Ether Monthly #10- Stanley Pleskunas

Stanley Pleskunas, Central Cal 2005.
Photo Kidman from 'Ether', available by emailing info at foamandfunction.com

Pleskunas is another of those low key San Diego garage geniuses. He's affected your surfing whether you know it or not. He's designed simple shaping tools that are still the best for the job, he's worked on outrageously complex shaping machine designs. He builds 'Wibbulators', wild, thin and flexy boards that evolved from the cutting edge kiteboards he makes. He was also there at the birth of the fish. From the interview in 'Ether' conducted by Kidman and Kenvin.

AK: Can you tell us the whole story about the board in the cave?
SP: My memories of it are: it was a cold day and the surf was big. It was probably Christmas, and we'd just gotten short johns, the first wetsuits. Stevie (Lis) and I went out at Osprey. It was big; I was haired out, but I had to go. There was a guy out surfing, the tide was coming in, he lost his board and it went in the cave. It was too gnarly to go in there nd get it, especially without a pair of fins on. The guy swam in and he got out of the water, and we knew he left the board in the cave. So the next day the surf dropped, and we went down there , and we pulled the longboard out of the cave . We got a hammer under the glass and we peeled the glass off-worst itch I've ever had in my life! Then we sawed it in half, and then Stevie shaped a board and I shaped a board. He got the nose; he had the better rocker (laughs). Mine was terrible. That was the piece of foam that Stevie built the first fish from, that I remember. It was a bright red Fish. This first one had, kind of, spiky pins on it and it was really thin, double lap; black fins. Sort of peaky fins: a fin with a little tip on it, about the same base as it was high. I remember him surfing that, on the lefts at South Beach, and just ... ripping. That board was probably 4',4'2". Stevies a small guy, y'know?

RK: How about your first exposure to Greenough?
SP: The thing that nailed me was the article with Nat Young, Bob McTavish and George at Honolua. They had pictures of George riding. I was kneeboarding, and I'd heard rumors of him, right, and when I saw those pictures then I immediately tried to emulate, and shape, and build boards, and look for information. I mined information from everybody I knew, to try and figure out what those boards were and why they worked. I started building a few. I think, at the same time, that thing really kicked off the board building craze here y'know? The back yard thingin our area. I think, more than anybody in our area, I was kinda more on George's thing than some of the other people. Stevie was building the Fishes, and people understood what was going on by then, with Steve. But I was more on George's thing.