From John Hughes, Executive Director-
I recently found this photo by Roger Scruggs in the museum archive. In the photo is Roger’s sister, Patsy Scruggs. This was taken in the early 60’s in Cocoa Beach. What is unusual is that Patsy is riding a Tom Blake style hollow board. Roger states that these boards were built by a gentleman who primarily manufactured plywood sunfish type sailboats just outside of Orlando on State Road 50 (the only road to Orlando at the time). He only made these for a short time since modern fiberglass surfboards started appearing shortly afterward, making the Blake boards obsolete.
Patsy Scruggs on a wave in Cocoa Beach, Early 1960’s.
In an interesting coincidence, I was given a similar type of board nearly fifteen years ago as a gift from a friend (see photo below). He paid $10 for it at a garage sale in Cocoa. It measures about 8 feet long, which is quite short for this type of board. The origin of the board was always a mystery to me, but the similarities of the two boards are quite apparent; they even appear to be painted the same color. Later on I had local shaper and artist, Pat Madden, paint the logo on the board. It hung over the entrance to the museum for a number of years.
John Hughes’ hollow Blake style surfboard
Were these Blake type boards built by the same company? Probably, but we will probably never know for certain since there are no records of them (that I am aware of) and the name of the individual is not known.
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