David Allan about Elijah Mack: The man behind the Perfect Wave
When I was asked to write an introduction to this series of articles by Elijah Mack, I first felt the need to explain the significance of what Elijah is presenting to the surfing community for the benefit of all across the globe. The significance of Elijah’s achievements have occurred on more than one level.
First, as a pioneer, he has spread and united the fragmented communities in the early development of river surfing. Second, he has thought out the ultimate of effective technologies in developing the”Perfect Wave” form within moving water.
Through the history of surfing, there have been key impacts on the progress of surfing made by genius pioneers: those who originally brought surfing from Hawaii and spread it across the world, and those who have developed the new technologies that have exponentially raised the quality of the surfing experience. Elijah has stepped forth as a most recent of these genius pioneers who has done BOTH!
He thought out how the vectors could shape water into that “Perfect Wave”.
When I look back on my own life as a surfer, which spans over 60 years, I remember had the fortune of witnessing some of these impacts. We all know that surfing originated in Hawaii and how Duke Kahanamoku and George Freeth brought it to California where it expanded in popularity along the coast and later worldwide via Australia, France, South Africa, and beyond. However, to experience surfing, one had to go to the coastline, where the ocean provided the crucial element: the waves!
In my youth, the popularity of surfing had become a high-powered culture on the coast. It even had established its own music genre, which influenced the way I play my electric guitar. Then, in about 1967, a neighbor called me and my surfing friends over to his back yard. Strewn on the lawn were these strange “space machine” surf vehicles that were half the length of a regular surfboard of the time (now called “longboard”) and sported huge foiled, flexible fins and v-bottom hull designs. There, I met George Greenough, the pioneer genius who had invented these designs through the Physics concepts behind the vectors of velocity, acceleration, and force. And there, I also met Bob McTavish, an Australian “test pilot” who had incorporated these revolutionary concepts into the “space machine” surfboards I saw. That evening, I got to see the result at Rincon Point, as both of these pioneers tore across the huge walls of water at unseen velocity, accelerating into 180 degree turns and flying within and over liquid barrels with never-before-seen power!
Elijah extensively explored and worked to bring these emerging communities together into a new worldwide culture.
From that moment, I understood what was happening, and within a week, had built a surfboard of my own, which changed the way I surfed forever! From those days in the 60′s, surfing has expanded exponentially along the coasts of all the continents of the Earth. But, hidden elsewhere, far from the oceans and coastlines, were places where phenomena of moving water in rivers produced surfable waves of their own.
And like the Duke and George Freeth, I witnessed another such pioneer, Elijah Mack, who travelled to these hidden places to discover these inland waves, and connected with the emerging surfing communities that had begun the spread of surfing inland … Places like Munich, Switzerland, the Pacific Northwest, and the Canadian Rockies. Like his predecessors, Elijah extensively explored and worked to bring these emerging communities together into a new worldwide culture. Thus, River Surfing was born!
But that was not all. Elijah had that rare inner mind that could envision the Physics vectors behind the all that made river surfing possible. While Greenough and McTavish had developed the watercraft designs that harnessed the vectors of velocity, acceleration, and force, Elijah Mack’s mind delved into the vectors that created the surfing waves themselves from that unique chemical that covers our planet: WATER!
Elijah’s words are complex, but read them carefully.
He thought out how the vectors could shape water into that “Perfect Wave”! Now, through his designs, it has become possible to create a perfect surfing wave anywhere. So, in his articles that follow this introduction of mine, Elijah releases to all, the “secrets” of his inventive technology, so that it will be possible for surfing to spread to ANYONE, ANYWHERE!
Elijah’s words are complex, but read them carefully. For within his article is the incredibly simple and fundamental “magic formula” for anyone with the inspiration to bring it all to reality, just like I witnessed in ocean surfing 50 years ago.
Brought to you by
David Allan To David, as an artist, surfing is a form of artistic expression. At the time of the short board revolution, David was designing and shaping highly experimental boards. His deepest bond to the wave is the natural beauty that surrounds him, and he has found this beauty right here at the Payette River in Cascade, Idaho.
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