Gates Foss first surfed the waves in Santa Barbara nearly 100 years ago, pioneering the sport at Rincon Point while diving for lobster and abalone off his homemade board. Since then, Santa Barbara has become an international surf destination and home base for numerous surfboard shapers whose innovations have pushed the sport to new heights.
Now there’s one location where this rich local history is being documented: the Santa Barbara Surf Museum, part of Surf N’ Wear’s Beach House on lower State Street. The museum is a passion project for Roger and Grayson Nance, the father-son shop owners, who hosted the museum’s grand opening on Wednesday, September 3. The event also honored the retirement of Renny Yater, the 93-year-old legendary surfboard shaper.
“Seeing Renny retiring and getting older, I was like, hang on … all these stories he’s been telling me for the last 10 years, if we don’t write them down and put them on the wall, they’re gone,” Grayson said.