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Dick Brewer
Richard Allen Brewer was born October 13, 1936 in Bemidja, Minnesota. His family moved to Whittier, California when he was 13 and three years later, in 1952, Dick started surfing. His first surfboard in 1953 was an old Velzy.
In 1959, Brewer bought a Walker foam blank and made the first gun that he would take to Hawaii to surf Waimea. While in Hawaii, during the summer of 1960 he met fellow surfers Mike Diffenderfer, Buzzy Trent and Pat Curren who taught him to shape big wave guns for riding the north shore of Oahu’s large waves.
In 1967, when Brewer was living in Maui, Bob McTavish and Nat Young appeared at Honolua Bay with their radical V-bottom lightweight short boards complimenting their progressive, unique style of sharp, crisp turns and cutbacks. Their style of surfing and new design would change the way surfboards were made and used from then on.
 Dick then moved to Kauai in 1969. His pocket rockets were a smaller version of big wave guns, at 7' to 8' long, with a single-fin. Their wide point and thickness was forward of center. They had a sharply pointed nose and a rounded pintail. They had down rails with a flat bottom forward with a slight V-tail. These pocket rockets could surf in all but the largest of big Hawaiian waves and did exceptionally well in big, fast, hollow tubes in Hawaii and California. These boards were the inspiration of tube riding (soul surfing).
 His team riders in the late 60’s and early 70’s were David Nuuhiwa, Reno Abellira, Gerry Lopez, Jock Sutherland, Jeff Hackman, Barry Kanaiaupuni, Sam Hawk, and Michael Ho.
Dick Brewer still shapes surfboards and lives in Hanalei, Kauai.
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