Tom Morey, aka Y (August 15, 1935-) |
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The artist formerly known as Tom Morey has a new name, simply "Y." But the name Morey isn't likely to vanish from our minds since it's indelibly connected with some of the greatest inventions and innovations in modern surfing history -- Boogie Board, soft board and the world's first professional surfing contest.
Morey first saw the light of day in Detroit, Michigan (he's a distant cousin of the Dodge automotive family), but was living in Laguna Beach, California, by 1944. A gifted musician, he was soloing as a drummer at age 12 and subsequently performed professionally with luminaries such as Dizzy Gillespie, Stew Williamson, Bud Shank and Conti Condolli. His love of music was rivaled by his love of the ocean, and the two career streams would twist together like a double helix for years to come. An avid bodysurfer as a kid, he came second in the Green Valley Lake Paddleboard Championships in 1946, began professional gigging on drums in 1948, joined original Sons of the Beach ukulele band (on uke) in 1950, caught his first wave on a borrowed finless surfboard at Oak Street in Laguna in 1952, formed the Tom Morey Jazz Quartet in 1954 and wake-surfed a conventional longboard behind an ocean-going yacht (no towrope) in April of 1955, the year his jazz quartet won the award for the "Best College Jazz Band." But surfing became Morey's central preoccupation. He created his first "concave nose pocket" in the late '50s, became one of the first sponsored pros and invented something he called the "Wing Tip," a turned-down nose that was foiled like the leading edge of an airplane wing. In the fall of 1957, he graduated from the University of Southern California with a B.A. in mathematics and co-invented the "Fantopper" paper hat with classmate Bob Tierney. Their Fantopper Hat Company gained national notoriety, but no one got rich. Married in 1957, he then went to work for Douglas Aircraft, working as a process engineer in composites and surfing for the Velzy and Jacobs Surf team, then Jacobs, then Dewey Weber. After Douglas, he worked a series of jobs involving composite materials and processes, which he spun back into his surf-related inventions. He left the corporate world for good in 1964, moved to Ventura and started the Tom Morey Skeg Works. In 1964, he created the first TRAF polypropylene fin (TRAF being FART spelled backward), innovating the first commercial interchangeable fin system. In 1965, the Skeg Works became Morey Surfboards. He introduced the Wave Set Removable Skeg System, then offered $1,500 for the winners of the Tom Morey Invitational Nose Riding Championships, held at California Street in Ventura (generally known as the world's first pro surfing contest). The following year, he upped the ante to a $5,000 purse. In 1965, Karl Pope became his business partner and the name changed again -- Morey-Pope Surfboards. They built, tested and marketed Pope's Trisect, a three-piece surfboard that folded into a suitcase. They co-founded WAVE (Water Apparatus and Vehicular Engineering) Corporation. From 1965 to 1969, the Morey-Pope surfboard line included classics such as the Camel, the Eliminator, the John Peck Penetrator, Bob Cooper's Blue Machine and the McTavish Tracker. Things shifted again in 1968 when Morey began transcendental meditation. Within a year, he had turned the business over to his partner and moved to Hawaii, where he formed a jazz band (Uranium) and wrote spacey articles on weird surfcraft for Surfer magazine. Morey's experiments in alternative waveriding vehicles led to the creation of several air-lubricated surfboards (even one made out of cardboard) and, in 1971 (on the Big Island), the invention of the revolutionary soft Boogie Board. About that time, Morey embraced the Baha'i Faith. "I withdrew immediately from alcohol, drugs and sexual promiscuity," he says. "I began saying Baha'i prayers such as 'convey upon me, oh, my God, a thought, which will turn this planet into a rose garden.'" Then he married Marchia Nichols (he left his first wife a few years previous), now Marchia Ann Morey, mother of bodyboarding and his four sons. He founded Morey Boogie in 1974, took on Germain Faivre as a partner in 1975 and began limited production of Boogie Boards, using internal twin fiberglass rods for support. He soon teamed up with surf great Mike Doyle, producing and selling the Morey Doyle Soft Surfboard. However, he couldn't afford to grow the business as fast as it needed to, so he sold the rights to Kransco Corporation. For a decade, he kicked back in Hawaii, experimenting with various surfcraft and drumming with the band Brotherhood at the Mauna Kea Hotel. Looking for a major change, he moved to Bainbridge Island, Washington, and joined Boeing in 1985, working in advanced composites, while continuing a consulting role with Kransco. But he burned out on the cold, gray Northwest and moved back to Southern California in 1992, reentering the surf scene just in time for the Legends renaissance (he's a regular invitee to the events). Meanwhile, as Morey Bodyboards became a division of Mattel Toys and then Wham-0, Morey consulted. But life is spirals and waves. Tom pulled the consulting plug in January of 1999, founded soft-shell surfboard manufacturing company Starwaves and changed his name to Y. "I've been More Y all my life," he explains. "I'm finally going seriously after getting rid of More, so just plain Y does it." In May of 1999, he began production of Starwaves' first Y board, the Swizzle. "Neither soft nor hard, the Swizzle combines a composite backbone with uncrushable foam flesh and a tough elastic skin." As of March 2000, he'd sold more than 100. And he's been playing a lot of drums. "When a guy removes smoking, drinking, gambling and chasing women from his life," says Y, "there's a whole lot of time to do other neat stuff." -- Drew Kampion, October 2000
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