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Originally Posted by HobieMarty
Love the lightning bolt!!! I've got a genuine Lightning Bolt chain and still have the little bag it came in. The bag says "Lightning Bolt A Pure Source". By the way, we had a 1st Gen Vega GT when I was a kid.
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Thanks for the post and Lightning Bolt content, Marty!
Many already know this but if not, the whole Lightning Bolt fad came about when a group of surfers on the North Shore of Hawaii started putting lightning bolts on the deck of their boards. It was more than that, of course. A certain board maker started doing it as his logo and it caught on - especially when the surfers riding those boards did so well on the global stage in the early days of professional surfing.
The surfer most associated with the brand is of course The Master,
Gerry Lopez. Also known as Mr. Pipeline.
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While in Hawaii, and together with other shapers, Lopez started the Lightning Bolt Surfboards brand of high performance shortboards. Lopez created the simple but eye catching Lightning Bolt jag, which became extremely popular in the 1970s. This brand was the first one to sponsor team riders with free boards, partially because many of the riders didn't have the money to buy them.
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My buddies and I were just freaking teenagers who read every surf magazine when it came out and attended every surf flick when it came to town, so we just went crazy with the whole "bolt" thing and many of us starting having them put on our boards - even though they were made by local surfboard makers, not the one in Hawaii, but we didn't care - it was not only cool but heck it might have even made the boards go faster!
So that bolt painted on the back of my Vega is just an extension of all of this.
But we also wore the surfwear - all of it. OP, Quicksilver, Bolt, Stubbies, Rip Curl, Hang Ten, Katins, O'Neil, and a whole bunch of other brands.....and I still have some of them stashed away.
I still have a nice Bolt ski vest with removable sleeves, for example!
Check out these Quicksilver and Bolt cord shorts.....all size 36!
Also the board I took to Puerto Rico with the bolt. Gray with yellow deck and black bolt!
