Creator opened the waves to many
LOS ANGELES: The stout waves off the Kona coastline on Hawaii’s Big Island were still the domain of standup surfers as Tom Morey fiddled in his garage with a 9foot plank of polyethylene foam, an electric carving knife and an iron he’d borrowed from a neighbour.
By morning, he had sliced the board in half, rounded the nose and whittled the base down to a sharp trailing edge. It didn’t look like much, but on the water it was fast, turned on a dime and let the prone rider feel the rhythmic tug and pull of the ocean, a nearly intoxicating experience for Morey.
He sold one to a fellow beach bum for $10 and figured that, for a day’s work, at least it covered his costs. Within a year, Morey Boogie Boards were selling by the tens of thousands, opening waves around the globe to the masses, delighting millions and enraging purists who suddenly found their favourite breaks as crowded as a freeway.
A lifelong dreamer and tinkerer who designed small dirigibles as well as athletic shoes with interchangeable soles, Morey died last week in a Laguna Hills hospital, his son
Sol Morey announced on Facebook. He was 86.
Morey’s stubby, lightweight bodyboards never made him wealthy — he’d sold out by the time sales climbed into the millions — but it did change beach culture forever, giving wave riders a cheap and easy alternative to the far more costly surfboards that required patience, balance, footwork and — for most — wipeout after wipeout before perfection arrived.
‘‘Some of Tom’s ideas are pretty wiggy, and at first I thought the Boogie Board was one of them,’’ former Surfer magazine editor Steve Pezman told the in 2001. ‘‘But I was wrong. Nothing has introduced more people to surfing than the Boogie Board.’’
Born August 15, 1935 in Detroit, Morey was raised in Laguna Beach, where his father was a real estate agent. A drummer and jazz fan, he went off to the University of California, Los Angeles as a music major but wound up earning a degree in mathematics and became part of the booming workforce in the South Bay area of LA as an engineer for Douglas Aircraft and other defence contractors.
When his first marriage ended in divorce, Morey recalibrated and moved to Hawaii, a poorer but happier man. He gave surf lessons, picked up gigs as a drummer for hire and chased the curious and imaginative ideas that sprung to mind. He invented a threepiece surfboard that could be broken down and packed in a suitcase. He came up with a liquid surfboard traction solution he said would make it easier for surfers to stay upright. Then came the Boogie Board.
As word of the Morey Boogie Board spread through the islands and then the mainland, he worked feverishly to keep up with orders — cutting the foam, rounding the nose, using a page from that day’s Honolulu Advertiser to keep the iron from gumming up as he methodically molded the polyethylene. Each weighed just 1.3kg, was slightly more than 1.2m long and sold for $37, a price tag that matched his age.
But soon, Morey had a tsunami on his hands. By his fourth year, he had filled 80,000 orders and had a team of workers rushing to meet the demand.
In 1978, he sold the rights to the Boogie Board to a San Francisco corporation. The rights to the name are now owned by the WhamO toy company. Morey later admitted he sold out too soon, but didn’t dwell on the fortune he likely missed out on.
Forever tanned and trim, Morey moved back to the mainland, never far from the shoreline. He developed a lighter, softer surfboard he called the Swizzle, hoping to catch lightning in a bottle for a second time. He joined the Baha’i faith and launched the annual
Blessing of the Waves in Huntington Beach, an event that continues still. And no matter what the lawyers might say, he knew the Boogie Board would always belong to him.
Morey is survived by his wife Marchia; a daughter, Melinda Morey; sons Sol, Moon, Sky and Matteson; five grandchildren; and three greatgrandchildren. —