Photo: Jason Baffa
Imagine this is your first session at San Onofre: Donald Takayama on your left and Skip Frye to your right. That’s what happened when a teenaged Josh Hall, had his first session over the popular cobblestones filmed by Thomas Campbell for his log-centric 1999 film, The Seedling.
“One of my waves ended up in the movie, which I had no idea about until he premiered it at La Paloma Theater next summer,” laughed Hall.
Such is the nature of Hall’s upbringing in San Diego’s rich surf scene. Raised in lineups with board-building icons from an early age, it seemed only right that he would follow in their footsteps. After getting an informal MBA in the wine business, Hall transitioned to making the highest quality surfboards he could, paying homage to his mentors while adding modern designs and concepts.
Since 2006, Josh Hall Surfboards has produced polished fishes, midlengths, longboards, big boards (10-foot plus) and Fish Simmons. He’s done residencies in Spain, New York and Puerto Rico, but his craft is an amalgamation of San Diego’s deep surfing history and board-building culture. Next month Hall will be one of eight shapers competing in the 2024 Boardroom Show’s Icons of Foam event on October 12-13 in Del Mar. It will be Hall’s first time participating in the shape-off, in which eight shapers (six picked by Bob McTavish) will go head-to-head replicating the Australian’s famous shapes.
Though Hall is not steeped in McTavish’s design, he’s well familiar with the 80-year-old surfer shaper who helped usher in the Shortboard Revolution in the late ‘60s. And McTavish gets the same glint in his eye that Hall’s mentor, Skip Frye, gets when surf talk is at hand. Hall has met McTavish twice in Australia and examined his work, including on a trip to the Byron Bay Surf Film Festival that coincided with a trimming contest hosted by the Australian.
Photo: Josh Hall
“Him and Skip are so alike in their passion and excitement for surfing,” Hall said. “The first time I met him, I said to him that he and Skip are literally cut from the same cloth. The way their eyes light up, the way they talk about boards, they’re just stoked. It was really cool.
“It was such a parallel talking with Bob about boards, surfing and history. Just like Skip, they remember this guy was that and what they did. Skip doesn’t talk a lot about the old days, but there are certain people that he lights up about. And Bob’s one of them.”
Asked about the nuances of McTavish designs, specifically his game-changing vee-bottom, Hall said: “I put vee in almost everything. Vee gives you rail curve, which gives you turnability if you’re working with flatter rockers and straighter outlines. If you look at my design thread, they’re pretty straight outlines and flat boards. But you have to put vee in there to put these beasts on rail. I even put vee in my 5’10” quads; it allows you to get rail to rail without having to put any type of added tail rocker, which bleeds your speed.”
Related: Josh Hall, Deep-Rooted
As for the head-to-head format with a timer and a live audience, Hall chuckled at what will be a novel experience for the longtime shaper.
“Who I learned from and how I shaped is probably different from most guys,” he said “You could put most people in a similar category with rails and bottom contours, but with Skip’s stuff and the way mine have been modified over the years, they’re kind of their own unique thing. It’ll be interesting to shape something like that. I learned from a one-board-a-day guy, so shaping a board in 90 minutes is going to be a challenge! I didn’t study from guys like Larry Mabile or Hank Warner who could power out four to six boards a day if they had to.”
These days Hall, who pays a team of five hardworking glassers, sanders and laminators at Shoreline Glassing, is producing between five to 10 boards a week. All in-house work. Whether it’s a 10-foot Fish Simmons or a 5’4” keel twin, his models come steeped in San Diego lore but with his own desire to trim, project glide, whatever you want to call it. It’s all about speed.
“It comes down to where and how I grew up. I grew up at Pacific Beach at Crystal Pier,” he said. “You had Eric “Bird” Huffman, Skip, and Hank Warner’s shop there. Joe Roper was there all the time, as were Larry Mabile and Glenn Horn. You had these gnarly surf icons in this daily hangout surfing with me growing up.
“After the first year of college was when I linked up with Skip. Those were formative years for me for surfing style and learning how to shape. It was dedicated by riding Skip’s boards and watching him shape and all these people who were around. Contemporaries too: Joel Tudor, Devon Howard, iconic longboard guys. It was anything I could do to get Skip to shape me a classic squaretail nose rider, and then he would shape me what he was riding.
“Part of this is about carrying on that tradition and design thread, but I have a different style and surf different waves. So I’m doing a blend of those threads. Sprinkle some Donald noseriding in there. I want to spread it out to people who haven’t experienced those sensations. As soon as you get on a Skip you know it. And that’s what I’m trying to give to people who’ve never felt it.”
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