The Surfers Journal
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It isn’t easy to write about Bill Caster.
There is no “perfect storm” peak in his life. Unlike some of his friends from his youth, Butch Van Artsdalen and Mike Hynson, no single accomplishment of Caster’s ever equaled conquering the Banzai Pipeline or starring in history’s greatest surf film.
Without an official declaration of biggest or best, onlookers tend to turn the channel rather than the page. And while Caster’s accomplishments may not be ostentatious, they are significant, numerous, and consistent. His boards, and how he rode them, reflect his character perfectly: no excess, solid, dependable, stylish.
Solid. Dependable. Stylish. Words that define man and master.
Caster ranks with a small, elite group of San Diego surfer-shapers: Skip Frye, Hynson, and Donald Takayama. In his teens, he equaled the aforementioned figures in wave-riding and board-making ability, only to fall behind them in adulthood after focusing most of his energy on work and family. Nevertheless, while his surfing suffered to a degree, he became a conductor for his top riders: Chris O’Rourke, who was widely considered the best surfer in California in the mid-1970s, and, later, Richard Kenvin.
In many ways, Caster’s story is incomplete without including O’Rourke. They were a one-two punch and an unstoppable unit before tragedy offered a one-two counterpunch. In 1977, a then-17-year-old O’Rourke, already married with a child, was diagnosed with an advanced case of Hodgkin’s disease (now called Hodgkin’s lymphoma).
Months before his death in 1981 at 22 years old, O’Rourke paddled his broken body and a new signature model he’d worked to develop with Caster out to Windansea’s Right Hooker. He could barely walk by that point, but, relying on instinct and muscle memory, he managed to get slotted in the section he knew better than anyone. On shore, he placed his board gently on his towel and croaked through chemo-fried vocal cords, “Bill makes the best boards.” Unbeknownst to any of us at the time, Caster would soon follow in O’Rourke’s painful footsteps.
During the final months of his life, O’Rourke often spoke about Caster’s character and the surfboards he made. I was close with O’Rourke toward the end, and, between prayers to live, he often said, “Casters go faster,” a phrase I later saw waxed on the path to Trestles.
Caster and I became friends through O’Rourke in the early 1980s. We surfed together occasionally and often discussed how he sometimes felt at odds with a world that increasingly devalued integrity. He could not understand how anyone could cheat or cut corners in craftsmanship or life. To my knowledge, he never did.
I interviewed Caster several times but found the efforts disappointing—though not because he had nothing to say. On the contrary. He had witnessed and participated in the rise of San Diego surfing, initially through his uncle, Lloyd Baker, one of the first surfboard shapers in San Diego County. He had stories.
The problem was, in conversation he continually shifted the spotlight from himself onto his friends or even his competitors. Realizing I might learn more about Caster through his art than his words, I instead began to examine the hand-shaped evidence of his beautifully airbrushed channel bottoms, a pure white gun, and an immaculate balsa board.
I remember that the latter two masterpieces contained no wings, no airbrush, and, like all his boards, no excessive material. All that remained were pieces of pure, sculpted artistry, designs that were nearly enough to describe Bill Caster, the man.
In the end, the most significant mark Caster left was not his work on surfboards, but an invisible yet indelible one worn by his family, team riders, employees, distributors, and many friends. Caster passed away on March 1, 1983. His wife, Laura, passed away on November 11, 1999. Their four children, David, Heidi, Heather, and Daniel, continue to carry the family name and ethos.
Since my old cassette recordings of my conversation with Caster have disintegrated, I asked his friends and family to revisit his life. To get the complete picture, his daughter Heidi set up a lunch at the Roxy Encinitas.
Heidi, her brother David, and a handful of Caster’s best friends were invited. In an emotional reunion, those present discussed a father, a friend, a mentor, and a hero who quietly and consistently influenced San Diego surfing and surfboard design.
Hank Warner • Shaper
Bill learned to shape from his Uncle Lloyd in the late 1950s. Lloyd was probably the first custom surfboard shaper in San Diego. He owned Select Surfboards [no relation to Phil Castagnola’s Select Surf Shop]. Lloyd made balsa surfboards, but when Billy got into shaping, balsa was going out of style. Eventually, Bill started Olympic Surfboards with Joe Berger in 1961 or 1962. He made foam boards from then on. Regardless of what he made or rode, he was a fantastic surfer and paddler who anchored the undefeated Windansea Surf Club paddle team that included Butch Van Artsdalen, Rusty Miller, and Mike Burner.
David Caster • Son
One day, Dad was shaping in Uncle Lloyd’s Mission Hills garage when JFK, who was campaigning for president at the time, heard the planer and stopped to discover what was happening. The Secret Service agents were freaking out because Kennedy had made an unscheduled detour to check out some guy making surfboards.
Heidi Caster • Daughter
Another brush with fame for Dad came when Bruce Brown asked him to join him on a trip to shoot The Endless Summer. That was because Mike [Hynson] apparently didn’t have the money to travel. Once Hobie loaned the money to Mike, he went instead of Dad.
Ernie Higgins • Laminator for Caster Surfboards from 1976 to 1982
Bill was a perfectionist. When we did some of the first channel bottoms in the US, everyone, including us, had bubbles in their channels. I say that to my detriment because I was the laminator. I’d arrive at six-thirty in the morning and Bill would be there, drilling out every little air bubble before patching them.
Tim Bessell • Shaper
Billy would make me re-template every nose and tail when I worked for him—something that not even the most particular board makers ever made me do. Bill’s goal was to make the best boards possible. I worked extra hard to try to attain that.
Eric “Bird” Huffman • Owner of Bird’s Surf Shed
When I first met Bill, I was 13. I looked up to him as an idol before I got to know him as a friend. He gave me advice, and I watched how he lived and I learned just by osmosis. It turned into one of the most solid friendships I’ve ever had. When I first began hanging around him, I would go to his shaping room, and he would show me a board and ask, “What’s wrong with it?” I would say, “It looks perfect to me.” It took four or five years of him talking me through this before I could also tell if something was slightly off. I remember one famous shaper coming into Bill’s factory with his shaped blanks. He threw them onto the carpet in Bill’s shaping room for Bill to finish, and these boards needed work. The stringers weren’t taken down, but Bill would do everything to make them as good as possible. He did that for anyone’s boards that came through the shop. Bill might have had a disenfranchised upbringing, but I think once he found surfboards, he threw everything he had into making them and into his family and his relationships. From surfboards to skateboards, whatever he built, he gave it his all.
Skip Frye • Shaper
The surfboard-building scene was pretty competitive in San Diego in the ’60s and ’70s. Hynson and I were getting all the magazine attention, and maybe that’s why Bill and I never hooked up much. I don’t know, but he deserved a lot of recognition. He was a good surfer, and his boards were as good as anyone’s.
Derek Hynd • Journalist
From the moment Hank [Warner] walked me through the factory door 45 years ago, I saw, in contemporary parlance, that Caster the surfboard manufacturer and Caster the person were an encapsulating biodome— something worth way more than industry or mood. Very simply, he felt more like the heart of surfing than anything I’d experienced until that time. He was atypical of the industry at large, which isn’t a reflection of San Diego but of the global expanse.
Richard Kenvin • Journalist
Had Chris O’Rourke not become sick, Tom Curren and Mark Occhilupo would have been battling a very experienced O’Rourke for dominance. Then Channel Islands/Curren and Rusty/Occy would have been fighting Caster/O’Rourke for market share. That never happened, because both Chris and Bill got cancer and passed away. By the time I came along, Chris was pretty sick but still ripping. In 1978-79, he was riding very progressive, under-6-foot Goodrum G-wings that he let me borrow. At the time, I surfed on Rusty’s Canyon Surfboards. They were excellent, but Chris always said I should switch to Caster. As you know, Chris was a strong personality and very persuasive. All any of us ever wanted was for Chris to recover from cancer. I got fifth in the Stubbies Pro at Lowers in 1980 on a 6’0″ roundtail single-fin Bill made for me. It was an okay result, but a healthy O’Rourke would have won that contest.
Hank Warner
When I learned to shape, Bill gave me my first planer. People said how great my boards looked, but it turned out Billy was finishing them without telling me. His mom passed away when she was 22, while giving birth to his sister, Carol. Bill then lived with his Aunt Rose and his Uncle Lloyd. He was still a teenager, caring for his grandfather, putting him on the pot, and wiping his butt. Being a little kid, I thought that was gross, but Billy never thought about it. To him, that was just what you did.
Bird Huffman
He was excited about innovation. He made everything from gutter bottoms [channel bottoms] to [Gary] Goodrum G-wings. I have quite a few surfboards, and my favorite is a balsa Caster. When I asked Bill to shape it, he said, “No way, balsa’s a mess.” After asking him to make that board for two years, he finally said, “Okay, bring the blank by, and we’ll look at it.” Finally, he templated it and cut it out. A year went by, and then another. He ended up working on that board for eight years. It was nearly done except for the rails when he got sick and things went as they did for him. One day, he called me to say he couldn’t finish my board and said to go see Hank.
Hank Warner
There wasn’t much to finish after Bill got through with it. Anyone who’s ever made a balsa board realizes how hard it is to work with. For it to come out so well—I think it’s one of the finest-shaped wooden boards ever made.
Bird Huffman
Ernie [Higgins] glassed my balsa board, and Larry Gephart made the fins. It was a 14-year creation and the only time Bill couldn’t do something he said he would do for me. When I was young, I wanted so badly to be in magazines, because all my friends and brothers were there. Bill found a shot of me taken at Big Rock and put it in a Caster ad. What do you say about somebody like that? He was proud of his work, and his boards tell a lot about him. He was a lower-production shaper, but he was a production board builder. And he wouldn’t let boards go out that weren’t as good as he could make them. His dedication to perfection and the time and love he put into them were extraordinary. Getting a board handshaped by a master shaper is the cheapest thing in the world. Bill once told me that a surfboard costs about a penny a wave.
Hank Warner
Bill was going out with my sister, Laura, but they split up once. After that, he went out with Ms. Pacific Beach, Andrea La Pointe. Not long afterward, he was back on our floor, watching TV. I was a little punk kid, saying, “Billy, you were going out with Ms. PB. Why would you want to marry my sister?” He said, “You marry somebody you can spend your whole life with.”
Heidi Caster
There are endless stories about someone who busted their board before Dad gave them his. He paid his employees before he paid himself, even though his family could have used the money. Then, every so often, he would close the shop and take all the employees on a ski trip to Mammoth.
Hank Warner
In 1984, Billy boxed up four board boxes and headed to the annual Surf Expo in Orlando, Florida. Once he was there, he noticed a slight hernia feeling. It increased until Billy could barely press the gas pedal on his rental car. He eventually pulled into an urgent care, where the doctor gave him muscle relaxers. The pain persisted, and when Billy returned home, Laura drove him to the hospital, where the doctor diagnosed appendicitis. However, when they opened him up, they found a healthy pink appendix and, just behind it, a fist-sized tumor that had burst. The prognosis was not good. Billy had seen what chemotherapy did to O’Rourke, so he sought an alternative in a clinic in the Bahamas. They had a record of curing around 15 percent of the patients who arrived there with a 100 percent terminal diagnosis. Billy figured this was his only chance at survival, but finances weren’t available. So the surfing community— mostly his competitors in the industry—raised $18,000 in less than a week. This enabled Bill and Laura to fly to the clinic. Once there, the Casters rented a van that they used to shuttle people to and from the clinic. Life stories were discussed in the van. When a banker from Pennsylvania heard how much money the surf industry had raised for Billy’s treatments, he said, “I work in a bank, and nobody gave me any encouragement or anything for my treatment. Surfers are wonderful people.” After five or six weeks of treatment, the Bahamian military, shouldering rifles, converged on the clinic and shut it down. A patient who was the son of a powerful politician appealed to the WHO [World Health Organization] to close it after his son contracted hepatitis, even though the clinic had nothing to do with that.
Richard Kenvin
Bill was nice but serious. Together, we designed a series of wing swallow twin-fins with trailers that I kind of feel we came up with—a popular and very functional design. He had everything invested in his work and wanted to succeed—not to get rich, but to take care of his family and workers. He’d let me know I was screwing up if I did stupid, irresponsible stuff. It was all colored by what happened with Chris. It was a tragic, stressful, and tumultuous time in many ways. Circumstances were very difficult. Bill helped me, and I tried to help him, but our relationship seemed trivial and stunted in the context of what was happening with Chris and how that affected Bill and the rest of the community. Chris believed in Bill 100 percent: “Casters are the best boards in the world. No question.” That was Chris’ attitude. There was an obvious father/son relationship between them. Chris needed that. Those two had so much potential together. Sometimes it seems incredibly harsh and cruel that they were both fated to die young of a terrible disease. My time with them always seems incomplete and stunted.
Bird Huffman
Bill was the greatest common man I’ve ever known.
[Feature Image Caption: Chris O’Rourke, Big Rock]
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