Hap Jacobs has popped up from time to time in past entries, but his life and role as one of the founding fathers of surf culture in the South Bay cries out for a more detailed exploration.

Dudley George “Hap” Jacobs was born in Los Angeles in 1930. His father was a plumber, and the family originally lived in West L.A. They moved to Hermosa Beach in 1938, when Hap (short for “happy”) was in the fourth grade.

At first, he didn’t like the idea of having to leave behind his West L.A. friends, but he soon took to the beach lifestyle. At 16, he got a job working at California Surfrider in Manhattan Beach, an outfit that rented inflatable rubber mats for wave-riding.

His job was to sweep off the mats and keep them inflated properly. As a side benefit, he was allowed to use them to ride waves at the Manhattan Beach Pier. Around this time, roughly 1946, Jacobs also noticed a group of older guys riding their crude redwood surfboards and congregating at the base of the Hermosa Beach Pier, led by the brusque, charismatic Dale Velzy .

Jacobs graduated from Redondo Union High School in 1951. Next, he enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard for a two-year hitch. He was stationed in Oahu, Hawaii, as luck would have it, and fell in with a group of seasoned surfers at Makaha. The group included fellow South Bay surfing pioneer Greg Noll.

While in Hawaii, he began to learn the art of surfboard shaping from transplanted American surfing legend George Downing. In addition, he met his wife, Patricia, while stationed there.

After Jacobs’s Coast Guard stint, he and his wife returned to Hermosa, living in a small apartment. Jacobs tried out a job as a carpenter’s apprentice at UCLA, where his dad often did plumbing work. Despite the benefits of health insurance and a pension, he hated the job too much to stay.

His fellow employees were stunned when he quit.

“ I told them I wanted to make driftwood furniture and surfboards,” Jacobs told the Daily Breeze in 2011.” They said, ‘You have to be analyzed. This is a bad idea.’”

Jacobs and South Bay diver Bev Morgan pooled their resources in 1953 and went into business together. Jacobs shaped the surfboards, and Morgan designed and made custom wetsuits. They opened their store, Dive ‘N Surf , at 223 Hermosa Ave. in Redondo Beach.

Jacobs didn’t stay long.

Later that year, he sold his share in Dive ‘N Surf to twin brothers Bob and Bill Meistrell , who went on to create the Body Glove empire from there.

Looking to concentrate on creating quality surfboards, Jacobs met up with Dale Velzy through Bill Meistrell. The pair opened the Velzy-Jacobs surf shop at Venice Beach. After several profitable years, the duo split up in 1959.

Shortly afterward, Jacobs opened his Jacobs Surfboards shop, 422 Pacific Coast Highway, in Hermosa, a combination retail and manufacturing site. One of the first things he did there was to design the iconic diamond-shaped Jacobs logo, which quickly would become the hallmark of a quality board.

He was in the right business in the right place at the right time. The surfing craze swept Southern California and the nation in the early 1960s and, for a while, Hermosa Beach was ground zero. At one time, more than a dozen surf shops lined PCH and the surrounding area, including those run by Greg Noll and Dewey Weber.

The business started to change in the late 1960s with the advent of shorter, more maneuverable boards in place of the longboard style favored by Jacobs. Sales dropped off and in 1971, he sold his share in the business.

He used the money to become a commercial fisherman for the next 20 years, buying a swordfishing boat (the “Patricia J”) and operating the fuel dock at King Harbor between swordfish runs. Around the same time, he and his wife settled in Palos Verdes Estates.

In 1991, amazingly, he returned to board shaping. By now, with decades of experience, his boards more resembled the work of an artist than merely a craftsmen and were sold mostly to private buyers. Along the way, he had won the enduring respect and admiration of a whole new generation of surfboard makers, such as Donald Takayama, Robert August and Matt Calvani.

Jacobs shaped his final surfboard in April 2019 at age 88. 

Hap Jacobs shapes a board out of balsa wood just like he did when he started in the 1960’s at Jacobs Surfboards in Hermosa Beach.. Oct.13, 2007. (Daily Breeze staff file photo).

Former surf team members, friends and admirers gathered on Sept. 4, 2014 at Captain Kidd’s in Redondo Beach to celebrate and share memories with legendary surfboard shaper Hap Jacobs. Jacobs listens to stories with his wife, Patricia. (Daily Breeze staff file photo)

Longtime South Bay surfboard maker Hap Jacobs in his Hermosa Beach workshop in 1999. (Daily Breeze staff file photo)

South Bay surfboard designer Hap Jacobs poses with some of his boards in 2011 at age 80. (Daily Breeze staff file photo)

For his lifetime of work, he has been honored many times. In 2003, he was named a charter member of the Hermosa Beach Surfers Walk of Fame, with a plaque installed on the Hermosa Beach Pier.

A surprise tribute dinner celebrating his life and work was held at Captain Kidd’s restaurant in Redondo Beach in September 2014. More than 100 former friends, colleagues and admirers attended the event.

The Daily Breeze’s story about the event described Jacobs’ reaction aptly.

“In true form, the humble Jacobs spoke few words,” the story said, “standing seemingly in disbelief with a sheepish grin, as grown men cried tears of joy and thanked Jacobs for changing their lives.”

Sources: Daily Breeze files; “Hap Jacobs,”   International Surfboard Builders Hall of Fame website; “Hap Jacobs” (interview) , by Glenn Sakamoto, Liquid Salt website, April 2010; “Hap Jacobs, last of Hermosa Beach’s Golden age of Surfing shapers, shapes final surfboard,” by Kevin Cody, Easy Reader , April 7, 2019; Los Angeles Times files.

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