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On March 29th, the surfing world lost a titan of innovation and ingenuity in Richard “Dick” Brewer; he was 85 years old.

Despite a career that spanned six decades, building superlative surfboards for everyone from Buzzy Trent at Waimea Bay in ‘62 to Garrett MacNamara at Nazarè today, the particular era most often associated with Brewer’s impact were the tumultuous years of 1967 through 1969, when “tuned in” surfers began looking beyond the demonstrative, show-off nature of the current performance standards (“Hang 10, whenever you can.”) and began seeking a deeper, more personal involvement with the waves they were riding.

When it comes to Brewer’s status as a North Shore gunsmith, the copy in this 1965 Hobie ad says it all.

Enter Dick Brewer. By 1967, Brewer was a known quantity within surfing circles. Moving from Minnesota to Long Beach, California in 1939, he began surfing in 1953 and by 1959 was shaping is own surfboards. A move to Hawaii saw him develop as a big wave specialist, his long “elephant guns’ in much demand among heavy water hunters. By the mid-1960s he was working for many of the biggest surfboard manufacturers in the world, very much a tool of surfing’s ‘Establishment’: the cabal of Southern California board-builders who rode the sport’s growing wave of popularity and economic growth.

By early ‘67, however, Dick Brewer was beginning to operate on a different wavelength. Though the product of the post-WWII era and in some cases a full decade older than many of the surfers he was building boards for, Brewer related to this younger generation and their yearning for more meaningful self-expression. At one point he was actually fired by a major surfboard label for experimenting, on his own time and dime, with members of this free thinking new breed.

Brewer, full-on and full lotus with two of his most talented mentees: Gerry Lopez (left) and Reno Abellira (right). Photos: Dave Darling

“The thing that set R.B. apart from the other surfboard builders was his tremendously open mind,” recalls Gerry Lopez, one of Brewer’s top test pilots and shaping room apprentices during that fruitful, late-Sixties epoch. “He was not only unafraid, but eager to try new things. Because R.B. and I were the same size, we’d each ride the same board, and then talk about it afterward. And he was always so much more open-minded than I was.”

Brewer was one of the only prominent 1960s-era shapers who adapted to riding shortboards. Rocky Point, 1971. Photo: Jeff Divine

Beyond his fertile imagination, Brewer had in his hands the means to galvanize suitably inspired surfers, manifesting their collective vision in the form of revolutionary surfboard design.  Shorter, lighter, more maneuverable, configured to ride waves in an entirely new manner, these “mini-guns” represented more than an innovative step, but a major cultural shift.

Brewer was knee deep in this evolutionary thrust, establishing parameters that literally unified surfboard concept and design, influencing influencers like Lopez, Reno Abellira, Terry Fitzgerald, Sam Hawk and Pat Rawson.

The timeless ‘70s Brewer gun template, with his trademark plumeria lei logo originally designed by talented female pro Jericho Poppler. Photo: Joli

“It was like Dick was the king and we were his subjects,” remembers Rawson. “If Brewer hadn’t come along to do what he did, when he did it, I think we would’ve been 10 years behind. He had the power, the personal magnetism, the persona, and along with his shaping ability, that was part of his whole thing.”

Understandably, considering his place at point of the spear, there were aspects of Brewer’s personality that alienated as many as it attracted. There were feuds manifested and maintained — and demands for acknowledgement when his reputation was already secured. Travails and tragedy, too: drug addiction and a 1975 car crash that resulted in the death of his son.

To put things in perspective, consider that Buzzy Trent at Waimea and Laird Hamilton at Peahi both rode boards shaped by the same guy. Photos: Tom Servais

Yet none of these personal dramas permanently blunted his edge, but only led to Brewer’s second great leap of imagination: the development of the “tow-in” big wave surfboard in 1993. Under the strapped feet of surfers like Laird Hamilton, Buzzy Kerbox and Darrick Doerner, Brewer completely reimagined what a big wave surfboard could be. The tow-in story has been told many times, but in almost every case leaving out the essential role Brewer played in the development of the tow-board and its capabilities.

“That first time we rode Backyards, towing in with the Zodiac, we rode our guns,” says Hamilton. “We knew we needed them to catch big waves, and also thought we needed them to ride big waves. But Dick, who was watching from the shore, felt differently. When we got back to the beach all stoked, he said, ‘I think you guys need shorter boards.’ And he didn’t mean just shorter, but a small board specifically designed for big waves. So he proceeded to build the very first tow board, and then our next 10. All of my greatest tow boards were built by Dick.”

Totally committed to his art form, Dick Brewer continued to shape beautiful surfboards until he could no longer lift his planer. Photo: Dan Merkel

Today it’s hard to imagine a surfing world without tow boards and the mega-waves they allow surfers to ride: Nazare, Cortes Bank, Mullaghmore — along with giant Teahupoo, Peahi and Maverick’s. But even as surfers have begun paddling waves that tow surfers pioneered, they do so with boards almost uniformly patterned on 40-year-old Brewer designs.

Viewed through this lens — of both historical and contemporary significance — Dick Brewer’s legacy becomes much more than an influential surfboard designer. Along with fellow titans like Tom Blake, Bob Simmons and Hobie Alter, he joins the ranks of those rare individuals who, through their imagination, abilities and commitment, changed surfing forever.

He just did it twice.

Dick Brewer is survived by wife Sherry and two daughters, Lani and Lisa.

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