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25-462: Capistrano Beach is situated along the coast on the southern end of Dana Point. Some homes are situated atop a cliff overlooking Coast Highway and the Capistrano Beach park. Several celebrities live in the town area, notably on Beach Road, where Hobie Alter conceived of the popular Hobie Cat catamaran. Rancho Boca de la Playa , granted to Don Emigdio Vejar, was the initial land title issued in

50-536: A B.S. in engineering , having studied chemistry, math and physics. Hobie Alter soon set up a separate operation in Laguna Canyon experimenting with polyurethane surfboard blanks as an alternative to balsa wood . He put Clark in charge of it. They released the first foam-core board to hit the market in June, 1958. With the release of the surfing-themed movie Gidget in 1959, surfing became more popular. Clark

75-469: 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 Orange County's first surf shop in Dana Point, California. In February 1954, with the first stage of

100-522: A library of 5,000 rocker templates. For decades Clark's company exercised a near-monopolistic control over the market. At the time of its 2005 closing Clark Foam provided about 90% of the United States supply and 60% of the world supply of surfboard blanks. On December 5, 2005, Gordon Clark abruptly shut down Clark Foam, then worth about $ 40 million, and began destroying his molds and equipment, citing difficulties with government regulatory agencies over

125-519: A near-monopoly on the American market, and a strong presence in the international market, which it held until the company's unexpected closure in 2005. Clark Foam was founded in 1961 by Gordon "Grubby" Clark. Clark was born on January 19, 1933, in Gardena, California . He surfed on heavy redwood surfboards in the 1940s and 1950s. At age 19, Clark worked for Tom Blake , a legendary figure who invented

150-467: A now corroded sea wall. More boulders were placed to protect the basketball court that was damaged. The Serra Siding project is proposed along the shoreline that would build 1.2 miles (1.9 km) of additional siding track. The project would create additional train capacity along this busy corridor. Hobart Alter Hobart "Hobie" Laidlaw Alter (October 31, 1933 – March 29, 2014) was an American surf and sailing entrepreneur and pioneer, creator of

175-745: The Hobie Cat catamarans, and founder of the Hobie company. He created the Hobie 33 ultralight-displacement sailboat and a mass-produced radio-controlled glider, the Hobie Hawk . Hobart Laidlaw 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. During a summer vacation in 1950 Alter began by building 9-foot balsawood surfboards for his friends. He asked his dad to pull

200-466: The Patterson brothers . 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 surfboard blanks. Almost immediately,

225-415: The "shortboard revolution". New materials such as polyurethane foam , polyester resin , and fiberglass were used to redesign the shape of the board and to shrink its size from 300 cm (10 ft) to 180 or 210 cm (6 or 7 ft). Clark's catalogue eventually offered customers more than 70 shapes of blanks, in 8 densities, incorporating 4 different woods for stringers. Customers could choose from

250-501: The DeSoto out of the family's Laguna Beach, California, garage, and converted the garage into a woodshop for his hobby. 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 in 1953, his father moved him off the property by buying him a lot on Pacific Coast Highway in nearby Dana Point for $ 1,500. Alter‘s hobby became

275-587: The Hobie Team, including Joey Cabell , Phil Edwards , Corky Carroll , Gary Propper, Mickey Munoz , Joyce Hoffman and Yancy Spencer. 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

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300-521: The Sea , but in 1910 was changed to Serra , the name of the newly formed school district. Development of Capistrano Beach started in 1925 with residential homes on the bluff. The Capistrano Beach Club was built along the shore of the new development. In 1929, the Petroleum Securities Company (owned by Edward L. Doheny ) became the new owners of the Capistrano Beach development. In 1931, following

325-715: The age of 80. In 1983, Alter received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement . Alter was inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame in 2011. Clark Foam Clark Foam was a Californian company that manufactured surfboard blanks — foam slabs, reinforced with one or more wooden strips or "stringers" — cast in the rough shape of a surfboard and used by surfboard shapers to create finished surfboards. Founded in 1961 by Gordon "Grubby" Clark, Clark Foam established

350-529: The area now known as Capistrano Beach. The land was sold to Juan Abila in 1860, and then purchased by Marcus A Forster in 1886. Forster sold a strip of the land to the San Bernardino and San Diego Railway . The railway, in collaboration with the California Central Railway , built a rail line between Los Angeles and San Diego, with a station at Capistrano. The station was initially named San Juan by

375-588: The chemicals and equipment he used and claims filed against him by former employees. Clark Foam used toluene diisocyanate (TDI) in the manufacturing process, one of the last California manufacturers to do so, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had threatened to shut down the company in the past. In a seven-page fax, Clark cited several issues pending with the EPA as his reason for shutting down, although no known action

400-490: The death of Doheny's son, he donated over 40 acres (16 ha) to the state for Doheny State Beach . Capistrano Beach became part of the city of Dana Point in 1989. During the excavation of the land during development in 1929, the bones of a mastodon (or possibly a mammoth) were discovered. The bones were taken to the Los Angeles Natural History Hall for display. The 1,180 feet (360 m) wooden pier

425-712: 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 (where he skied in the winter) and Orcas Island , the largest of the San Juan Islands in the Pacific Northwest, where he would anchor his 60-foot, foam-core, twin-Diesel power catamaran, that he designed and built for himself. Alter married Susan. They had two sons and one daughter. He died of cancer in Palm Desert, California , on March 29, 2014, at

450-399: The film Gidget 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

475-399: The introduction of foam-and-fiberglass technology, Alter brought Joe Quigg (surfer) 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 , Corky Carroll , Don Hansen . Bruce Jones and

500-518: 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." In 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

525-400: The surfboard fin. To help pay for his post-secondary education, Clark began to work in 1955 as a glasser at Hobie Surfboards, for surfboard pioneer Hobie Alter . Glassing is a complex job in which a surfboard blank is laminated, coated, assembled, and finished with multiple layers of dry- and wet-sanding, before receiving its final coatings. Clark graduated from Pomona College in 1957 with

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550-578: The wake of a motorboat 26 miles from Long Beach to Catalina Island. Alter's Hobie Cat became the nucleus of a successful worldwide catamaran business. The company created 16 unique sailboats 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 to the Coleman Company, Inc. in 1976, and his sons Hobie Jr. and Jeff carry on

575-639: 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 in Laguna 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 in 1964, surfing

600-453: Was popular for strolling, sightseeing, and fishing. The pier was severely damaged by waves in 1964, after which it was condemned and demolished in 1965. The Capistrano Beach Club became rundown and, in the late 1960s, was dismantled. During storms in 2018, a boardwalk collapsed and an outdoor basketball court was severely damaged after being undermined by erosion caused by the waves . The storm exposed old cars put there decades prior as part of

625-504: Was soon manufacturing 250 blanks a week for Alter. In 1961, Clark set up his own company, Clark Foam. Originally located in Laguna Canyon, it later moved to Laguna Niguel . Clark introduced a number of innovations in the production of surfboard blanks, including the use of steel reinforced cement molds, hydraulic glue presses, hot coating, and the use of computers in the manufacturing process. Clark's new foam designs were essential to

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