money back then, you could buy a new house for $8,000 in those days. I had some put aside from the merchant marines. Man, that car was a cruiser. I stayed out of the water for two weeks getting it just right. It was a beautiful car, done by Sam and George, the Barris Brothers. Man what a gorgeous fucker. So I took the Merc to them in Lynwood, and I was barefoot in trunks. I told them what I wanted done. George looked at my outfit and said, “I guess so.” When I picked it up I had a pocket crammed full of hundreds. They really liked that. That was when they started calling me, “the boy from the beach with all the bucks.” When you drove one of their cars, all paid for, people knew you were serious. But to take a look at me, I never wore shoes or a shirt, I was cruising. The Merc’s interior was done by Gaylord, and I took out the rear seat, punched out the upholstery and jammed those balsa-redwood boards in there, boy. When George saw that he went, “Oh, fuck.” I used to live next to the Hermosa Mortuary and I’d park it right next to the hearses, so I had a nice garage to use. Guys couldn’t believe that car. Walt Hoffman would I just shit when he’d see it. Bev Morgan had a clean Chevy and we’d go cruising. We had all the girls we wanted. We'd just toss the boards in there and roll off with the puss. Morgan and I would spend one day a week washing and waxing our cars. I finally sold it to some guy in San Bernardino and never saw it again.


Designing a paddleboard is something only a few people can do right. You can’t bullshit in the Open Unlimited class. Building for the Catalina race is an art form. To do good, you’ve got to factor in your length, the currents, the paddler’s size and weight, the ocean surface conditions, the board weight, the fin profile, your bottom curves, your deck contours and the paddling style of your pilot. Shaping those 16- to 20-footers is a lot of work. The people who do it have a lot of respect for each other. There aren’t too many pretenders or chickenshits in open ocean paddling. I remember at one of the San Clemente to San Onofre races there was a real good field. Ricky Grigg, Tom Zahn, Charlie Riemers and Mike "Bones" Bright. Hobie was there with his cockpit board, and all were in top condition. I was standing with Tom Blake, a wonderful gentleman, at the starting line. Tom says to me, "What a fine bunch of athletes." I said, ‘Yes they are." Then Blake says, "Tom’s gonna win, he's got the board." Now Zahn had this beautiful new Quigg, and god, it was just tits. But Bright was on one of my boards. So I said back to Blake, "I'll bet you five dollars he won’t." So Tom nods and it was a bet. While the race was underway we drove down to Church for the finish. Now Blake and I are standing on the beach waiting. Finally, Tom sees a dot in the haze and he can tell the lead paddler is on his knees and he thinks it’s Zahn. But I’m just biding my time cause I know that Bright can paddle either way and that his board is a king hell of a rocket. As it turned out, Bones got first followed by Hobie and Zahn. Blake smiled at me and winked and said, ‘You got me.’”


People think the nickname "Hawk" is because of my nose. Actually the name is from when I was a little kid. When the October windstorms came to the beach they’d expose all of the coins people had lost over the summer. I used to be able to spot a quarter in the sand from a hundred yards away. They used to call me Hawkeye cause I’d support myself by picking up all those coins.


Rennie Yater used to work for me in San Clemente. He was the best, most consistent shaper I ever had. The trouble with Yater was that everything he’d make was for himself, you know, real thin. I’d have to tell him, "Rennie, this guy weighs 190, leave some meat in it, okay?" Yater was always fishing, but he never brought us any fish. Finally one day I said, "Rennie you cheap bastard, when are you going to come across with something to eat? What’s the deal here, I’m giving you a job and you’re always out fishing." A couple of days later, I woke up at dawn because of the most god awful racket outside my window. I got out of bed to see what was making this weird I clicking sound. I opened my front door and the noise got I louder, but it was too dark to see anything. Man, I was curious as hell, so I walked across the lawn to see if the sound was coming from down the street. All of the sudden I had the sharpest pain in my foot. I looked down I and there was this goddamned lobster hanging off my toe. As I’m prying it off, I discover that my entire lawn is covered with live lobsters, and they’re all clacking away. Yater never said a word.


The sweeties were always there. I used to ride them to the beach on my horse. Later they’d want to ride in a nice car. I love women. I’m still friends with all my ex-wives. I met Fran when I was riding to my friend’s horseback wedding. I had some pints in my saddlebags for the party and I came up on her fast. She said, "Whoa, where are you going in such a hurry?" So I told her and she came along to the wedding, and we’ve been together ever since. Fran can ride, shoot and cook. Now that’s a deal.


Greg grew up in the food chain right there at the Manhattan Pier. First he was a little microscopic critter, then a sand crab, then a grunion, then a sea bass and he kept working his way up all the way to a big shark. He went from being the best little hotdogger to being the top big wave rider. Noll knows where he came from. Deep down, he’s still a stoked little shit playing in the shorebreak.


Of all the surfers I knew, Dora was the greatest. He had fantastic balance, like a high-wire walker, and a pure style. His sideslipping, turning, stalling and noseriding were all beautiful. Miki rode the shit out of big waves in the Islands, but didn’t care much about them.


He came down from L.A. in this beautiful Chevy and said he wanted to learn how to surf. Bev paid attention to what everyone was doing and he’d surf all day long, every day. A year later he’d become a really good surfer. He was my first glassesr. We used sun-cure resin, and on cloudy days we’d have to throw the boards in the back of my Model A shop truck and haul them up to Palos Verdes, where it was hotter, to try to kick it off. It used to take three or four days to glass a board. Morgan was always trying new things. He wanted me to come in and do the wetsuit business with him, but I said no. I told him no surfer is ever going to wear one of those goddamn rubbers.


I was guarding at Manhattan Beach when this lieutenant came by and told me to get my hair cut or else. It was sort of long. I kept it that way just to aggravate him. I looked down from the tower and spotted Johnny Rice. I called him over and said, "Hey Greek, you went to beauty college, come up here and give me a haircut." Rice gets his professional barber tools and he’s cutting away on my hair while I’m on duty. Up come these two hard-shoe cops and they order us to stop because it’s against the law to cut hair in a public place. I told ’em, "Bullshit, this guy is a licensed beautician and I’m in charge here because I am the lifeguard." That really got ’em hot, but Johnny keeps on cutting. Next thing they say that if he doesn’t stop, they’re going to arrest us. So I tell them, "Fuck off, the Greek’s almost done." Rice was just finishing up when they took me off to jail. I thanked Johnny for the haircut and apologized to him for the cops being such assholes. That haircut was the best one I got all that year. The lieutenant never again asked me to get a haircut.


I had five shops and two factories going and I was selling 150 to 200 boards per week. The recession hit in 1959, and between buying out Hap and my divorce settlement, things were tight. People were telling me to cut back and I said, "Fuck that." When it gets critical, that's the time to go forward. I was selling boards for $85 that cost me $75 in materials and overhead. I thought I needed to sell more boards and that volume was the key to success. Then I started the 11/10 plan with Dial Finance. This was before plastic, and the idea of buying a board for eleven dollars down and ten dollars a month was beginning to take off. My creditors were all okay and things looked good until the fucking State came down on me for sales tax. Then the Feds hammered me which scared all of the creditors, and that was it. They sold everything I had in the shops at auction, including other people’s consignment boards and repairs. Man the government didn’t give a shit about anybody. Hell, I’d been paying ’em all along, but when the State started pressuring me it triggered a chain of events that couldn’t be stopped.


There was a point when my business problems could have been cleared up. I planned to go back to my Venice shop and rebuild. I still had loads of orders and knew it was only a matter of time till the economy would right itself. But then I got a call from my landlord. He thanked me for my ten years of business and told me he was sorry that I was out of business. I said, "Hold on, what are you talking about?" He told me that my employee had taken a lease out on my shop. Things at Venice had been strange for a while. I’d sent my sister there to watch over the place, but the numbers never added up right. Between some used boards being sold on the side and a few new boards which were being built off of my books and sold by the same couple of factory guys, I already knew Venice was out of balance. So I went up there to talk. I always liked the guy and he was a great surfer. I was paying him $200 a week to manage the shop which was a lot of money at the time. I asked him to level with me and all I got was double-talk. I ended up holding the chickenshit up to the ceiling by his neck and telling him, "You little bastard. If you’d been straight with me I could have made you a partner." He was crying and lying as the other guys there broke it up. Shit, it’s not what he did, but how he did it. I never spoke to him again, and he didn’t have the guts to apologize.

Dale Velzy

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