Master shaper (and pals) kick head of beloved surf
historian!
Do you love it when older men discover the inner teen
and jump on social media to vent? It really is a beautiful
thing to behold. To care after so many years!
Today, it is Reno Abellira, the former world number four,
master shaper (Mark Richards
got the idea for
twin-fins from Reno) and one-time fugitive from US
authorities (coke).
I like Reno. And I like Reno so much that when he was hiding
from the cops for coke and weed dealing in the nineties and
all the surf mags were advising readers to call the authorities if
he was spotted, I wrote (in
Australia’s Surfing Life back then)
that ASL readers should give Reno a map, a change of
clothes and a place to hide out for a few days.
As it turned out, it turned the key in Eddie Rothman’s heart
and, subsequently, he was very kind to me.
Anyway,
Reno lit up today on Instagram about Matt Warshaw’s profile
of him on the Encylopedia of
Surfing.
This posting of my bio from the so called Encyclopedia of
Surfing is still beyond annoying..but is now a personal affront to
me …Matt Warshaw has for years touted himself as a surf historian
but never made due diligence in his fact checking while compiling
the book and instead left it to his inept minions to gather…the
first duty of any encyclopedic work of any sort is to fact check
not gather revised versions of former magazine articles and publish
them as Truth…AUWE! (for shame) Matt Warshaw you made no real
attempt at even the basic tenets of good journalism during your
brief( thank Jehovah) tenure at Surfer Mag. and instead went into
your literal diatribes of condemnation and the poorly disguised
contempt you harbored for persons you profiled in pseudo hipster
interviews..never a great surfer you chose to shoot them down willy
nilly with Fascistic glee..still making royalties for published
lies is disgusting and evil in my book…I am not the only one whose
career and clear positive contributions to Surfing and the History
you ruined or at the very least sullied with extreme prejudice….My
father was never in a barroom fight in which he died..He was
murdered in a downtown Honolulu pool room where he was employed by
a faction of Korean gamblers as a stong arm…shot in the back with
no witnesses to identify the shooter it is still an unsolved (as in
cold case) murder on file…Stop hiding in your self-anointed ivory
tower Warshaw and seek redemption for the sins of delusion you
worship…
Reno’s IG pals joined in the head kicking.
sunrisesurfers: Fake News =The
Encyclopedia of Surfing
mysticsurfboardseast: Reno- the
“encyclopedia of surfing” is nothing more than a compendium of surf
media bullshit, advertisements, and innuendo available in the last
50 years of surf print media, collated by a former surfer mag
writer destined for literary glory. Parmenter @aleutianjuice
flipped him off, very telling regarding authenticity. I.E.. If you
weren’t there, you don’t need to know. I think Matts wife wants him
to make a mortgage payment.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BU7Td9ulS6Y/?taken-by=renoabellira
Do you want to read Warshaw’s bio on the EOS? You can’t!
Not unless you subscribe,
a pinch at three bucks a month.
For the sake of clarity in this little blood feud, and just this
once, however, here’s the Reno bio on the EOS.
Stylish, enigmatic regularfooter from Honolulu, Hawaii;
world-ranked #4 in 1977, and a central figure throughout the first
decade of shortboard surfing. Abellira was born (1950) and raised
in Honolulu, the son of a middleweight boxer who was shot and
killed in a barroom fight. Abellira began surfing at age four in
Waikiki, but didn’t get his first board until 11. He won the
juniors division of the Makaha International in 1966 and 1967, and
earned $200 for winning the 1966 Hawaiian Noseriding Contest, the
state’s first professional surfing event.
Abellira was Hawaii’s juniors division champion in 1968, and
made his international debut later that year in the World Surfing
Championships, held in Puerto Rico. Although he placed sixth, many
observers thought the small-framed (5′ 7″, 135 pounds) 18-year-old
was the event’s most exciting surfer, as he consistently rode just
beneath the curl on a stiletto-like purple surfboard. “It was a
skateboard,” California surf publisher Dick Graham wrote, marveling
at Abellira’s radical new equipment, “and he rode it like a god,
because he is one.”
Abellira’s style continued to develop over the next three years.
He rode in a low crouch, chin tucked into his left shoulder, arms
extended, wrists cocked, each part of his body precisely arranged.
Whether or not the streamlined stance added speed to Abellira’s
surfing is impossible to say, but nobody in the ’70s—except for
Australia’s Terry Fitzgerald—looked faster on a
surfboard. Abellira also proved to be one of the sport’s most
mysterious figures: he kept to himself for the most part, rarely
smiled, and countered the scruffy surfer image with Italian-made
leather loafers, pressed linen pants, and neatly coiffed hair.
“He’s a bit of a dandy,” Australian surf journalist Phil Jarratt
wrote of the dark-eyed Hawaiian, “and could teach most surfers a
thing or two about color coordination.”
Abellira competed regularly throughout the ’70s, winning state
titles in 1970 and 1972, placing fourth in the ’70 World
Championships, second in the 1973 Duke Kahanamoku Classic, and
making the finals in more than a dozen professional events on the
North Shore of Oahu. He was also an Expression Session invitee in
1970 and 1971. In what many still regard as surfing’s most
thrilling big-wave contest, Abellira beat fellow Hawaiian Jeff
Hakman by a fraction of a point to win the 1974 Smirnoff Pro, held
in cataclysmic 30-foot surf at Waimea Bay. Among the first
Hawaiians to set out on the pro circuit, Abellira was world-ranked
#4 in 1977, #8 in 1978, and #13 in 1979.
Abellira was also a first-rate surfboard shaper, learning the
craft from boardmaking guru Dick Brewer in the late ’60s and early
’70s, then going on to work for the Lightning Bolt label; Abellira
and Brewer together experimented with an early version of the
tri-fin design in 1970 and 1971. Mark Richards of Australia later
became an international surf hero while riding Abellira-shaped
boards, and it was Abellira’s stubby double-keeled fish that
inspired Richards to produce in 1977 the twin-fin design that swept
through the surf world in the late ’70s and early ’80s.
While Abellira was for the most part removed from the surf scene
beginning in the early ’80s, over the decades he has occasionally
produced thoughtful and eloquent articles for the American surf
press. Abellira made headlines himself in 1993 when he disappeared
for several months after being indicted on cocaine distribution
charges; he was later convicted and spent several months in
prison.
Abellira appeared in more than 15 surf movies,
including Hot Generation(1968), Sea of
Joy (1971), Going Surfin’ (1973),
and Tales of the Seven Seas (1981). In the
late ’70s, Abellira lent his name to a short-lived surfwear company
called Reno Hawaii. He competed in the 1990 Quiksilver in
Memory of Eddie Aikau big-wave contest at Waimea Bay at age 40,
finishing 24th in a field of 33.
Meanwhile, BeachGrit sources say Reno and another
master shaper (yeah, there are a few of ’em) got into a little
pushing game in San Clemente recently and Reno may have (or may
not, we weren’t there) called a very influential pal on the North
Shore to ensure the other shaper could never safely visit Oahu
again.
So much beautiful passion. It keeps the testosterone surging!
The elixir of youth etc.