At the California Surf Museum's gala, dinner plates have been cleared, and the live auction has finished.
Gerry Lopez's auction contribution, a striking red beauty with a bright golden pin line and logo accents, has gone for well over $10,000 - a record for the event.
The other guests of honor have received their awards.
Honoree Fernando Aguerre roused the room with the announcement that his lifelong dream of bringing surfing to the Olympics had finally come true - surfing would be admitted to the 2020 Games.
Ever the belle of the ball, Jericho Poppler nearly stole the show with her Academy Award-like entrance to the stage after film star Gregory Harrison gave a "Best Actor in a Supporting Role" introduction for one of the true greats of women's surfing.
Nat Young, perhaps Australia's greatest surfer of his era, introduces Gerry, ending with a fiery accolade inviting him to accept his award and say a few words.
The room comes to a standing ovation.
Gerry rises from his chair and strolls toward the stage. Eight hundred eyes follow his step just as they had in those heady days of Lightning Bolt.
"We Hardly Needed to Advertise Lightning Bolt"
By the time he and Jack Shipley opened the modest little shop in 1970, the world around him had turned into a roller coaster ride. They had named the shop Lightning Bolt - a suggestion from Jack's wife.
"It was the logo that set us apart," Jack says.
In less than two years, Lightning Bolt surfboards vaulted into the most successful brand in the history of the sport.
And so did Gerry.
After missing the initial Pipeline Masters, he had won the event twice in a row, in 1972 and 1973.
Now the undisputed reigning monarch at Pipeline, he was at the pinnacle of his prominence as a surf star.
He'd been on a dozen magazine covers and anchored the critical sequences in nearly every surf film of the 1970s.
Around the globe, Bolt boards became so coveted that an entire stable of shapers was employed to fill the demand.
In his own particular moment of marketing brilliance, Jack Shipley had given a Lightning Bolt surfboard to every top surfer on the North Shore, where half of the magazine shots came from each year.
"It was pure genius," remarks Gerry.
"Now they weren't just shooting me at Pipeline; they were shooting every great surfer in Hawaii - riding our boards."
At one point, four future world champions were riding Bolts - together in the same surf session.
"We hardly needed to advertise," Jack laughs, thinking back on it today.
"We'd have twenty editorial pages of shots - with our logo showing - in every issue [of Surfer magazine]."
While Gerry credited his peak performances to his new, improved equipment, the world acclaimed the hero.
When someone asked Waimea Bay surf legend Greg Noll if Gerry's success was due to his better boards, Da Bull answered, "No, it's his bigger balls."
Global Brand, Internal Issues
Hang Ten founder Duke Boyd approached the dynamic duo with an offer to take that little lightning bolt and do exactly what Hang Ten's two little feet had done: become a global phenomenon.
Jack and Gerry were elated. It seemed like a dream. Lightning Bolt products were flying out the door.
The Bolt was attached to t-shirts, sunglasses, backpacks, bodyboards, towels, footwear, hats, jewelry... "just about anything," Jack recounts.
"It transformed Lightning Bolt into a multinational corporation."
Gerry was able to travel to wherever he pleased. The checkbook was open.
He pioneered Grajagan, the almost mythical Indonesian surf spot where the long hollow point broke like two dozen Pipelines in a row.
By the end of the 1970s, his life began to blur into a swirl of exotic travel, New York fashion models, Hollywood movie roles, and crazy parties.
The cat was licking the rich cream from the bowl.
But all was not well in Boltland. Trouble started soon after the brand began to massively grow.
There were four shareholders: Jack Shipley, Gerry Lopez, Duke Boyd's group, and the master licensee, Keepers Inc.
"We started out with 'A Pure Source' as our statement," recalls Jack.
"And our surfboards were. But then the business exploded, the products proliferated, and the money started pouring in. Duke and Keepers started fighting about how the money was going to be spent."
Everyone had a different view.
"Duke and his group wanted to keep control of the logo," says Jack.
"The licensee thought there was too much product out there and wanted more control. I thought we shouldn't hurt the brand reputation by making inferior products. Gerry just wanted to shape boards and go surfing."
Gerry sought guidance from Gordon "Grubby" Clark, whose foam blanks business had made him a giant of the surf industry.
Grubby and other top surf moguls told Gerry the brand was in too much turmoil. They advised him to sell his shares and get out.
Keepers, the licensee, was the only shareholder who was well-financed enough to buy Gerry's shares.
Gerry's mentors had counseled him to get out before a crash.
Gerry did. Jack didn't.
The Cat Escapes the Corporate Battle
Did Gerry sell out? Did he take the money and run? I had heard of this saga years ago, but only from one side.
So I asked Jack point-blank, "Did Gerry leave you in the lurch?"
"On the contrary," Jack declares. "He begged me to come with him. He took Grubby's advice. I took my own. He made the right choice."
That was all there was to it. No collusion. No treachery - just another good decision on the journey.
Not long after Gerry sold his shares, Lightning Bolt quietly folded. A thunderstorm is fast and furious, but it moves on very quickly.
Gerry tried to make a go of an alternative brand, but the fire had gone out.
The magic symbol that had set the world ablaze had become embroiled in a winner-take-all corporate battle that left it in ashes.
But somehow Gerry had escaped - like a cat on a hot tin roof.
Words by Jim Kempton | Journalist, Author, and Executive Director of the California Surf Museum
Excerpt from the book "Surfer Stories: 12 Untold Stories by 12 Writers about 12 of the World's Greatest Surfers" by Claudia Lebenthal (March 2025, Regalo Press)
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