Artist Profiles

• Ken Auster - Prints
• John Cromer - Prints
• Ron Croci - Prints
• Mark Dillinger - Prints
• Mike Doyle - Prints
• Reggie Holladay - Prints
• Dan Johnson - Prints
• Wade Koniakowsky - Prints
• John Lamb - Prints
• Bob McGregor
• Bob Merson - Prints
• Frank Nadarzinsky
• Greg Noll - Prints
• Jim Parkhurst - Prints
• Peter Pierce - Prints
• Al Scholl - Prints
• Peter Schworer - Prints
• John Severson
• Kevin Short - Prints
• Kurt Zigler

New Artist Profiles

• Scott Carter - Prints
• James De Leon - Prints
• Norm Daniels - Prints
• James Finch - Prints
• Chris Lundy - Prints
• Bill Ogden - Prints
• Greg La Rock - Prints
• Ric Reitveld - Prints
• Phil Roberts - Prints
• Pete Ward
• Clark Takashima - Prints

Home | Surf History | Surf Culture | Surf Community | About Us | Contact

Greg "Da Bull" Noll

Greg Noll was born in San Diego, California in the month of February 1937. Soon after, he moved north with his mother to the small town of Manhattan Beach. It was here, in the shadow of the pier, that his life was profoundly influenced by such individualists as Jack Wise, Barney Briggs, and Dale Velzy. His job as bait boy at the end of the pier, gave him a birdseye view of the surfers below. Greg started surfing in 1948 and began shaping soon after under the guidance of Dale Velzy. Soon it was off to Oahu, and a quonset hut at Makaha. While on an exploratory trip to the North Shore in 1957, the Pied Piper of Waimea Bay (as Buzzy Trent would call him) talked his friends into paddling out into the taboo waters of The Bay. Waves were caught, everyone came out alive and Waimea was now another spot to surf. As it turned out, Waimea Bay would become the place at which Greg carved his name into surfing history, and he continues to have a love affair with it to this day.

During the next few years, Greg made pilgrimages to the North Shore each winter while his surfboard manufacturing business in Hermosa Beach, California grew with the sport. Then in late 1969, a powerful series of storms combined to bring some of the biggest surf to ever hit the Hawaiian Islands. On December 4, 1969 at Makaha, Greg surfed what is considered to be the biggest wave ever paddled into. Several factors combined for the decision to close the Hermosa Beach surf shop in the early 1970's. Greg explored Alaska and settled in Crescent City, California where he became a commercial fisherman. With the rebirth of the longboard, Greg decided that it was time to get back into shaping surfboards. He now builds custom historical re-creations of some of surfings most sought after boards.

It was later at Makaha, in December 1969, that he rode what many at the time believed to be the largest wave ever surfed. After that wave and the ensuing wipeout during the course of that spectacular ride down the face of a massive dark wall of water, his surfing tapered off and he closed his Hermosa Beach shop in the early 1970s. He and other surfers such as Pat Curren, Mike Stange, Buzzy Trent, George Downing, Mickey Munoz, Wally Froyseth, Fred Van Dyke and Peter Cole are viewed as the most daring surfers of their generation.

Noll is readily identified in film footage while surfing by his now iconic black and white horizontally striped "jailhouse" boardshorts.

The surfing exploits of Noll and other big wave legends were chronicled in the documentary Riding Giants. Noll (with Laird Hamilton and Jeff Clark) also provides his highly entertaining and significant perspective on Hawaiian big wave surfing that is indexed as a colorful commentary track found in the Riding Giants DVD special features.

Noll is also one of the greatest longboard shapers to ever live and his boards are some of the most sought after and expensive in the world.

Greg Noll Prints