Woody Brown (surfer)

Woodbridge "Woody" Parker Brown (1912–2008) was an American surfer and watercraft designer best known for inventing the modern catamaran. He was also instrumental in promoting the growth of surfing in the mainland United States; among his accomplishment in surfboard shaping was an early fin design.

Woodbridge Brown was born into a wealthy family of Wall Street brokers on January 5, 1912 in New York City. By the time of the Wall Street crash of 1929 he had rejected the trappings of this life, though still benefited from its connections. At this time, he had moved out of the family home and was sleeping on hangar floors, helping with chores with early aviators such as Charles Lindbergh, whom he waved off on his historic 1927 flight to Paris.

Inspired by Lindbergh, he bought a glider for $25 and towed it to California with his new four-year-old stepdaughter Jenny and wife Betty Sellon, a widowed daughter of a retired army officer with a distaste for the glitz of the "gilded age", whom he'd met at a society party he'd been persuaded to attend. For the next 5 years he was an active member of a small group of pioneering gliders. He survived some spectacular crashes.

"Then," continued Woody, "in the desert, a kid brought over a very bad ship and we wouldn't help him put it together. We told him, 'No, no, no! This ship is not made to fly in these violent heat waves.' 'Thermals,' we called 'em. There's an airforce base there now. So, he put it together and he towed and flew a little bit and we wouldn't have anything to do with it. My ship was strong and so was my friend's, Johnny Robinson's. And so, we were flying there and no trouble. We got the thermals and everything."

"But, he'd bought this new instrument called a variometer. In those days, we didn't have any instruments hardly, see. But, they'd just made a new one and he bought it; cost hundreds of dollars. He was a rich guy, see. So, he said, 'Won't you come up with me just once to show me how to work this variometer?' Cuz he was a greenhorn, see... So, like a damn fool, I said, 'Alright, I'll go up with you just once to help show you how to catch a thermal.'"

"We got up there on the tow line and hit this thermal and I said, 'OK, now! See, it's lifting up your right wing, so you turn to the right! Now, turn to the right! Come on, turn right!' And he said, 'I'm sorry, Woody. I cannot. The wing's come off.' That's all I can remember. We came down with no wings at all and we lived through it. It broke his legs in two or three places. His arms were all broke up and I had a brain concussion; broke my windpipe. There was some tubing I went up against and hit my head and I was out for eight hours."

...
Wikipedia