I first became aware of Herbie Fletcher back in high school in Huntington Beach. He was a hot, young, up-and-coming surfer a grade or two younger than I was. I recruited him to surf on the Hobie Surf Team and got him set up with free boards. At that time, it would have been impossible to predict exactly how far the kid was going to go, but he was super likable, really could surf and was very enthusiastic about it.
Looking back at his evolution from then to now is remarkable. What an amazing journey.
The very short version, just to set the basics down: Herbie moved to the North Shore of Oahu; married Dibi, the daughter of the “Godfather of Surfing,” Walter Hoffman; made a name for himself for his free-flowing, side-slipping and very individualistic style of surfing; came back to California; and went on to open “Astrodeck,” the leading producer of surfboard deck pads.
He produced, and starred in, a number of surfing videos and had a couple sons, Christian and Nathan, who have become outstanding and groundbreaking surfers in their own right. Dibi is an amazing artist and her influence rubbed off on Herbie who also went in that direction. I wrote more about him in 2014.
Which brings us to now and the reason for today’s revisit to the wonderful wild world of things Fletcher.
Dibi has put the whole story down in ink in her new book, “Fletcher: A Lifetime in Surf,” which was just released by Rizzoli. In conjunction with the release of the book, the Gagosian gallery, in New York City, is presenting an exhibition of Fletcher family art, sculptures and photos, and will sell items, including T-shirts, in the gallery store.
The exhibit, “The Fletcher Family: A Lifetime in Surf,” just opened and is attracting visitors from all walks of life.
I have always been amazed at how Herbie always seems to find his way into stuff. He just, for lack of better words, “goes for it.” It’s like when he was pioneering the use of Jet Skis in giant surf. He would just stick himself into a monster beast and hold on for dear life. Amazed onlookers would be shaking their heads in disbelief and uttering stuff like “Wow, did you see that?”
He just does stuff, and gets away with it. And, obviously, so do his wife and kids.
Along with the exhibition there will be showings of the 2019 documentary “Heavy Water.” This film is about the insane huge-wave surfing of Nathan Fletcher, the younger of the two sons. Christian, the older one, was at the forefront of “aerial” surfing. I remember standing on the beach at the San Clemente Pier watching him, Matt Archbold and Dino Andino blasting big airs off the top of close-out beach crunchers way back when they were young teenagers in the early 1980s and thinking, “Well, this is the future happening right here.”
So yeah, back on the hill next to the snack bar at Huntington Beach High School, sitting there with Denny Buell, Robert August and the crew checking out John Boozers new light blue windbreaker and commenting on how good the grems were getting, that would have been the likes of Herbie, Jon Overmyer, Buddy Heil and Tom Leonardo, never in our wildest imagination would we have pegged Herbie to forge so many frontiers.
But he did, and is one of the most multifaceted and uniquely imaginative surfers ever.
For more information on the Gagosian exhibition, go to gagosian.com/exhibitions/2019/the-fletcher-family-a-lifetime-in-surf.
Congratulations Fletchers, you have done it again.
Ask the expert
Q. Why does our body choose goofy or regular stance?
Stephen Back, Oceanside
A. This is a great question. To clarify this for our non-surfing readers, “goofy-foot” refers to surfers who stand with their right foot forward, “regular foot” to surfers who stand with their left foot forward. The term “goofy-foot” actually came from an old Disney cartoon in which Goofy was surfing and stood right foot forward. My guess is that there are more regular foot surfers in the world than goofies, but I have no data to actually back that up.
Why do our bodies choose one way or the other? It apparently has nothing to do with if you are left-handed or right-handed. I am right-handed but stand goofy-foot; my pal is left-handed and he does too. As far as I know there is really no scientific reasoning to this — your body just does what it feels most comfortable doing. Some surfers learn to surf either way — we call that “switch-foot.” But, in all the cases that I know of, they feel more comfortable one way or the other.
If any of you know a better answer to this let me know. I have always wondered this myself.
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