Case Study 02 Liddle Surfboards

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Welcome to Case Study Two! In this episode we take a deeper dive into the mysterious world of displacement hulls by learning more about hull lord, Greg Liddle and what is now Liddle Designs.
Greg Liddle is a very private person and recently retired from shaping. Luckily his friend and business partner, Kirk Putnam is keeping Liddle surfboards alive by recreating replicas of Greg Liddle's boards with Scott Anderson of Anderson Surfboards at Aquatech Glassing based out of Hermosa Beach, California. Greg's hull designs have been slowly refined over the course of 50 years and most people in the surfing community would agree that he shapes some of the best displacement hulls around. There isn't necessarily a strict definition of what a displacement hull is but they generally have a deeply rolled, convex bottom contour, wide point forward, pulled in tail, very knifey rails, a s-deck, and low rocker profile. Displacement Hulls are just one style that exists in the vast universe of surfboard designs; that being said, it is cool to see a design make it through 50 years as there are not many designs that hold the surfing community's interest for that length of time while holding true to it's design characteristics. Granted displacement hulls surfers make up a small yet die hard subset of surf culture. Displacement hulls generally promote fast, down the line surfing with ease, style, and grace. We look forward to seeing this design continuing to spread beautiful surfing throughout surfing's future.
Cover photograph by Paul Ferraris