George Hamilton Perkins Greenough (born November 6, 1941) is an influential surfer known during the 1960s and 1970s for his designs and work in film, board design, fin characteristics, and other creations for the aquatic medium. Greenough's and McTavish's contributions to developing the shortboards resulted in a wave of new advancements in surfing technology and shapes used to design boards. Personal life George Greenough was born in Santa Barbara, California on November 6th 1941 to Hamilton Perkins Greenough and Helen Marie Greenough, née Jensen. George’s father, Hamilton Perkins Greenough, spent part of his career as a shipwright, building wooden picket boats for the U.S. Navy during World War II. Contrary to what many people have written, George Greenough is not a direct descendant of the famous American sculptor, Horatio Greenough. George Greenough and Horatio Greenough are Half Second Cousins Four Times Removed. George underwent open-heart surgery at age ten and became known as an unconventional "character", "… a thin-faced, narrow-shouldered scion… always shoeless, often shirt-less, resin-stained Levis clamped onto his nonexistent hips with a length of rope, stringy blonde hair cut straight across at eyebrow level and flapping down over his ears." Greenough was not known to surf at crowded surf breaks; instead, he preferred the solitude of northern Hollister Ranch or surfing Rincon at dusk to avoid the crowds. In 1964 Greenough went to Australia and would travel back and forth between Santa Barbara and his new home for some time. He now resides in Byron Bay in New South Wales, Australia. Surfing influence Greenough is credited for the design of the modern surf fin as well as with influencing modern surfing's more radical maneuvers. The newer shortboards were built specifically to copy the same style of banking turns and fast down the line attitude that Greenough was known for. Greenough started to shape his first boards out of balsa wood in his high school wood shop. He started out as a stand-up surfer in the 1950s but began switching between kneeboarding and an air inflated mattress in 1961; according to Greenough, these gave him a heightened sense of speed that came from a lowered body position. The famous 'spoon' board was created in 1961, "a blunt-nosed balsa kneeboard, 5 feet long and 23 inches wide, with a dished-out midsection and tail that slimmed down to a mere half-inch thickness." He replaced the normal fin of the day, a