"I’ve often explained the Healey was the one who came up with the name 'Padillac' after he rode his 10'2" out at Jaws and said it felt like he could catch any wave in the world on it. But the Healey/Padi connection runs much deeper than that- in fact there wouldn't even be a Padillac without him.
^ One of the many winter season highlight waves mark has accumulated throughout the years.
It goes way back to 2012-13 when I had been making all of Healey's boards for him (through WRV). From short boards up to his biggest Pipeline guns. But he was still getting his really big wave boards off of a few different shapers.
I finally asked him- why don't we work together?
He lived right around the corner so l rode my bike over there and he had two boards that were completely different from each other. One looked kinda like a gigantic fun gun, with a super wide nose, super beefy. It looked totally different from most guns at the time. The other one was a super foiled out, narrow nose and tail, rockered out gun that looked like something you would ride at Pipeline if it was 3 feet shorter. I looked both boards over, put them underneath my arms and felt them up and made mental notes of the characteristics they each had. Mark told me that he thought that some kind of combination between the two of them would make a great design, that was it.
^ Jon Pyzel at Pyzel Waialua with a shaped Padillac blank (pre-bulletproof glass job).
So l searched through a bunch of my computer files that I thought might fall somewhere in there. I found a 6 ft board called The Shortcut that kind of had the outline that I imagined we were looking for. I blew that outline up to 9'8"and then made some simple changes to the bottom, contours and rocker, messed with the foil and threw on a beak to keep the forward volume balanced.
When I cut the first 9'8" on the machine and shaped it, the tail was more pulled in then I wanted so I chopped an inch off of it and re-templated it, but I still wrote 9'8” on the blank because that's what he wanted.
^ Jon Pyzel handing off another magic Padi (post-bulletproof glass job).
He took it for its maiden voyage at 25 foot Mavericks.
He paddled out and I saw the footage from the first wave that he caught, and it was horrifying. He dropped in late and the board literally flipped upside down under his feet and he slatted hard at the bottom, got rag dolled through the inside and just thrashed.
^ Wrong place, wrong time.
He told me that he paddled back out anyways, but thought in his head "this thing is a widow maker"!
We all know no real surfer paddles in from a surf, so he sat on the inside waiting for a small wave to catch to get the fuck out of there before he got killed. Apparently, he waited long enough that he drifted out to the very peak, and the biggest wave of the day came right to him.
He said that he has never been so scared paddling into a wave in his life because the first wave almost killed him, but of course he went anyways, and the board worked great.
He went on to catch some of the biggest paddle waves of the next five years on those boards and the rest is history.
^ Mark on his 10'4" Padillac at the 2023 Eddie Aikau Invitational.
So thanks, Healey. I appreciate your guidance, your trust and maybe even your situational stupidity." - Jon Pyzel
^ This years 10'4", 9'8", and 9'4" Padillacs for Mark Healey.
Comments
Great article.
Mark: Brave, skilled and insane
Jon: shapes for JJF-says it all
I loved my paddilac. Had an 8’0 and rode it all over the globe. Fiji, kauai and san fran. What a killer board. My next quiver will be a Pyzel heavy one. Thank you for sharing your work with us! Aloha j
I loved my paddilac. Had an 8’0 and rode it all over the globe. Fiji, kauai and san fran. What a killer board. My next quiver will be a Pyzel heavy one. Thank you for sharing your work with us! Aloha j