Ari Browne, also known as Krooky, is a rare breed these days. The lanky, wizard-y Australian is multifaceted, entirely original, and in a world of sameness, seemingly on his very own trip indeed. While Ari’s turned the most heads riding finless boards like Ryan Lovelace and Dan Malloy’s Rabbit’s Foot, or his beloved 88 Softboards, this clip finds Ari on a Greg Liddle- influenced displacement hull that the crew at Mollusk put under his feet.
From the 1960s to his retirement in 2016, he made boards for some of the most influential stylists at Malibu and the points to the north in the late-1960s—namely Dora, and later Steve Krajewski, Esteban Bojorquez, and the First Point posse of Jimmy Gamboa, Dane Peterson, etc.
Like Rennie Yater’s Spoon or Nat Young’s Magic Sam, Liddle’s designs were heavily influenced by George Greenough, with wide-point forward outlines, foiled, rolled bottoms, semi-soft rails, and Greenough’s sweeping, instantly recognizable, ultra-refined, ultra-flexible fiberglass single-fin.
For a few decades now, California-based Mollusk has been closely working with Liddle and Kirk Putnam, who was tasked with carrying Liddle’s legacy and perpetuating his label and designs after he put down the planer for good more almost a decade ago, working with the late, great Scott Anderson, Mark Andreini, Brian Hilbers, and others on countless variations of Greg’s remarkable model range.
The board Krooky is riding is a 6’6 MPE Spitfire, a “user friendly hull” which is to say a displacement hull that doesn’t require a Liddle black belt to navigate, nor demand a ruler-straight sand point to get it up and singing, and will more easily lay down on rail and forgive a little oversteering.
Actually, Jamie Brisick and Kirk have a great breakdown of the design’s myriad attributes here.
For those unfamiliar with Mollusk, the shop was started by husband/wife duo John McCambridge and Johanna St. Clair in the early 2000s, and for the last two decades have set the blueprint for the small, community- and craft-driven, surf shop and brand. Opening locations in New York, Venice, Silverlake, and Santa Barbara, Mollusk has helped to breathe new life into legacy board builders like Liddle, Marc Andreini, and other, while also supporting young, emerging shaping talents.
Over the years, their shops have played host to countless gallery shows, film premieres, live shows (everyone from Jackson Browne to the Mattson 2) and shown artists like Thomas Campbell, Alex Kopps, Jeff Canham, Jay Nelson, Dave Muller, and dozens and dozens more.
You can check out their full range of house label MPEs here.