Three-time international surfing champ Corky Carroll answers your questions each week. To hit him up, e-mail him at corkysurf@aol.com

Q.  You are kind of like a living history book on surfing.  How would you compare big wave riders of yester-year, like Greg Noll, to Laird Hamilton?

A.  There is NO comparison at all.  Laird is in a league of his own when it comes to riding giant surf.  There has never been anyone like him before.  Greg was a great waterman.  Excellent diver and swimmer and had a lot of guts.  He had way more heart than real surfing skills and that allowed him to put himself into amazing situations and also lay claim to some of the greatest wipeouts in history.  He is a true legend.  But Laird is another thing.  Amazing talent combined with NO fear at all and a great imagination when it comes to riding moster sized waves.  He stands alone, period.

Q.  Why did they name the foam bodyboard a “boogie” board in the first place?

A.  Fantastic question.  That came from the deep and many chambered mind of its inventor,  Tom Morey.  That is why it is actually called a “Morey Boogie.”  There are some places where they only call them “Moreys.”  When he first showed me his original few boards and told me that these where his new “boogie boards” I asked him why the name.  He said because you can “boogie all over the waves with one.”  Well O.K. 

 I guess that made a lot of sense.  Whatever, they worked and the name worked and the rest is history. 

Q.  What is a “Bonzer?”  

A.  A clown on a cartoon show?  NO.  It is a surfboard design made popular by shapers Mike Eaton of San Diego and also the Campbell brothers up in Oxnard in the 1970’s. 
It was a real interesting shape and fin concept on short boards and later transcended into longboards too.  I don’t see many around anymore, but the concept is still valid.

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