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Butch VanArtsdalen 9’6″ x Rocker: Rail: Forgiving Flex: Finish: Tail: Fins: Before Ordering Your Products, Please call the the |
Customizable for wave heights starting from 2 to 8
feet with various tail options, the Butch features a mild rocker,
forgiving performance egg rail, vee in the tail for turning, and a
4-foot flow through concave in the nose. Good all-around surfboard
for maneuverability and noseriding.
“The day Butch became King”
“When Butch went to the Islands,” continued Steve Pezman, “he ws immediately accepted by the locals as one of their own, for while most haoles were too afraid to go drinking with da boys, Butch would match them 2 for 1, and was known never to back off from a friendly little head-cracking fight.”
Steve told another story about Butch Van Artsdalen — the day Butch became the first “King of the Pipeline,” a.k.a. “Mr. Pipeline.”
“It was the morning of a late November day during the Winter of ’62-’63 on the North Shore,” Steve recalled, “that Roy Crump and I were drawn to the beach at Pipeline on a really perfect ten-foot day. We had checked Sunset and it was going to be fine that afternoon, but we had time to go see the show.
“The brightest stars of the surfing world were gathered on the beach at Pipeline, and each was taking their turn out in the lineup — each feeling required to establish their credentials in the newly crowned ‘ultimate challenge’ that was Pipe. You must remember, at that time, the place had only just been [regularly] surfed since the prior winter by a mere handful of the stoutest wave-men (well, a wave-woman had done it too. Candy Calhoun had bodysurfed it at six to eight feet, nicely blowing our minds a bit in the process. In fact, Butch was rumored to have dated Candy when she lived in Laguna — that mythical coupling being a waterperson’s version of Zeus and Aphrodite having a brief but cataclysmic fling).”
“Back to the story,” Pezman redirected, “Ricky Grigg was just coming in from performing quite decently on a six — or eight — footer as Crump and I positioned ourselves off to the side of the rooting gallery down on the sand. Next up, Phil [Edwards] had to paddle out (the pressure was on each guy and it wasn’t that enjoyable for them — this was defense of reputation rather than a fun thing going on here). Edwards chose an inside four-footer, took off deep, managed a dangerously high, right-go-left top turn, dropped in a foot or so more, totally upright and relaxed, cross-stepped into forward trim and flew outta there (making a stylishly clean solution out of the ticklish problem) then straightened out and came right in, reputation gracefully intact, thank you. Crump and I nodded sagely — Phil was cool. He hadn’t gotten sucked into a high-risk wave by the crowd pressure. He had done it on his terms and then called it off.”
“By then,” Steve continued, “the beach was packed with the kings of surf. John Peck, Diffenderfer, Dick Brewer, to name just a few, and Butch, who had been studying the waves, decided to paddle out. Mike Doyle, who had paddled out earlier, caught a macker, ten plus, and it just collapsed on him and blew him to smithereens. His board was swept up hard on the granular sand and he washed in after it about ten minutes later. Crump and I were taking in the entire spectacle with rapt attention. Doyle came out of the water, droplets glistening on his deeply tanned, staturesque frame. As he walked up the beach toward his board, he held his hands away from his body and shook the moisture and sand particles from his finger tips, preening and pumped a bit from the considerable exertion of the swim.”
“Suddenly,” continued Steve Pezman, “Diffenderfer shouted, ‘Check out Van Artsdalen,’ and pointed out to sea. Butch was dropping in on a huge one. He was way too late and way too deep to make it. But with his animal instincts somehow matching up with the crusher wave, Butch held it in as he careened sideways down the face. Doyle, having twisted his upper torso so he could view what all the commotion was about, was sudden;y fast frozen in amazement at what he was watching. The curtain threw out and over Butch, then it erupted into a thundering explosion all around him, but we could still see the flash of his red trunks streaking through the falls. It was totally impossible that he could pull it off. Then Diff stood up and screamed, ‘Come out of it, Butch! Come out of it!’ That show of emotion absolutely stunned us. Then Butch did come flying out. We gasped in disbelief. Doyle fell to the sand face down, rolling over and over while muttering, ‘Nobody does that! Nobody does that!’”
“In that instant,” declared Pez, “Butch Van Artsdalen had become the first ‘King of the Pipeline.’ Crump and I looked at Doyle rolling in the sand, then out at the waves, then at the crowd on the beach screaming their guts out, then at each other and we just shook our heads.
“Later that winter, from Max Lim’s cottages off to the right of the point, Bob Beadle and I personally witnessed Tommy Lee at Waimea Bay paddle out alone with no one that he knew of on the beach, ride five twenty-five foot waves from behind the boil, then come in, slide his gun into the back of his ’57 Ford wagon and drive off without saying a word to anyone about it. And I rode fair-sized Waimea and some big days at Sunset myself, but that day at Pipe, when Butch came out, was my personal most memorable moment in surfing.”