"We had held the World title but the line drive blew up went through the seat and blew my leg off."
Surfing has lost a little more of its culture with the death today of Newport Beach shaper Lance Collins, daddy to eighties wild-cat Richie, and mentor to Bob Hurley among others.
Lance Collins started the surfboard brand Wave Tools in 1969 and ten years later it had become the hottest damn thing in California, Newport’s Echo Beach wizards, Danny Kwock, Jeff Parker, Preston Murray, all with Lance’s spectacularly airbrushed twin-fins and futuristic three-finners under their slick little feet.
The movie Shaping the Future details Lance’s influence on modern surfboard diz with Hurley, Biolos, Kwock and BeachGrit’s own Preston Murray all lining up to sing the ol boy’s praises.
Interesting thing about Lance is he stopped surfing when he was seventeen after a pretty damn crazy boat accident.
As he told his interlocutor at Old School Resistance,
From that same interview, some last words.
“Not sure what to say, other than I was born almost deaf, I couldn’t hold a job employers got mad I couldn’t hear. Couldn’t afford hearing aids. So, starting my own business doing it my way with no outside influences it was what my family and I did and still all of us do 50 years now. I don’t think I could make it doing anything else and I give glory to God to allowing me to be good at it.”