Will Allison
Growing up near Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, it was only natural for Will Allison to take an interest in surfing. In 1964, there were just a few surfers riding waves in the area: Robert Parker, Mike Deep, Tommy Thompson and a handful of others. Allison watched in awe as these surfers carved waves, gliding across smooth faces of blue water. He had to be a part of it. “I had the surfing bug bad. Every block there was a wooden jetty, making perfect peaks,” said Allison.
In 1968, Allison competed in his first surf contest, winning the Novice division. After spending a few years surfing on Oahu’s North Shore, he landed in Louisiana working on an offshore surveying rig. It was Allison’s first time away from the ocean. In 1976, during a two-week break from work, he drove to Florida to surf. In Cocoa Beach, Allison’s good friend Pete Dooley, himself a surfboard shaper, suggested using his time off from the rig to shape a board.
Allison shaped his first board on the bayou in Louisiana. “I rode it and really liked it. I bought more blanks, learning during my time off,” Allison recalled. “Eventually, people I met wanted me to shape their boards.” Allison moved to St. Augustine, Florida, and made enough boards to go into business for himself. However after two years, he decided it was time to go back home to North Carolina.
Shaping boards and living in Wilmington’s Middle Sound didn’t stop Allison from traveling the globe to surf. He continued competing, winning the U.S. Surfing Championship twice. He surfed for the U.S. Team at the ISA World Championship in France alongside Tom Curren. Evidence of Allison’s success sits in a glass trophy case in his den — it sags from the weight of trophies, ribbons, and plaques. The walls are decorated with surfing pictures from trips to Hawaii, Costa Rica, Peru and Ecuador.
Allison eventually started shaping full-time with the label bearing his last name. He shaped close to three hundred boards a year and says it was an on-going learning process. “You have to take your time and try to do it right. I used to write down all the measurements, look at my notes and have it all thought out before I did it,” he says. His boards were branded with a seahorse emblem, and some were decorated with beautiful fabrics from Hawaii, where he vacationed with his family every summer and winter.
Allison says people who don’t surf just can’t understand what goes through a surfer’s mind when the waves are good. It’s as if the world stops and only the waves matter. Perhaps that’s why Allison’s favorite quote is, “Only a surfer knows the feeling.”
