Pat Rawson:
Pat Rawson has been shaping surfboards since 1966, and manufacturing surfboards on the North Shore of Oahu since 1972. Combining pre-proven, innovative custom designs with handcrafted experience, Rawson shapes all of his board orders himself, His acclaim ranges from his home-base on Sunset Beach; Oahu, to the shores of California, Europe, Central and South America, Japan, and Australia. Over the last 40 years, Rawson has built North Shore custom quivers for the many traveling pros and visiting surfers that flock to Hawaii’s North Shore each Fall season.
Besides hand-shaping over 40,000 surfboards off the blank in his “power shaper” years, Rawson is well known for his contributions to modern Gun development in the early 80’s and onward. Starting with his extensive surfboard blank designs and gun rockers produced through Clark Foam, and validation through making pro quivers for half or more of the top 16 pro surfers visiting Hawaii for over ten years in a row established Rawson’s title as the” godfather of the Gun”. Notably: Tom Carroll, Mark Richards, Tom Curren, Gary Elkerton, as well as Hawaiian pros: Buttons Kaluhiokalani, Mark Liddell, Tony Moniz, Michael and Derek Ho, Bobby Owens, Jon Damm, Sunny Garcia and later, Kalani Robb, Bruce Irons, Ryan Rawson and many others to present, are some of the surfers that understand Rawson’s board designs in Hawaii and other exotic surf destinations elsewhere worldwide.
Besides first traveling to Japan in 1985, Rawson started traveling extensively in 1991 to places like California, Australia, Europe, and later Peru, Brazil, and Central America. In 1999, Rawson moved his California production from Huntington Beach to San Diego, California, where he was influenced by Fish gurus; Larry “Larmo” Mabile, Skip Frye, and other notables who were the "real" developers of the early “postmodern shortboard” Fish surfboard design movement in San Diego. That strong influence inspired Rawson into expanding his design influence into designs other than high performance guns and semi's into designs like the San Diego Fish model, and his Alien quads and other “alternative” board designs such as the Impala and the Sniper designs, for both the Hawaiian local market, as well as the SanDiego and California and East coast areas.
After taking about 5 years off of the travel regime, last Summer, Pat found the perfect home base in San Diego at Moonlight Glassing with Chris Christenson Surfboards, offering the perfect quality environment and facility to produce one of a kind quality, and collaborate with some of the best craftsmen in the surfboard manufacturing world today. By continually updating his knowledge regarding the latest design software and computer cutting technology in designing and shaping custom surfboards, Rawson takes his shaping experience, quality control, and long-standing acclaim with professional surfers worldwide, to the finest level obtainable in surfboard manufacturing.