Tom Morey, inventor of the Boogie Board and Ben Franklin of browsing, dies at 86

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“It was Morey who launched extra human beings to the act of wave using than another single individual in historical past,” mentioned Jim Kempton, president of the California Surf Museum. “That is fairly an accomplishment if you concentrate on it, thousands and thousands and thousands and thousands of individuals have ridden waves, and I’d say that an enormous variety of them began out on his innovations.”

Morey died on Thursday.

Morey was born August 15, 1935, in Detroit, however he moved to Laguna Seaside early in his childhood and picked up browsing. By the point he was 12, he had his first paying job as a musician, later finding out music on the College of Southern California, the place he won a national contest for his jazz band.

Whereas pursuing browsing as a interest, he took a job at Douglas Plane, however he later began the surf store Morey-Pope & Co. in Ventura.

In 1965, he placed on the Tom Morey Invitational surf event, the primary ever skilled browsing competitors with prize cash, mentioned Barry Haun, curator and inventive director on the Browsing Heritage and Tradition Middle.

The creator of the Boogey Board

In between browsing and taking part in drums at resorts, he got here up with an concept for a foam board, in accordance with SurferToday. He reduce in half a bit of froth, formed it with an iron and rounded the nostril to create a three-pound board. For reference, surfboards on the time weighed between 30 and 50 kilos, which regularly led to accidents throughout wipeouts.

“The Boogie Board primarily turned that form of delicate floor and that security issue into one thing that was additionally purposeful for top efficiency,” Kempton mentioned.

Morey examined out his invention in Hawaii, the place he was dwelling on the time. After a profitable first trip, his spouse Marchia examined it out — whereas eight months pregnant, in accordance with SurferToday. This may quickly change into the Boogie Board, or as he first known as it, the SNAKE — which stood for facet, navel, arm, knee and elbow.

The primary Boogie Board offered for a grand $10 — which he got here up with on the spot after somebody tried to purchase one, in accordance with the Washington Post. However upon transferring again to California, he manufactured them in bulk for $37, as a result of that was his age on the time.

The Boogie Board may very well be utilized by most individuals, in accordance with Kempton. Due to the board’s versatility and ease, many within the browsing group put a divide between the bodyboarders and surfers. Morey, although, adamantly opposed the separation, Kempton mentioned.

However regardless of the Boogie Board’s immense success, with thousands and thousands of gross sales worldwide, he didn’t make a lot revenue from it. He offered his firm and trademark in 1977, and it was later picked up by Wham-O toy firm. Morey served as a marketing consultant for Wham-O for a number of years, earlier than working as an engineer for 15 years at Boeing.

“Tom’s invention of the Boogie Board not solely modified the panorama for Wham-O in 1978, the Boogie Board opened the potential for nearly anybody to have the ability to get pleasure from browsing a wave anyplace on the planet,” firm’s president Todd Richards wrote in an e-mail to CNN.

A supportive determine, on and off land

All this time, although, he cared for everybody round him, all of the whereas persevering with to share his concepts with the world.

“Anyone he met, he at all times completely took them in, and he was absorbed, and he was influential to these individuals,” mentioned his son Sol Morey. “He gave them free thought and helped them enhance what they had been doing.”

“He inspired individuals, he praised individuals, as a result of lots of people after they get into a college they usually do not fall into the precise area of interest that the academics are educating in, you are shedding half of your inhabitants to such dogmatic methods of how we predict everyone’s obtained to slot in a bit of field, in order that’s why all these individuals love him a lot,” his spouse Marchia instructed CNN.

Mike Stewart, a nine-time World Champion bodyboarder, instructed CNN that his entire universe was influenced by Morey, who accepted him with open arms and facilitated his development within the sport. Stewart was with him in testing out lots of his creations, and he sees Morey as an “unparalleled” determine not simply in wave using however in artistic considering.

The Thomas Edison of browsing

Though he stopped browsing in his late 70s, Morey by no means stopped inventing. Virtually 20 years earlier than creating the Boogie Board, he created a “wing tip” surfboard design after determining that the surfboard could get into waves higher if the nostril was turned barely up.

In 1965, he manufactured a “paper surfboard” and managed to promote it in a tv industrial and on a two-page unfold in Reader’s Digest.

The Edison-like or Ben Franklin-like determine, as described by his spouse, patented a soft-bodied surfboard that he known as the Swizzle board, in addition to a surfboard that folded right into a suitcase. He’s additionally credited with popularizing the detachable fin in order that boards may journey simpler.

“He by no means rested on his laurels. He was at all times form of on the lookout for that subsequent invention that may make browsing simpler and higher,” mentioned Haun.

His love for music by no means stopped. Earlier in his profession, he performed alongside jazz legends corresponding to Dizzy Gillespie and Stu Williamson. He led jazz bands all of the up till his 80s. Actually, the title for the Boogie Board got here from his love of music.

He made his final public look simply two weeks in the past on October 6 in celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of the Boogie Board.

He’s survived by his spouse Marchia Nicholas Morey; Melinda Morey, a daughter from his first marriage to Jolly Givens; 4 sons from his second marriage named Sol, Moon, Sky, and Matteson Morey; 5 grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren.

“There’s a tribe of individuals that aren’t essentially simply surfers however ocean individuals who really feel a connection to the ocean as a supply of all issues, and that was a typical language that I do know I had with my dad,” Melinda Morey mentioned. “If I ran up into any form of generational issues making an attempt to elucidate one thing to him, I may at all times use the ocean as a metaphor, and say in a means that he may perceive.”

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