Hobart Alter

Hobart Laidlaw Alter, known as Hobie, was an American surf and sailing entrepreneur and pioneer, born on 31 October 1933 and died on 29 March 2014. He began shaping balsa surfboards for friends in 1950 at his family's summer house in Laguna Beach, California, and in February 1954 opened Hobie Surfboards in Dana Point, Orange County's first surf shop. In 1958 he and Gordon Clark experimented with foam and fiberglass, producing boards that were lighter, faster and more responsive than wooden ones, and in 1962 he began making skateboards. He was also a surfing competitor in his younger days: he won the second Brooks Street contest in Laguna in 1954, placed third and fourth at the Makaha International Surfing Championships in 1958 and 1959, and took second in tandem surfing at Makaha in 1962. He went on to create the Hobie Cat catamaran, founded the Hobie company, and was inducted into the National Sailing Hall of Fame in 2011.