This is off the Freeline board which itself is 25 years old, not sure that it's the original leash or something poached off another tail. Somebody made these by hand, somebody who probably surfed? No mold injectors in Thailand, no riveters on assembly lines and no big cans on the deck of a ship headed into the L.A. Basin filled with surf goodies made by people who may never see the ocean in their entire lives.
No matter, we buy consumer goods left and right with never a thought as to the people who work on them. No I'm not going into the whole slave labor thing with you, just knock it off for once please...........:-).
I like the fisherman's swivel, very cutting edge! Somebody had buckets of them I'm sure and couldn't find anything stronger at the time. The rubber collars are a little stressed too. Decayed might be more accurate. Stitched on a small commercial sewer.
We built leashes in high school from surgical tubing and cord, then sold them as we got better at turning them out. And nervously paddled out, not sure if we were going to be abused by the old guard for clogging the line-up or possibly get an extra $10 by selling a new one.
People forget or don't even know that the cord was reviled when it made it's entrance into the break. Now you can take the position that leashless surfers are a hazard and actually find support........what the fuck?!
2 comments:
Surgical tubing and bungee cord leashes had the additional advantage of the "recoil" or "slingshot" effect...
As your board was pulled to the utter stretchy extremity of the material it would "Bwatwaaaaang!"...
Right back at you, skeg first and accelerating...
Good times.
I remember the first one I saw was a leather collared thing on the end of 8 feet of bungee cord. The crew at Topanga took them pretty quick because of the rocks lining the point.
My Father predicted exactly what happened next.
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