Summary

In Chapter 3, The Shock of the New: California, 1968, the author relates that in California, he witnessed the beginning of a radical change in surfing when he saw Bob McTavish, an Australian, surf at a point called Rincon. There, McTavish took on the waves with a shorter, more maneuverable board that made him seem able to defy the laws of physics. At that point, surfing changed, and shorter boards and lighter boards made tube rides and shorter-radius turns possible. Across the nation, a revolution was occurring in which youth were questioning authority, and surfing had its own kind of uprising. Surfing was part of the zeitgeist, or the spirit of the age, and many surfers dodged the draft in Vietnam and became antiwar. At age 15, Finnegan exchanged his longboard for a shortboard and cut out of family weekends to hitch rides to surfing spots closer...