Jersey Shore Magazine

J e r s e y s h o r e • S p r i n g 2 0 1 8 8 It was Luthringer. When he emerged from the water, Hale went over and began a con- versation with him. "I said to Rich that he couldn't leave the beach unless he sold that surfboard to me because you couldn't find longboards anywhere, and Rich had made this board in his garage," said Hale. The sale of that eight-foot, eleven-inch Luthringer mini-longboard, which was the first of countless boards that Luthringer has built for Hale, led to a close friendship and years of fond memories. Through the evolution of surfing, things have almost come around full circle with regard to techniques and styles here on the East Coast, from classic longboard hot-dogging, to body boarding and body surfing, to short board shredding, and now, to the ever-popular stand-up paddle boarding movement. And Hale believes that Luthringer is a master of them all, which is quite unusual. "Rich is very unique in that he can cross surfing genres and excel in each, whether its classic longboard hotdogging, or short board shred- ding, or bigger wave riding, or stand up paddle boarding, Rich is a mas- ter in each one of those categories and can seamlessly toggle back and forth between them on any given day," Hale said. He explained that the equipment, skills, and timing courtesy of One Ocean Boulevard used for each type of surfing vary quite widely, which a lot of people might not realize. While there are exceptions, a surfer who masters one stylistic genre rarely is able to transfer those skills to another because of the vast differences. The exception though, according to Hale, is Luthringer. There's nothing either of them love more than sharing the waves with the people they care about the most. Their mutual love of longboarding has led to innumerable surf sessions together as well as with their chil- dren and families, and other lifelong buddies. "We have a kind-of frater- nal order of friends that we call the Sand Town Surfboarding Society, and Rich has been one of our co-captains since our inception," Hale said with a smile. "Surfing is the glue that holds us together." The group derived its name from a mid-1800s map of the Barnegat Bay region, which shows the area between Ortley Beach and Seaside Park as "Sand Town," the name used for today's Seaside Heights before it was incorporated into a municipality. The society boasts an impres- sive roster. In addition to Hale and Luthringer, it includes East Coast surf legends and hall of famers Greg "Grog" Mesanko, "Big Jeff" Deron, Jimmy Purpuri, and drop-knee turn style master and team co-captain, Buck "Buckminster" Walters. All of them (minus Hale and Deron) were featured in Catherine Brabec's award winning 2013 film A Life The new One Ocean Boulevard condominiums in Seaside Heights. BEACHCOMBER continued from page 7 The original order form showing the basic design of the display longboard. A foam "blank" is custom fabricated and painstakingly transformed by hours of hand shaping and tool- ing into a finished board that is ready for fiberglassing.

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