It’s not every day you get to pay tribute to a living legend—or make a surfboard out of concrete, for that matter. Recently, we were able to do both at the same time when the City of Hermosa Beach asked QCP to help create a unique monument to surfing pioneer Greg “Da Bull” Noll.
Known as one of the first big-wave surfers, Greg’s bold and fearless style pushed the limits of surfing in the 1950s and ‘60s, and helped to redefine the sport forever. But he’s appreciated by waveriders today just as much for the exceptional surfboards he designed and shaped as for his take-no-prisoners technique. Innovation and quality are characteristics we try to live by, too, so it was an honor to partner with Greg’s son Jed Noll in creating a hyper-realistic concrete replica of a classic Greg Noll board.
We won’t lie: we were thrilled to accept the challenge of constructing a concrete surfboard that could be mistaken for the real thing. A true collaboration between craftsmen, the project began when Jed shaped a foam blank in the style of one of his dad’s iconic boards. Once we got the blank, we used it to construct a custom mold from which the concrete board could be cast. Our board was then finished and painted to look identical to the original—minus the wax, of course.
A concrete surfboard isn’t much good for hanging ten, though: ours is now a one-of-a-kind bench at Greg’s Hermosa Beach monument, facing a lifelike sculpture of the surfrider himself by artist Phil Roberts.
Our thanks to Jed and the City of Hermosa Beach for letting us be a part of surfing history. We took on this and every project the same way Da Bull himself might approach a roaring 20-footer: with total, unblinking commitment!
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