Shaper’s Profile - Dirk Langer

My passion for surfing started in a 1961, 8th grade wood shop class and my first successful project, a 10 foot Wooden Hollow Core. Fabricated from plans printed in Popular Mechanics and financed with pop bottle collections, my first “Waikiki Special” took every bit of my 87 lbs to just get to the beach let alone out into the surf at the Redondo Beach pier in Southern California. What started out as a casual interest turned into the passion of my life, a dedication that has affected every career and personal decision through the last 38 years. Surfing has blessed me with countless waves of pure joy on this incredible planet. Surfing has rewarded me with the vision to keep life simple and guided me through a successful career as an artist and designer, a career that has capitalized a surfing lifestyle I could have only dreamed of when I paddled into that first wave on that big wooden hollow core so many years ago. Through the years I have ridden every type of surfboard imaginable but the one impression that has always remained a constant through the revolution in surfing design these last four decades, has been that big wooden hollow core bankrolled with pop bottle money. That impression became an obsession until one morning while waiting for the morning coastal fog to lift in front of the house, I began shaping a copy of the inspiring sculpture that changed a small boy’s life and created a most wondrous world for a very happy adult. After so many years to come full circle and find myself hand shaping these incredible wooden boards is a veneration. These are the real sculptures of life and by recreating these magnificent pieces of art I could only hope to honor one of the most inspiring and influential surfers in the history of the sport. Dirk Langer dl@vintagewoodensurfboards.com

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