Hobie bi-sect surfboard made for the movie, "The Endless Summer"
date: label: date made
content: 1960s
notes: label: Description
content: Fiberglassed, foam core surfboard made by Hobie Alter in 1963 for the movie, <i>The Endless Summer</i>. This board is designed to fold up and has a bolt in the center which unscrews to let the board fold in half. This feature was designed by Alter to fit the surfboard in the overhead compartments of airplanes in the 1960s. This innovation demonstrated surfing’s global appeal and the use of air travel as the preferred choice for surfers to find that perfect wave much like the surfers in <i>The Endless Summer</i>. These were only made for a limited time as the board would bend and flex in big surf and become unstable. Hobie Alter began surfing at an early age and reinvented surfboard manufacturing with the use of polyurethane in the late 1950s. These early foam boards had ‘foam defects’ such as large air bubbles, so an opaque coloring was used to hide those flaws; pastel colors were the predominant color scheme used and would become an iconic feature of the boards of this era. Alter became known as the Henry Ford of surfing and by 1959 nearly all the top surfers had switched to foam boards.
label: Description
content: <i>The Endless Summer</i> movie was written, produced and directed by Bruce Brown in 1964. Brown also served as the narrator of this surf ‘diary’ following two young surfers for one summer, around the globe, in search of the “perfect wave.” It was in limited release in 1964 and released worldwide in 1966 grossing $5 million domestically and over $20 million worldwide. Its simplicity was part of its enduring appeal and while naïve and corny to today’s audiences it was an integral part of surf history. <i>The Endless Summer</i> introduced the world to surfing, a nation of bored teens to the idea of travel and created a popularity of surf culture that endures today.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
topic: label: name of sport
content: Surfing
label: level of sport
content: Professional
label: web subject
content: Entertainment
label: Subject
content: Entertainment, Film
label: Subject
content: Movie
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Sport and Leisure
label: See more items in
content: Snow & Surf
label: See more items in
content: Sports & Leisure
label: See more items in
content: Movie Collection
creditLine: label: Credit Line
content: Gift of Fernando Aguerre
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2015.0186.01
label: accession number
content: 2015.0186
label: catalog number
content: 2015.0186.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: surfboard
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: foam (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: fiberglass (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: metal (overall material)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 9 ft x 21 1/2 in x 10 in; 2.7432 m x 54.61 cm x 25.4 cm