Dave Parmenter
// Interview Marcelo Diaz
Actual residence and shaping rooms. Aloha, I´m Dave Parmenter. Presently I live on the island of Kauai, after living in Makaha since 1994. I have two shaping rooms, one on Kauai and one in my hometown of San Luis Obispo, California. Does anybody can ask you for a custom board from anyplace of the world? Custom surfboards have always been available only to a clientele of friends and family, occasionally folding into the mix friends or relations of theirs. Other than Moondoggie’s Beach Club in San Luis Obispo, California, there is no place where my boards are available to the general public. For Stand-up Surfboards, my designs are offered exclusively through C4 Waterman. At C4, we only take custom orders on very rare occasions, reserving our limited production capacity for team boards, and developing and testing new models for our molded composite production models.
in an academic setting. I actually possess more knowledge about the history of motion pictures than I do about surfing. Writer for what surf and sup publications. Over the years I have written for all the major surfing magazines, including SURFER, SURFING, THE SURFER’S JOURNAL, and in Australia WAVES, SURFING WORLD, and TRACKS. Also a number of Japanese magazines. Have done a few things for one of the SUP magazines (can’t recall which one), but I do not read or watch anything to do with SUP, and have not read any surf media at all for many, many years. Why did you choose Kawaii for living. My wife’s family live on Kauai and we were fortunate enough to rent a spare residence on the island and get off an increasingly overcrowded Oahu.
Other interests
Do you paddle 6 men canoe?
Am active in all surf and paddle sports, especially OC1 (one-man outrigger canoes) and 4-man surfing canoes. Most of my SUP shaping goes into designing and testing race boards for myself or C4 Waterman team members. The most important pastime in my life is reading. I read on a wide range of topics, especially world history. I am interested in everything, and if I am not interested in something, I am interested in why I am not interested in it.
I have paddled in the OC6 class, mostly steering, but I prefer the OC1s or 4-man surfing canoes. OC6 boats are too heavy and too slow, and I am chiefly a surfer and like to ride bumps. In an OC6 the better the crew, the more you paddle; in an OC1 the better you get the less you paddle.
What did you study?
Too many surf toys to note, but my toolbox begins with a pair of DaFin swim fins and runs all the way up into the 1-man and 4-man canoes. Most of my shortboards are single-fins, and my longboards are classic/retro design. Have never gotten interested in super-short SUPs (never seen anyone surf well on them, and I mean anyone), and my preferred lengths are still 9’6” to 10’. I race 14-footers, and don’t care for the 12’6” class personally. As for open-class 16’+ racers with rudders and all that gear-------you might as well sit down already if you get that complex. ….An OC1 is better! And you can fly the ama!
Since I was a boy I have read about and studied aviation history and aeronautic theory. So I am self-taught on that subject, and have always applied what I have learned in that field to surfboard design-----not so much in the actual design of boards but more the basic principles of lift, drag, and thrust, and even more so in how that field solves its problems. I have studied film theory and literature most of my life, though not
Actual quiver.