William Riedel

William Riedel
www.stretchboards.com

At a towering 6’6” and as skinny as a rocker stick, Stretch looks more like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz than one of the world’s most forward-thinking shapers. But make no mistake: the 47-year-old Santa Cruz resident has a brain — a brain that’s obsessed with pushing waveriding equipment to unseen levels.

This has always been his driving force. For the better part of 25 years, he’s been making boards lighter, stronger and faster using different foams, different resins and different constructions. And for more than half of this time, after a tragic windsurfing accident, he’s done it with a locked-up hand and partial paralysis on his right side.

His efforts didn’t get him much more than an underground following in Santa Cruz until sometime last year, when the world started to notice.