Early Career
At the end of 1974 Richards returned to Hawaii for the North Shore winter. This was his fourth trip, and his first taste of really big waves. He got a late entry into a contest at Waimea Bay, and did well enough on the first day of competition to make the semi-finals the next day. That day the surf had jumped and 30 foot cleanup sets were closing out the Bay. Even local big wave riders were saying it was too big to compete. Organiser and 1968 world title holder Fred Hemmings had other ideas; with sunshine, offshore winds and television coverage he threatened to go out himself if nobody else wanted to.
Richards made a decision to go. At 17 years old and without Waimea experience nobody would have thought less of him if he didn't, but he felt to walk away would end his hopes of surfing professionally, and put him back in Newcastle at some unappealing apprenticeship. He went with survival uppermost in his mind, and reckoned his first wave twice as big as anything he'd surfed before. By the end of the heat he was game enough on the monsters to actually bottom turn, yet was glad not to reach the final and have to go back out. In time he came to enjoy big waves, without being regarded as a big-wave specialist.
Image was important for Richards, and in 1975 he had Hawaiian artist Albert Dove design a superman-style badge with "MR" inscribed in it. He used that logo on all his boards and wetsuits for most of his career.
Richards was interested in twin-fin surfboards and in shaping. At the Surfabout in 1976 he saw Reno Abellira on a highly manoeuvrable twin-fin fish and thought something like that would be better than a single-fin for small waves. Back in Hawaii again for the 1976/77 winter, aged 19, he took his father's suggestion to pay for shaping lessons from noted pioneer Dick Brewer. It meant Richards was able to put his thoughts about design into actual foam. He credits Brewer for the style of shaping he came to use.
Brewer made Richards a twin-fin, and Richards took aspects of that and Abellira's fish for his own designs. The result was boards faster and more manoeuvrable than the single-fins of the day.
Read more about this topic: Mark Richards (surfer)
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