Purvey on The Ugly, San Miguel Invitational, 1967. Photo by Leroy Grannis.

It's Friday, the 11th of November 1966. It's the first day of a three-day invitational surfing contest at "Stables," which is a point-surf location about a quarter mile north of California Street, in Ventura, California.

An audience of about two thousand has gathered to see the performances of fifty professional surfers, invited from around the world. The contest is based on objective judging, which utilizes the greatest length of time, garnered by a surfer on a wave, to determine the winner.

Money is the prize for the second time in the history of the sport. It's called the Morey-Pope 2nd United States Professional Invitational Surfing Championships. The contest format, invented by Tom Morey and Peter Pope, is designed to address the need for objective judging in the sport of surfing. Also, and more importantly, objective judging is a judging system required by the Olympic Committee for a sport to qualify as a participating sport in the Olympic Games, which helps immensely to promote a sport.

The first day will test the competitor's skills to see who can surf for the longest time out of ten waves. The clock runs from the time they stand to the moment they pull out of the wave. Day two will push the competitor's skills to their extreme by riding the tip (also known as "Nose" - front end) of their surfboard for the longest time. The third and final day, combines both accumulated tip time and wave time.

Each of the fifty champion competitors has the intent to push tip-time to the extreme. The nose area is 25% of the surfboard's length. There is no overall surfboard length limitation. This rule promoted experimentation of surfboard design. Madness abounded the first year and some strange devices appeared: A 10 pound bar-bell taped to the tail of one surfboard, while another had a brick rosined to the tail - both inventions were hoping to keep the tail weighed down. A cross "Wing" was attached to a fin, another fin had a funnel running through it. Mike Doyle had a 2"x4"x8' Spruce wood plank rosined to the tail to gain a greater 25% tip area.

The intricacies of this sport can only be learned with practice. This is usually the case with all sports and games, those who play on http://www.partycasino.com/ must build up their knowledge of the game over many different instances. In the same way, the more you surf the better you become and this is what these competitors have been doing over the years.

The second contest had it's share of oddities but they seemed more thought out. Designers learned from the first contest that a surfboard could not just be long to gain nose area, nor could the tail be weighted down. The surfboards had to turn as well as nose ride to maintain position in the pocket of the wave, where the tip gains the most lift.

Perched like casual Gods on the front end of their surfboards, striking ethereal poses in effortless motion, the best competitors clocked incredible distances. The entire audience would watch, mesmerized, as the length of each tip ride increased. The audience kept a tally and gambled on who would win.

The times defining the top placers was tight. A concerned competitor raised the question that it takes .02 of a second to just start and stop the stopwatch and in some cases .02 of a second was what separated two contestants apart.

What did become clear was that surfboard designs were advancing. Designers were experimenting to find the common denominator that enabled the surfboard to turn as well as nose ride.

Highly ranked competitive surfer and surfboard designer, Bob Purvey had designed his surfboards under the tutelage of world famous surfboard maker and designer, Dewey Weber and his shaper, Harold "Iggy" Igg, for three years prior to endorsing his new sponsor, Con Surfboards, in the beginning of 1966.

Purvey came up with his unique conceptual design, which had an extremely wide nose, long and deep concave underneath it and a kicked up tail. "It’s a combination of the Dewey Weber "Performer" tail and a Bob Simmons nose."

Purvey won the nose riding contest that day and went on to place third overall, winning $500. His board was aptly named "The Ugly" because of its odd shape.

BP on The Ugly winning the tip-time contest of the 2nd Morey Pope Pro Invitational in 1966.

In the March, 1967 issue of Surfer magazine, the first full page advertisement by Con Surfboards states: "It's called 'the Ugly'. Bob Purvey out rode the top professionals in the 1966 U.S. Championship Invitational Nose-riding contest at Ventura, with the highest nose-riding time of 41.5 seconds for 6 waves. An average of 7 seconds per wave. Purvey won the admiration of every rider and surfboard maker for his superior wave knowledge and ability. Bob gives the credit to his UGLY."

"EVERYBODY WANTS IT ANYWAY! No matter how you look at it, the only thing beautiful about the UGLY is the way it handles in the water. There is certainly nothing handsome about the twenty inch nose one foot from the tip, able to support full weight on take-off or cut-backs. Beauty prizes will never be given for the parallel rails that holds smooth trim as the board glides down the wall of any wave, or give precision control in turning from the nose. And the really Ugliest part is the silly looking, scooped-out popped up six inch square tail that sets into the water and causes downward pressure exerted on the tail for opposite reaction to the nose. What we are trying to say is that nobody cares how it looks, because it was designed for function as an all around board as well as a nose-rider!..."

The next full page ad in Surfer magazine's summer issue states, "Bob Purvey has been consistently improving his own time..."

Along with the ads, word-of-mouth spreads that the Ugly truly is the most functional nose-rider design. "In action, the Ugly practically makes you want to nose-ride!" Purvey states. By mid-summer of 1967, the surfboard factory must quickly increase manufacturing capacity by approximately 35% because of demand for the Ugly. By the end of summer, 1967, the Ugly becomes recognized as the fastest and hottest selling surfboard in the world.

In October, 1967, the introduction of the 7' 11" "V-Bottom" starts the shortboard revolution. Longboard start collecting dust and endless nose-ride stories fade into faithful memory.

The Ugly becomes the last popular longboard model to dominate the "longboard era." Purvey suggests to Con Surfboards that they make a short version of The Ugly by proportioning th length down to the eight foot length and the Super Ugly is introduced as the first "Fun Board." It's The Ugly, proportioned down in length to compete with the short boards. Good idea but short board designs were primarily focused on turns and speed for big waves.

As the short board trend progresses, taking over even the small wave arenas of California and Florida, both The Ugly and Super Ugly seem to fade away into the shadow of collector's heaven.

In the late 1970's, Dewey Weber starts promoting the resurgence of interest in longboard's and the movement grows all over the world. Longboard's of the 50s and 60s are dusted off, proclaimed collector's treasures and The Ugly becomes one of the most valued. The Ugly becomes recognized as the standard bearer for nose riding designs.

In 1997, Purvey takes over his trademarked brands of The Ugly and Super Ugly surfboards, to maintain authenticity. Bob points out, "Today, The Ugly still makes champions and pulls in long times on the tip." Now he is promoting The Ugly Challenge.

Recently, Bob joined forces with 12th Floor Foam & Glass Surfboards as his exclusive manufacturer.  This joint collaboration was an obvious choice since 12th Floor Surfboards has established themselves in the industry for their attention to detail and quality craftsmanship. Be sure to visit 12thFloorSurfboards.com

Check out the too numerous to mention testimonials on The Ugly at Swaylock's Design Forum. If you want to buy a new Ugly, simply download the order form. There are FAQ's and easy to follow instruction on how to fill out an order. If you have any questions, we'd love to answer them, email us at uglyboards@theuglysurfboard.com

The Ugly and Super Ugly surfboards are now exclusively manufactured by 12th Floor Foam & Glass.

WATCH NEW 12TH FLOOR UGLY FLICK - CLICK HERE

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