SANTA CRUZ — Doug Haut has done a lot to shape the surfing culture of Santa Cruz, in more ways than one.
In the literal sense, he has constructed, or “shaped,” an estimated 30,000-plus surfboards since 1965 through his business Haut Surfboards, which he continues to this day. In the figurative sense, he has helped shape the surfing community by supplying countless aspiring and veteran surfers with boards that have been a major part of their lives.
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In any sense of the word, Haut is a master shaper. He is marking 60 years of building boards with a special anniversary line to be made available in August.
Haut, 85, has created anniversary lines every 10 years but has indicated this will be his final anniversary line and that the boards will be made exclusively for collectors.
“They’ll be the essence of 60 years of shaping,” he said. “They’ll be mainly wall hangers, they won’t surf these boards.”
Haut began surfing in Pleasure Point in the late ’50s where he met fellow surfer and longtime friend Richard Novak. In the ’60s, Haut went to another surf destination, Hawaii’s North Shore, where he tutored under legendary surfboard shaper Mike Diffenderfer. After returning to Santa Cruz in 1965, he opened his own shop in a rented barn on Rodeo Gulch.
“I was shaping boards for a couple people before that,” said Haut. “I got a real good clientele, and I decided to open my own shop.”
Novak described that initial space as “pretty funky” with chicken coops and dirt floors, but Haut said the rent was good at $25 a month. After a few years, Haut moved his shop to Swift Street where it remains today. The store is one of nine vintage local surf shops highlighted in “Princes of Surf 2025: Heʻe Nalu Santa Cruz,” an exhibit at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History commemorating the history of surfing in Santa Cruz, which will be on display through January.
Haut said the peak period of surfboard building was the ’80s and ’90s.
Doug Haut poses with a surfboard made in 1995 to commemorate 30 years of shaping surfboards. This year, he is working on a 60th anniversary line to be made available to collectors in August. (Nick Sestanovich — Santa Cruz Sentinel)
“I sold boards on the East Coast: Rhode Island, Maryland, Florida, Texas,” he said. “We were making quite a few boards. That all kind of dried up. I just did local stuff (afterward).”
Throughout the past 60 years, Haut has worked to adapt to changes in surfboard design trends.
“The designs are constantly evolving from longboards to shortboards back to longboards again,” he said. “There’s always something new coming up.”
A particular favorite board of Haut’s was the five-fin pumpkin seed board, described in Surfer magazine as “the Swiss Army knife of surfboards” and lauded for user-friendliness for all surfing levels and responsiveness to surfers. However, he likes all kinds of boards.
“The pumpkin seed was a good wear,” he said. “The classic longboard was a good wear — it was an all-around longboard, fit all kinds of conditions.”
When shaping boards, Haut takes several factors into consideration, including aptitude and body weight.
“There’s so much involved,” he said. “There’s so many critical points that some of my clients have. They want it, so I try to get it for them.”
Novak said Haut has always been good at adapting boards for different surfing climates.
“Boards for Santa Cruz have certain secrets to them as opposed to a board for Hawaii or a board for Southern California because the waves are all different,” he said. “Doug was a shaper that could adapt his shapes to wherever you’re surfing.”
As more boards started being shaped on computers, Haut adapted to that as well.
“I had a long time to learn it, but the results were really good,” he said. “I cut out a lot of the grunt work as far as taking foam off, and the machines do all that so I end up with a color that’s pretty close to what I want and I just fine-tune it after that.”
Haut also likes how sophisticated shaping technology has become.
“The software’s becoming more intricate and refined, and the machines are getting better too,” he said.
Along with Novak and Jay Shuirman, Haut helped co-found NHS Inc., a manufacturing company that distributes numerous skateboard, snowboard and surfboard products. Its most popular brand is Santa Cruz Skateboards, recognized worldwide for its iconic logo and artwork created by Jim Phillips.
Novak said that shapers like Haut are artists as well.
“Doug was in the forefront of all that,” he said. “His designs and his surfboards and his windsurfers, all the stuff he did, he was very advanced in custom, and he chose to do the independent route. A lot of his stuff that was designed was picked up by other shapers who had more mass production.”
For the 60th anniversary, NHS is working on a line of T-shirts and Haut is designing commemorative boards in his signature style and bump models, and he plans to make them available mainly for collectors.
“Serious collectors collect these things,” he said. “Like anything that’s collectible, the value goes up as the years go by, so long after I’m gone, I expect they’ll be pretty expensive at an auction or something like that if they want to sell them.”
Haut said most of the people he has sold boards to so far have indicated they want to keep them.
In terms of what he is most proud of in his career, Haut said it has been all of it.
“It’s been really fun doing all this,” he said.
For inquiries regarding the boards, email [email protected].