Happy Birthday Jimmy Lewis

[JL USA]

Join us in wishing Happy Birthday to Jimmy Lewis!  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jimmy-Lewis-Boards-Surf-Kite-SUP/60650674401

Jimmy built the original All Around SUP and has been shaping surfboards since 1968.  Happy Birthday Jimmy!  Thanks for everything you do !!!!!

[Chan]

Yeah Jimmy...happy b-day!

[Dwight (DW)]

Happy Birthday

Now time for a new marketing plan. Bimbos and an old guy. Too creepy.

[PonoBill]

I thought Jimmy had quit having those. I think if anyone wants to say happy birthday they'll need to do it in person. He never struck me as guy that spends any time on a computer.

As far as marketing goes, the golden rule is that 20 percent of people will like it, 20 percent will hate it, and 60 percent won't care. If you drive marketing by what people love or hate you'll just run in circles. Personally I like the retro garage calendar look. I reserve my hate for the Rusty stuff. And honestly, neither of them should care.

[sbsup11]

Join us in wishing Happy Birthday to Jimmy Lewis!  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jimmy-Lewis-Boards-Surf-Kite-SUP/60650674401

Jimmy built the original All Around SUP and has been shaping surfboards since 1968.  Happy Birthday Jimmy!  Thanks for everything you do !!!!!

Was it really Jimmy that came up with the first All Around SUP? I remember the striped Lairds being the first SUPs really out there. I've tried those things out and can attest to the fact that they can surf and are good on flatwater, sounds like all-around to me.

What year did Jimmy come out with his SUPs? What year did Surftech release the Lairds? On Jimmy's website he only really talks about kiting, and I didn't find anything from Surftech either.

[Tecpartner]

My JL Distance is still my go-to board.

[Dwight (DW)]

Was it really Jimmy that came up with the first All Around SUP? I remember the striped Lairds being the first SUPs really out there.

The Summer the Laird first arrived (2007) Jimmy was in his second year of production and his 11footer was everywhere around NC, where the distributor was located.

That's what I recall anyway.

[PonoBill]

Yup. I had a JL 11er quite a while before I ever saw a Laird. I bought one of the first Lairds too--a slightly blemished one that I got from Laird via Teddy--went over to his house to pick it up.

One thing for sure, Jimmy had boards in quantity long before anyone had more than a few. He had a lot of confidence that boards would sell. I went by his house to pick up boards for the first showcase we did and he had them stacked in his big garage to the rafters, and that was just stuff for Maui. He had container loads going to the states. For a long time the only boards you saw in Maui were Jimmy Lewis, SIC Ku Nalus, and Munoz or customs.

Jimmy did a board before the 11er too--I think the 11'7" was the first board, and it might have been out as much as a year earlier. It was too narrow for big guys, but smaller folks with good balance loved them. I still have one, use it for a longboard and for wavesailing.

[wonderwart]

Yo Jimmy,

Happy Birthday to a great shaper and a guy that has made standup paddling so much fun!
My Striker is a magic board!
Thanks for keeping the stoke alive!

Aloha,
Wart & Laurie

[K-541`]

 In the early 70's on Maui JL had another name ,lot of folks knew him as Mud Shark. That guy has mowed lots of foam in 40 + years.

[SUP Sports ®]

Jimmy has definitely been at the top of the board shaping game in a number of watersports for over 4 decades...his sticks are the *real* Jimmy sticks...;-)

I'm not exactly sure when Trip landed his first container of JL production SUP's...but, it was not too long after that when we started stocking them in California...by March of 2007...I'm sure Jimmy had a few by late 2006...

I remember the chatter about the Surftech Laird 12'1" coming out went on forever...but, it was still vaporware late into 2006...

After several trips to Maui in 2005 as standup began developing, I started working with Sean Ordonez in the fall of 2005 prototyping the two SUP's that would become the first commercially available production SUP's...the 10'10" "Big Blue" and, the 11'11" "Big Red"...by December 5, 2005 Clark Foam rocked the surfboard industry by closing it's doors...by early February 2006, the masters were complete...also, right around the time we became Todd Bradley's 1st California Pohaku paddle dealer...actually, "master distributor"...

As soon as Sean got back to Maui from China, we had a couple of one offs built while we were waiting for the production models...backyard soul because the boards were too big to fit in most everyone's shaping and glassing bays...you can see the first production boards being built at the factory...and, we had finished product in hand July 2006...our first couple of containers were pre-sold so there wasn't inventory hanging around...custom orders were taking several months...Clark tandem blanks had dried up and the surfboard guys weren't up to speed on epoxy construction yet...

That's prolly the biggest reason why the first 3 production SUP models (SOS, JL, Surftech/Randy French) all originated from people with windsurfing epoxy board  backgrounds...

That's kinda how I remember it anyways...

Fond memories of my mint green JL 11'er...also, did my first Maliko run on a 4.5m2 windsurfing day in 2007 on a JL 11' All Around...I put a smaller fin wave fin in just to make it more challenging...;-)

[PonoBill]

I saw Sean a week or so ago at the Cannery. Still the same great guy--no surprise. That's pretty much how I remember it Dog, but I clean forgot to mention all those SOS boards that were around. Still are--I still see all three (red, blue, green) pretty often.

Bill Foote was always in there too, probably because he was cutting EPS years before Clarke shut down.

[sbsup11]

Great photos SUPsports!