It has been more that three years since Dick Catri, the Godfather of East Coast Surfing, passed away. Always larger than life ,even in death, His legacy was celebrated in a paddle out at Monster Hole, a larger than life wave suitable to the Captain. Attended by hundreds, including many legends and and this out sized memorial paddleboard (13 ft long and 36″ wide) dedicated to Catri.
Ricky explains the story behind the board:
Okay I first received the blank from Kim Catri . Dick went into the hospital and she wanted to me to have it and I didn’t know what I was going to do with it. And then a few weeks later he passed so I didn’t know what to do and I decided to just make a board that Dick would have made out of that. He always wanted to shape himself a fishing board out of that blank and he carried that around for 40 years I was told, every factory and every place he went that blank went with him and he never got the shape it. So I just thought, you could do a tribute shape with his logos on it and do it for his Paddle out Memorial. I shaped it on Memorial Day. I was driving back from up the coast when I heard the news. When I pulled into the factory the blank was staring me in the face. I took it down and took it outside and start shaping it. We did it in like a week to get it done for the paddle out.
The Clark blank was made from a paddleboard blank that was cut in two with additional foam glued into the center to get the 36″ width. The Florida Surf Museum is grateful to Ricky for donating this important item to our collection. It will be proudly displayed in our future museum space.
awesome