John “JC” Carper’s relationship with surfboards surpasses the ocean. One of the world's best shapers, JC has designed and crafted thousands of surfboards, and spent countless hours hand-shaping each piece to perfection—but perhaps more than the boards themselves, it is the tales of those who have ridden his creations that continue to drive his passion.

Jason Kuok (Editor): We’re curious to know—how did you first get into shaping as a line of work? 

John Carper: It happened at a historical pivot point in the surf world, back in 1966. I was in Maui going to college, when we were all riding longboards. We grew up on them, nobody had anything different. There was no such thing as a short board then. 

I was out surfing one day when I saw a car drive up. Two guys got out of it and pulled boards off the cars that I thought were kneeboards. It was Nat Young and Bob McTavish from Australia—actually maybe it was Paul. Anyway, these guys were what we called ‘feral’, surfing “Animal Style”. They’re tearing these waves apart on these really short boards. And I think, what is this? I watched them surf and I literally became ashamed of my own surfing—not my skill level, but the way I was surfing. 

This was the future of surfing. They’d come from Australia to Hawaii on their way to San Diego for the World Surfing Championship 1966. I paddled in because I didn't want to surf in front of them anymore. And I watched them for about an hour. I had a brand new Donald Takayama three stringer and decided that I wanted to make it real short. Now I'd seen guys like Greg Knoll shape when we were kids—we used to watch them from outside their garage— but I'd never actually made a board. 

So I stripped the fiberglass off my board and shaved it all down. I told the old Japanese lady at the hardware store that I wanted to shape and fiberglass my surfboard. She gave me some boat resin and told me how to mix the catalyst. I pulled it off and I made something that day. I told Donald [Takayama] later on. He laughed about it. Now that I think of it, a vintage Takayama three stringer is probably worth $30,000 today. 

The next week, Nat Young beat David Nuuhiwa at the contest. It was a shock to the entire surf world because nobody could really understand what these guys were doing. Then maybe five to six months later, virtually every guy who owned a longboard was talked into shaping it into a shortboard. It was a revolution like we’d never seen in surfing. 

Then I think it was around 1980, because I was there when Simon Anderson brought the first tri-fin surfboard to Hawaii for one of the first Pipe Masters competitions. Most guys were riding twin-fins or single fins. Mark Richards rode a single fin because he was backside at Pipe and nobody could get twin fins to go backside. So, Simon Anderson shows up with a fin in the middle. He just figured it out—‘I’ll just stick the fin in the middle’. I met him then and we became really super good friends. 

I went back home and stuck middle fins in my boards, and from then on, I'd say for three or four years, we didn't make a single twin-fin for anybody.