Yater

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About Renny Yater

There are many master craftsmen that reside in our hometown here of Santa Barbara but only a few have made as strong an impact on design as Renny Yater. Hailing from the south in Laguna Beach and Pasadena, Yater began surfing at the age of 14 and started shaping at 21. His board-building prowess comes from apprenticing the likes of legendary shapers Hobie Alter and Dale Velzy in the late 50s and in 1959, moved up north and opened the Santa Barbara Surf Shop. Yater early on in his business career that he would keep his operation small, allotting more time to creating and designing efficient, purpose-driven surfboards. His most famous contribution to design is his model the Yater Spoon. By integrating design characteristics of Santa Barbara legend George Greenough, Yater created a thinner, lighter-weight and more maneuverable longboard that became an instant classic among surfers at the time. Yater has been featured in a small number of films such as Surf Crazy (1959), Big Wednesday (1961), and Surfing Hollow Days (1963). In the film, Apocalypse Now (1979), the lead character Colonel Kilgore, played by Robert Duvall, can be seen wearing a classic Yater Santa Barbara Surf Shop t-shirt and yelling to his comrades to “grab my Yater spoon!”. The fin templates that we offer designed by Yater are a direct influence of his surroundings here in Santa Barbara and the culture he was a product of growing up in Southern California in the 60s.