He kept refining the designs and created a board he called the Egg, one of his best-known shapes.  As longboards nearly vanished overnight, Frye went with the flow, working on egg shapes and later experimenting with the Fish (his keel-fin, heavy-glassed split-tails remain in high-demand throughout So Cal).  Skip stayed with G&S until the mid-seventies and then struck out on his own to shape boards at the Green Room and at his own place called The Shack, behind Select Surf Shop in Pacific Beach.

In 1981 Skip returned to Gordon & Smith and also started competing again.  He left G&S in 1986 to join the crew at Diamond Glassing, and began shaping under his own business name, Skip Frye Surfboards.  It was here that he developed his iconic Diamond Frye Logo, a combination of wings and a diamond. In 1988 Skip and his wife Donna officially opened Skip Frye Surfboards, which was a small shaping room and front office that adjoined Windansea Surf Shop in Pacific Beach.  Skip began shaping and working on new fin configurations for longer boards, as he was a fan of the smooth glide the increased planning surface allowed. Through this work, he developed a variety of shapes, including the Eagle and Fish Simmons.

In November 1990, Skip and Donna left Windansea, moved across the street and opened Harry’s Surf Shop with longtime friend and fellow surfer/shaper Harry “Hank” Warner.  Harry’s was the namesake of not only Skip and Hank, but both their fathers and also Hank and Donna’s grandfathers.  Harry’s was not your typical surf shop; it was a combination retail store, surf museum, art gallery, shaping shop and political gathering place.  Photos of customers with their new boards lined the walls and art pieces and sculptures from local artists were prominently featured.

Skip’s career has had many twists and turns, however, he was never more energized than during the longboard revival.  “The biggest buzz I ever had in surfing was the early ’90s when I went back to the big ones,” he recalls. “I mean the 11-footers.  The same thing happened to Duke Kahanamoku when Tom Blake reintroduced him to the 16-foot olos back in the ’30s.”
Skip’s boards have slowly become collector’s pieces often passed down through generations.  Meanwhile, Skip continues his own tireless work for surfing’s constituency by collecting and building boards, his keel-fin fish being particularly popular.  “I feel it’s my duty to pass along the heritage of our sport,” he says with a passion.  But there’s still a long way to go, a lot of work to be done.”

“It took us, like, 45 minutes to get out there. And then when we did, we were facing these 25-foot waves with crazy cleanup sets.  I sat outside those guys for a while, but then I started getting pissed when they caught a bunch of waves,” Dorian recalls.

“About that time, the horizon went dark from this huge set and we started scratching.  I was too deep, but I wanted a wave so bad that I just flipped around and went on the first one.”  Shane launched over the falls, lost consciousness and then regained consciousness to find he could not feel his legs and was foaming at the mouth.  “I barely made it through that one, but it was a major turning point for me. As Brock said, it was the first time I realized that I was mortal.”

When he wasn’t tempting fate, Dorian engaged in much safer activities like charging Backdoor.  Surfing alongside a rapidly growing crew that included Kelly Slater, Rob Machado, Chris Malloy, Taylor Knox, Benji Weatherley and Conan Hayes, Dorian helped launch a new breed of surfing that included a whole bag of anti-gravity tricks combined with traditional carving and heavy-wave charging.  Dubbed the “New School” and well documented in Taylor Steele’s videos, the New School remained the established surfing order through the 90s.

Dorian joined the ASP World Tour in 1993 where he hovered outside of the top 10 for a number of years before cracking the barrier with a fourth-place finish in 2000.  Popular among surfers and fans, Shane finished runner-up to Kelly Slater in the 2000 Surfer Magazine Readers Poll Awards and finished 2nd in the prestigious 2001 Quiksilver in Memory of Eddie Aikau big wave contest.  Shane received the coveted “Waterman of the Year” award from SIMA in 2012, one of the sport’s highest honors.  Earlier this year, Shane Dorian went home with two awards for an unbelievable barrel ride at Jaws earlier this season, winning $55,000 for the Pacifico Tube and Billabong XXL Ride of The Year.

“Shane Dorian is one of the most famous and gifted Big Wave Surfers on the Planet and a true Surfing Legend,” said Surfers’ Hall of Fame founder Aaron Pai!  “Shane continues to inspire generations of Surfers.  We are stoked to be able to thank Shane Dorian for his achievements and contributions to our Surfing World and are happy and excited that he will be here for his induction into the Surfers’ Hall of Fame!”

Despite his notoriety and commercial success, Fig is a surfer first and foremost, and spent more than three decades in pursuit of an individual championship title.  Fig competed in the first NSSA National Championships in 1978, making it to the finals and was on the Orange Coast College team that won a title in 1979 and 1980.  Although a 10-time West Coast Surfing Champion, an individual NSSA (National Scholastic Surfing Assoication) title remained elusive for 35 years until he won his first (and second) titles as a 55 year-old last year.

“I’ve made a lot of final appearances, but have never been able to pull off the win,” Fig stated after his crowning achievement.  “I’ve waited forever. I thought I’d never possibly get a national title before I died.  There’s always been an empty spot in my heart, thinking every time I’ve kind of messed up.  So I’m kind of at peace with myself.”

Considered an institution locally, Fig is the proprietor at Rockin Fig Surf Headquarters on Main Street; an old-school shop with tons of surfboards that he is happy to discuss with an encyclopedic knowledge.  Rick is also a journalist of some note, having penned a column in the Huntington Beach Independent and Los Angeles Times for many years.  Hardcore surfers can find him most every day on the north side of the pier, riding waves and loving life.