Incoming International Surfboard Builders Hall of Fame class includes seven men who shaped the sport

Herbie Fletcher was added to the Surfers' Hall of Fame in Huntington Beach in 2018. This year, he is one of seven men who will be inducted into the International Surfboard Builders Hall of Fame.

By Julia Sclafani

Oct. 18, 2019 12:12 PM PT

Seven men who expertly shaped the sport of surfing will join the International Surfboard Builders Hall of Fame in Huntington Beach Saturday.

Established in 2000, the annual awards recognize those whose artistry, innovations and contributions have made riding the waves a reality.

This year’s induction ceremony will start at 9 a.m. on the north side of Huntington Beach Pier Plaza. Here is some more information from organizers on the latest group of honorees:

Dick Brewer

Brewer became interested in designing surfboards while attending Cal State Long Beach. He bought one of the first Walker foam blanks in 1959 and used it to shape a 9-foot-10 board that he later took with him on his first first trip to Hawaii.

In 1960, he returned to Hawaii and established himself as a big wave rider. He also opened Surfboards Hawaii in Haleiwa on the north shore of Oahu, where he sold his own shapes alongside other established board companies.

Brewer moved to California in 1964 and was hired to shape big wave boards for another company, Hobie, a year later.

Brewer later joined Bing Surfboards, where he built Bing Pipeliners and developed the Mini-Gun, David Nuuhiwa and flip-tip models. He then went on to start Dick Brewer Surfboards.

Lance Carson

Carson, who was raised in Pacific Palisades, began surfing when he was 4 on a homemade surfboard his dad built.

It didn’t take long for Carson to earn recognition as a top surfer in Malibu and make a name for himself as an expert noserider.

His shaping career began at Jacobs Surfboards in Hermosa Beach ⁠— where he had previously worked as a salesman. In 1965, Jacobs introduced a signature surfboard model named after Carson.

Carson stuck to longboarding through the swell of shortboard popularity and, in 1976, founded his own company — Lance Carson Surfboards, which specializes in pintail longboards.

Herbie Fletcher

Fletcher started surfing when he was 10 years old. At age 15, he moved to Hawaii — where he was paid to talk in local malls about big wave riding and later became a pioneer of tow-in surfing on Oahu’s North Shore.

He placed seventh in the surfing world championships when he was 17 and went on to be inducted into the Surfing Walk of Fame in 1995 and the Surfers’ Hall of Fame in 2018.

When shortboards entered the scene, Fletcher helped shape the new board’s design with elements like down rails, which remain popular.

Fletcher owns Astrodeck, a San Clemente-based company that makes traction pads for surfboards.

A prolific innovator in the sport and culture of surf, Fletcher also is known for producing the “Wave Warriors” film series.

Bill Frierson

Frierson began surfing in 1961 while his family was stationed at a U.S. Navy base in Coronado. From 1965 to 1967, he surfed for a Hobie team on the other side of the country in Virginia Beach, Va.

He launched his shaping career in 1967, working with Bob White at Wave Riding Vehicles. While based on the East Coast, Frierson began shaping for his own brand.

Frierson took over Wave Riding Vehicles in 1974 and eventually sold half the business in 1997.

“I am ‘old school’ and shape all of my boards by hand, one custom and a small [complement] of stocks at a time,” Frierson wrote in his Builders Hall of Fame biography.

Carl Hayward

Hayward, a 2005 inductee into the Surfers’ Hall of Fame, was known for crafting the twin fin “Rocket Fish” — a board featuring a pointy nose and a deep swallow tail with longer wide base fins.

He died at age 48 of a brain aneurysm during a surf session at Huntington Beach Pier in 2005.

“Back in the ‘80s, when the surf scene was starting to happen, Carl was a tall lanky kid who had the natural ability and style in his surfing to move to the top,” his friend Rick Fignetti wrote in an obituary in the Daily Pilot. “He had a surf shop on Main Street and was definitely one of the best surfers in town. He ruled the pier, was known around the world and had a patented slash back cutback that was admired by many.”

Nev Hyman

A native of Australia, Hyman began shaping surfboards in his garage in a suburb north of Perth in 1972. A year later, he and two colleagues started Odyssey Surfboards.

Hyman built boards there until 1978, when he moved to Burleigh Heads — a coastal suburb in Queensland — and launched Nev Hyman Surfboards. He later started two other companies: Nev Future Shapes and Firewire Surfboards.

In 1994, Hyman set what was then a Guinness World Record by building a surfboard that 47 people rode at once off Australia’s famed Gold Coast. He beat his own record in 2015, when he designed a 1,300-pound board that carried 66 surfers in Huntington Beach.

In the early ‘90s, Hyman was among the pioneers of computer shaping and was involved in the development of surfboard design software that eventually became the industry standard.

Mark Martinson

Born in 1947, Martinson began surfing in Long Beach at age 10 and was giving strong showings in major competitions by the time he was 16. He won the United States Surfing Championship in 1965, according to the “Encyclopedia of Surfing.”

Though he was an early adopter of shortboard surfing in the late 1960s, Martinson went back to shaping longboards in the ‘90s for Huntington Beach-based Robert August Surfboards.

Martinson spent the ‘60s globetrotting and was featured in a series of surf movies including “Free and Easy” and “Waves of Change.” He was inducted into the Surfing Walk of Fame in 2009.