Tom Morey: the inventor of the bodyboard shows his creation

Geniuses are rare, but people like Tom Morey are even more scarce. Let's duck dive into the exotic, colorful, and exciting life of bodyboarding's mastermind.

The man who invented the bodyboard - and many other revolutionary surf items and designs - is the ultimate dreamer of the dream.

Tom Morey's brilliant mind has always been free to create, improvise, and experiment. Not because he could but because he had to and needed to.

A quick look at his biography tells you why this intrepid engineer-inventor-entrepreneur is one of the most influential people in the history of surfing.

Thomas Hugh Morey changed the lives of millions of wave-riding enthusiasts.

His vision and relentless attitude towards life materialized in an incredible sports object that is simultaneously simple and groundbreaking.

Tom Morey: smile, you're a surfing genius

Surfer, Inventor, Musician, and Philosopher

Let us not forget that boogie boarding pushed and improved surfing.

So, without further ado, we invite you to explore a few fascinating facts about bodyboarding's chameleon king. Right, it could only be Tom Morey:

1. Tom Morey was born a long way from the ocean, in Detroit, Michigan;

2. In 1965, Tom Morey organized California's first professional surf contest: the Tom Morey Invitational, also known as Tom Morey Noseriding Contest, delivered $1,500 in prize money;

3. Tom Morey hates the term "bodyboarder";

4. Tom Morey started bodysurfing on his dad's back when he was only eight years old;

5. Tom Morey began surfing in Southern California when he was 17;

6. Tom Morey opened a surf shop in Ventura in the late 1950s;

7. Tom Morey pioneered and invented the concave nose pocket (1954), the wing-tipped nose (1955), and a removable skeg system (1964);

8. Tom Morey invented the bodyboard because his garage was full of flexible, waterproof PE foam leftovers, and he had no money to buy new surfboards;

9. Marchia Nichols, Tom's wife, was the second person to ride the bodyboard. She was eight months pregnant;

10. Tom Morey has always considered himself a surfer;

11. In the mid-1960s, Tom Morey teamed up with Karl Pope to develop a three-piece traveling surfboard;

12. Tom Morey worked as an engineer for Douglas Aircraft and Boeing;

13. In 1999, Tom Morey issued a press release announcing he was changing his name to "Y" because "it's easy to say and hear" and because he considered "the symmetric look of 'Y' quite pleasing";

14. Tom Morey married twice and had six children;

15. In 1970, Tom Morey joined the Bahá'í Faith, a religion that emphasizes the spiritual unity of all humankind;

16. In 2000, Tom Morey designed and developed Swizzle, a polypropylene foam noseriding surfboard with parabolic rails;

17. Tom Morey once worked at Disneyland;

18. Tom Morey is a prolific drummer and also plays the ukulele. When he was young, he wanted to play the trumpet, but his musical instructor told him, "Sorry, your lips are too thick";

19. In 1966, Tom Morey produced the world's first paper surfboard;

20. Tom Morey sees many people in his dreams, but "one of the guys I see quite often is Miki Dora";


Words by Luís MP | Founder of SurferToday.com

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