Hobart "Hobie" Alter (October 31, 1933 – March 29, 2014) was an American surf and sailing entrepreneur and pioneer, creator of the
Hobie Cat
Hobie Cat is a company that manufactures sailing catamarans, surfboards, sailboats, kayaks, stand-up paddle boards, and pedalboards as the Hobie Cat Company. It was founded in 1961 by Hobart Alter, who originally manufactured surfboards. Its li ...
catamarans, and founder of the
Hobie company.
Biography
Hobie Alter will be remembered for creating the process of the foam-and-fiberglass surfboard and his subsequent creation of the
Hobie Cat
Hobie Cat is a company that manufactures sailing catamarans, surfboards, sailboats, kayaks, stand-up paddle boards, and pedalboards as the Hobie Cat Company. It was founded in 1961 by Hobart Alter, who originally manufactured surfboards. Its li ...
catamaran sailing boat line. His label, Hobie, is one of the top-selling surfboard brands of all time. He is also the creator of the
Hobie 33
The Hobie 33 is an American trailerable sailboat that was designed by Hobie Alter and Phil Edwards as one-design racer and first built in 1982. It was the first monohull design for Alter and his company, after establishing their reputations ...
ultralight-displacement sailboat and a mass-produced radio-controlled glider, the
Hobie Hawk.
During summer vacation 1950 Alter began by building 9-foot
balsawood
''Ochroma pyramidale'', commonly known as the balsa tree, is a large, fast-growing tree native to the Americas. It is the sole member of the genus ''Ochroma''. The tree is famous for its wide usage in woodworking, with the name ''balsa'' being ...
surfboards for his friends. He asked his dad to pull the Desoto out of the family's Laguna Beach, California, garage, and converted it into a wood shop for his hobby.
Alter‘s hobby became a business and in discussing the future with friends as a young man "Hobie" declared that he wanted to make a living without having to wear hard-soled shoes or work east of California's Pacific Coast Highway. By “Making people a toy and giving them a game to play with it”. A couple of years later, Alter opened up Southern California's first surf shop in Dana Point, California.
1958 Alter and
Gordon "Grubby" Clark began experiments making surfboards out of foam and fiberglass. The new boards were lighter, faster and more responsive than wooden ones. Several famous surfers surfed for the Hobie Team, including
Joey Cabell,
Phil Edwards,
Corky Carroll
Corky Carroll (born September 29, 1947) is a professional American surfer and is considered a pioneer in the sport by becoming the first real professional surfer as well as being the first to make paid endorsements.
Life and career
Carroll sta ...
, Gary Propper,
Mickey Munoz
Mickey Munoz, nicknamed "The Mongoose", is an early surfing pioneer and surfboard shaper. He was featured in the 2004 surfing documentary '' Riding Giants''. He currently resides in Capistrano Beach, California and designs boards for Surftech, ...
,
Joyce Hoffman
Joyce Hoffman (born 1946/47) is an American surfer, considered a pioneer in her sport. She is often regarded as the first female international surfing star and was one of the first inductees of the International Surfing Hall of Fame. In 1968 she ...
and Yancy Spencer.
In 1983, Alter received the Golden Plate Award of the
American Academy of Achievement
The American Academy of Achievement, colloquially known as the Academy of Achievement, is a non-profit educational organization that recognizes some of the highest achieving individuals in diverse fields and gives them the opportunity to meet o ...
.
Alter was inducted into the
National Sailing Hall of Fame The National Sailing Hall of Fame is a nonprofit educational organization that promotes sailing and racing by recognizing individuals who have contributed to the sport, highlighting sailing's contribution to the American culture; and demonstrating i ...
in 2011.
Youth
Alter was born and raised in Ontario, California, but his family had a summer house in Laguna Beach, where Alter got into the full array of ocean sports. Initiated into surfing by
Walter Hoffman, he started shaping balsa boards in the early 1950s. When the family's front yard became cluttered with the remnants of surfboard production, his father moved him off the property by buying him a lot on Pacific Coast Highway in nearby Dana Point for $1,500. That was 1953. In February 1954, with the first stage of the shop completed, Hobie Surfboards opened its doors after a total investment of $12,000. "People laughed at me for setting up a surf shop," Alter remembered. "They said that once I'd sold a surfboard to each of the 250 surfers on the coast, I'd be out of business. But the orders just kept coming."
Alter began making skateboards in 1962 and by 1964 he teamed up with the Vita Pakt juice company to create Hobie Skateboards. Alter went on to sponsor the Hobie Super Surfer skateboard team.
Alter hired other board-builders, including
Phil Edwards and
Reynolds Yater. With the introduction of foam-and-fiberglass technology, Alter brought
Joe Quigg (surfer)
Joe Quigg is a retired American basketball player. He was a key player on the 1957 National Champion North Carolina Tar Heels and a second round draft pick by the New York Knicks in 1958.
Quigg stood 6 feet 9 inches tall and played the center ...
over from Hawaii to help keep up with demand. Then came the high-volume production shapers like
Ralph Parker and
Terry Martin, guys who have shaped hundreds of thousands of surfboards over the years. Other Hobie shapers included
Dewey Weber,
Mickey Munoz
Mickey Munoz, nicknamed "The Mongoose", is an early surfing pioneer and surfboard shaper. He was featured in the 2004 surfing documentary '' Riding Giants''. He currently resides in Capistrano Beach, California and designs boards for Surftech, ...
,
Corky Carroll
Corky Carroll (born September 29, 1947) is a professional American surfer and is considered a pioneer in the sport by becoming the first real professional surfer as well as being the first to make paid endorsements.
Life and career
Carroll sta ...
,
Don Hansen
Donald Ray Hansen, (born August 20, 1944) is a former professional American football linebacker in the NFL from 1966 to 1977. He was known as an extremely hard hitter and an underrated as well as overachieving linebacker.
Hansen was a member o ...
.
Bruce Jones and the
Patterson brothers Patterson may refer to:
People
* Patterson (surname)
Places
;Canada
*Pattersons Corners, Ontario
*Patterson Township, Ontario
* Patterson, Calgary a neighbourhood in Calgary, Alberta.
;United States of America
* Patterson, Arkansas
*Patterson, C ...
.
After experimenting with foam for a couple of years, Alter made a breakthrough in 1958, finally achieving the right skin hardness for shapeability with the right core density for strength. He decided to set up a separate foam-blowing operation in nearby Laguna Canyon and recruited one of his glassers, Gordon "Grubby" Clark, to make
polyurethane
Polyurethane (; often abbreviated PUR and PU) refers to a class of polymers composed of organic chemistry, organic units joined by carbamate (urethane) links. In contrast to other common polymers such as polyethylene and polystyrene, polyurethan ...
surfboard blanks. Almost immediately,
Gidget
Gidget () is a fictional character created by author Frederick Kohner (based on his teenaged daughter, Kathy) in his 1957 novel, ''Gidget, the Little Girl with Big Ideas''. The novel follows the adventures of a teenaged girl and her surfing frie ...
was released, and surfing (and the demand for surfboards) boomed. "If that movie had come out in the balsa era," said Alter, "no one could have supplied them."
The new foam boards were called Speedo Sponges and Flexi-Fliers, and Hobie was soon manufacturing 250 a week. Clark eventually took over the foam operation, renaming it
Clark Foam, and he serviced the lion's share of the world's surfboard blank market until abruptly shutting down the company in 2005.
Alter was a surfing competitor in his younger days. He won the second
Brooks Street contest
Brooks may refer to:
Places
;Antarctica
*Cape Brooks
;Canada
*Brooks, Alberta
;United States
*Brooks, Alabama
* Brooks, Arkansas
*Brooks, California
*Brooks, Georgia
* Brooks, Iowa
* Brooks, Kentucky
* Brooks, Maine
*Brooks Township, Michigan
* ...
in
Laguna
Laguna (Italian and Spanish for lagoon) may refer to:
People
* Abe Laguna (born 1992), American DJ known as Ookay
* Andrés Laguna (1499–1559), Spanish physician, pharmacologist, and botanist
* Ana Laguna (born 1955), Spanish-Swedish ballet d ...
in 1954 and placed third and fourth at the
Makaha International Surfing Championships in 1958 and 1959. He achieved success as a tandem surfer, placing second in the event at Makaha in 1962. Alter made the
Guinness Book of World Records
''Guinness World Records'', known from its inception in 1955 until 1999 as ''The Guinness Book of Records'' and in previous United States editions as ''The Guinness Book of World Records'', is a reference book published annually, listing world ...
in 1964, surfing the wake of a motorboat 26 miles from Long Beach to Catalina Island.
Hobie Cat
![Catamarans, Châté Lîzabé, Jèrri](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/10/Catamarans%2C_Ch%C3%A2t%C3%A9_L%C3%AEzab%C3%A9%2C_J%C3%A8rri.jpg)
Alter's
Hobie Cat
Hobie Cat is a company that manufactures sailing catamarans, surfboards, sailboats, kayaks, stand-up paddle boards, and pedalboards as the Hobie Cat Company. It was founded in 1961 by Hobart Alter, who originally manufactured surfboards. Its li ...
became the nucleus of a successful worldwide catamaran business.
The company created 16 unique sail boats from the Hobie 10, once designed to compete with the Laser, to the Hobie 33, a 33-foot (10 m) monohull. lift-keel boat.
Alter sold
Hobie Cat
Hobie Cat is a company that manufactures sailing catamarans, surfboards, sailboats, kayaks, stand-up paddle boards, and pedalboards as the Hobie Cat Company. It was founded in 1961 by Hobart Alter, who originally manufactured surfboards. Its li ...
to the
Coleman Company, Inc. in 1976, and his sons Hobie Jr. and Jeff carry on the family tradition, operating
Hobie Designs and overseeing the company's licensing operations. Before his death, Alter would divide his time between the mountains of
Idaho
Idaho ( ) is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. To the north, it shares a small portion of the Canada–United States border with the province of British Columbia. It borders the states of Montana and Wyom ...
(where he skied in the winter) and
Orcas Island
Orcas Island () is the largest of the San Juan Islands of the Pacific Northwest, which are in the northwestern corner of San Juan County, Washington.
History and naming of the island
The name "Orcas" is a shortened form of ''Horcasitas,'' fro ...
, the largest of the
San Juan Islands
The San Juan Islands are an archipelago in the Pacific Northwest of the United States between the U.S. state of Washington and Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. The San Juan Islands are part of Washington state, and form the core of ...
in the Pacific Northwest, where he would anchor his 60-foot, foam-core, twin-Diesel power catamaran, that he designed and built for himself.
Death
Alter died of cancer in
Palm Desert, California
Palm Desert is a city in Riverside County, California, United States, in the Coachella Valley, approximately east of Palm Springs, northeast of San Diego and east of Los Angeles. The population was 48,445 at the 2010 census. The city has bee ...
, on March 29, 2014, at the age of 80.
References
External links
www.hobie.comnbsp; Hobie company site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Alter, Hobie
1933 births
2014 deaths
People from Ontario, California
American sports businesspeople
American sports executives and administrators
Surfboard shapers
Hobie Cat