Longboards

Dick put everything he knew about surfing and design into his boards. Hobie had hired Dick to shape big wave boards exclusively, paying him twice as much per board than he did any of his other shapers. In a small shop on a back street of Wahiawa Oahu, Dick built every Hobie Dick Brewer Model Gun. Shaping, glassing, sanding and glossing every board he built in Hawaii himself. In late '65 he spent a few months in Dana Point doing production shaping, building just a few Brewer Models in California.

The year went well and after a prosperous summer for Hobie, Jeff Hakman won the "DUKE" on a Hobie Brewer Model. Soon after the contest, however, Brewer's relationship with Hobie ended. Dick had requested a $10,000 R&D allowance from Hobie so he could develop a new model called "Summer Semis" and was turned down. Shortly after leaving Hobie, Brewer spent a few months shaping boards at Harbour Surfboards in Seal Beach.

Needing to get back to Hawaii, Brewer decided to go to Kauai and set up shop in Hanapepe. Shortly after his arrival on Kauai, he was approached by Fred Schwartz and recruited to build Bing Pipeliners at Surfline for Bing Surfboards. The Bing Company really wanted Dick on their design team and they pursued him to the extent that Bing Copeland and Duke Boyd flew over to Hawaii to bring him into the family. As a gift of welcome they presented him with a polished Skil 100 planer that was later to become the "Sword of Hercules." An appropriate gift to a man at the top of his craft. Thus became the Bing Pipeliner era.

Bing absorbed the entire Dick Brewer Surf Team, and life was beautiful for Dick Brewer. It was at Bing where Dick's shapes evolve, culminating in the now classic "Mini-Gun" and "David Nuuhiwa Model." After his successful era with Bing, Dick returned to Hawaii and founded companies in Wahaina Maui and Hanapepe Kauai. During this period he continued his work on the Mini-gun and continued to shape shorter boards. One notable board he developed during this period he called the "flip-tip." Ridden by Reno Abellira, the "flip-tip" was the sensation of the '69 Huntington Beach contest.

Shortly after, Dick tried to strike up a relationship with Larry Gordon of G&S surfboards, and went so far as to travel to California and teach his shapers how to create his designs. In fact, he even gave G&S his templates. But this new relationship came to an abrupt halt when Dick was denied reimbursement for some travel expenses he presented to G&S. The very next day Dick Brewer Surfboards was born.

Dick went back to Hanapepe, on the south side of Kauai, where he spent the better part of the next ten years in seclusion developing new shapes and designs with Gerry Lopez. Dick and Gerry would shape a new model and take it out to a little known Kauai surfspot near Hanapepe called "Pakalas" to test it out. Even though these underground shapes would eventually enter into and transform the surfing world, the 70's also brought with them a tremendous amount of turmoil for Dick and it kept Dick Brewer Surfboards from taking off.

To make matters worse, in 1975 Dick lost his son Keoki in a tragic car accident. Struggling to understand why Keoki was taken from him, Dick's marriage suffered and eventually ended in divorce. Once again faced with a crossroads, Dick Brewer put his trust in surfing. With his love of surfing firmly established and a new found understanding of the power of meditation to guide him, Dick continued to grow as a shaper, producing some magical boards during this revolutionary era.