C huck Barfoot

Some Surfing History

Chuck Barfoot began surfing in New Jersey in 1962 and still surfs on a year-around basis. He worked at Atlantis Surf Shop in Beach Haven, NJ, for 3 summers and was on the East Coast Greg Noll Surf Team sponsored by Koseff's Surf Shop in Beach Heaven, NJ, between 1966 and 1967. Chuck rode Da Cat boards until he met Johnny Fain when he was visiting the shop and Johnny gave him a Formula 1 & 2 board.

Chuck taught himself how to build boards. He made a total of about 125 backyard boards he sold out of his house. These boards had no logo, Chuck just signed his name and sometimes drew a little palm tree or wrote BILBO BAGGINS on them which was a nickname Tom Sims gave him. Tom and Chuck built some boards together. He bought his material from the original Ron Jon's in Shipbottom, NJ, between 1969 and 1972.

Chuck started designing snow boards (snoboards) in 1978 while working for Sims skateboards, and then went his own way in the snowboard world in 1981. It is in the snowboard world where Chuck made his most valuable contribution to surfing. Chuck used his surfing knowledge in the designing of the first snowboards. His first prototypes were all surf influenced, fiberglass with foam core, swallow-tail, flex fin from a Greenough idea, and they used real surf leashes. At that time they called the sport snow surfing.

The very first little toy that started it all was called a "Snurfer" (snow surfer), which was just a single ski with a rope on the nose back in 1966. It wasn't until the late 70's that Chuck and other creative surfers decided to improve on the idea and started designing boards with all the surfboard technology , fins, camber, channels etc.

According to Chuck, the reason snowboarding was invented was because a few surfers wanted to surf in the snow, they totally related it to surfing. If it wasn't for the influence of Chuck and a few others, we wouldn't have snoboarding.

Chuck was inducted into Transworld's snowboarding hall of fame in 1997.

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