Rip Curl
Rip Curl was started in Australia and is one of the biggest surf brands on the surf scene, been around for a long time, sponsors of many of the world’s best surfers and WCT events.
Rip Curl are world leaders in the surf industry for their quality surf products. Rip Curl have contributed much to the world of surfing. Among their acheivements are the ground breaking Rip Curl Elasto series wetsuits which they continue to refine and build apon for future wetsuits. Also Rip Curl are credited with making the world’s fist 100% stichless boardshort!
Rip Curl are manufacturers of surfwear for all ages, guys and girls, wetsuits, watches, footwear including sandals and skate shoes, mountainwear, bags and backpacks, surfboards and even uniquely styled videos and dvds featuring of course their Rip Curl Team riders.
One of the best products that Rip Curl produce and sell is their fantastic range of surf styled and engineered watches. Rip Curl watches have stood the test of time (no pun intended!) durable materials, excellent workmanship and smooth styles.
Rip Curl History
In Australia, surfing is at a bizarre stage of its development. The short board revolution of 1967 has created a frenzy of experimentation in surfboard design and surfing technique. Times are certainly changing. A hardy breed of surfer, who has no time for commercial beach hype, has settled in the no-frills seaside town of Torquay - just a couple of kilometres away from Bells Beach. According to these guys life is all about The Search for waves and parties. It is into this cold-climate cave that Doug ‘Claw’ Warbrick and Brian ‘Sing Ding’ Singer decide to pitch their fledgling surf company, Rip Curl. Coincidentally, both Doug and Brian hailed from Queensland, and had both been taken by the surfing lifestyle in the early ’60s.
“We decided, like many others of the time, that a backyard garage could be a surfboard factory,” recalls Brain. “So we cleared some shit out of my garage and started making boards ourselves, simple. Claw had quite a bit of shaping experience, and although our first boards were pretty rough, the shapes were just what the locals wanted. I graduated from fin sanding to glassing and I remember we started off doing about four boards a week. Claw would start shaping on Monday and we would finish them by Friday night so guys could pick up their boards for the weekend surf.”
Rip Curl Surfboards did well in a highly competitive market, which had opened up in response to the revolution in design. Pioneers like Gordon Woods and Barry Bennett in Sydney and George Rice in Victoria had been joined by hundreds of wide-eyed hopefuls operating, like Rip Curl, out of garages and tool sheds.
In 1970, however, Claw and Singer made a decision that changed their green company forever. Looking at the needs of their fellow cold-water surfers, they branched in to the world of wetsuits. At the time only two companies were manufacturing wetties to keep out the cold, one of which made wetsuits for divers and had only a marginal commercial interest in surfing. The Curl took over an old house in Torquay and made a small investment in a pre-World War II sewing machine. Claw and Brian put together a Crew of locals and went into production, cutting out the rubber on the floor and handing the pieces to an over-worked and underpaid machinist. By todays standards, the prototype Rip Curl wetsuits were primitive, but they differed from others on the market in that they evolved through interaction with surfers. Like it has been for over 30 years, Rip Curl was at the forefront of research, development and technology in surfing.
“Rip Curl was really appropriate at the time, because the shorter boards were changing the way people surfed,’ explains Claw. ‘Australians were starting to surf a lot more on edge and doing a lot of power turns closer to the curl, in the pocket of waves - and the hardcore Aussie surf language of the time was ‘ripping’. Although we didn’t state it at the time, I think we knew it was right on the money for the surf jargon of the time.”
With the name agreed on, Simon painted the original logo (featuring the lotus flower in the square block with hippy-style lettering) and the artwork was sent off to Sydney. With that, Rip Curl surfboards were available and the Rip Curl name was born.
Rip Curl Surfers
Rip Curl have a huge team of surf stars but here’s a look a few of them: JAMIE O’BRIEN, ELISE GARRIGUE, NATHAN HEDGE, JULIA CHRISTIAN, MICK FANNING, RAONI MONTEIRO, PABLO GUTIERREZ, DARREN O’RAFFERTY, KIEREN PERROW, PANCHO SULLIVAN, JACQUELINE SILVA, MANOA DROLLET, MARIE PIERRE ABGRALL
Rip Curl Logo
Tags: rip curl, rip curl surfing