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2021<br />
smorgasboarder<br />
#51<br />
SURF<br />
magazine<br />
We’ve got boards galore, getaway shacks,<br />
coastal art, photography and more.
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CONTENTS<br />
#51<br />
2021<br />
24<br />
46<br />
36<br />
84<br />
12 comps + news<br />
18 controversy<br />
20 stuff<br />
24 island time<br />
36 OCEAN IMAGERY<br />
46 BOARD SENSELESS<br />
78 INTO THE WILD<br />
88 gear<br />
98 aloha barry<br />
smorgasboarders<br />
Editorial | Dave Swan<br />
dave@smorgasboarder.com.au<br />
0401 345 201<br />
Editorial | Geoff Crockett<br />
geoff@smorgasboarder.com.au<br />
0413 988 333<br />
Advertising | Simon Cross<br />
simon@smorgasboarder.com.au<br />
0413 698 630<br />
New Zealand | Jiff Morris<br />
jeff@smorgasboarder.co.nz<br />
0220 943 913<br />
South Australia | Jimmy Ellis<br />
james@smorgasboarder.com.au<br />
0410 175 552<br />
Design | Horse & Water Creative<br />
mark, kate, val, jimbo, helen, taylah<br />
mark@horseandwater.com.au<br />
Accounts | Louise Gough<br />
louise@smorgasboarder.com.au<br />
2021<br />
#51<br />
smorgasboarder<br />
SURF<br />
magazine<br />
We’ve got boards galore, getaway shacks,<br />
coastal art, photography and more.<br />
our cover<br />
Island Surfboard’s Sandy Ryan.<br />
Cover photo by: Andy Chisholm<br />
FB: andychizphotographics<br />
Insta: andychiza<br />
get involved<br />
Stories, photos, ideas, new and<br />
interesting surf-related stuff you<br />
want to share? drop us a line on<br />
editorial@smorgasboarder.com.au<br />
get your fix<br />
There’s three ways to<br />
score yourself a copy of<br />
smorgasboarder.<br />
1. Subscribe - the mag is still<br />
free - you just pay for delivery. 4<br />
editions per year - $25 annual<br />
subscription (Aus and NZ)<br />
2. Call in to one of the businesses<br />
featured in this mag - they’ll have<br />
some free copies.<br />
3. Download or read it online at<br />
smorgasboarder.com.au<br />
Smorgasboarder is published by Huge C Media PTY LTD ABN 30944673055. All information is correct at time of going to press. The publication cannot<br />
accept responsibility for errors in articles or advertisements, or unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or illustrations. The opinions and words of the authors<br />
do not necessarily represent those of the publishers. All rights reserved. Reproduction in part or whole is strictly prohibited without prior permission.
photo: lime light creative studios<br />
Eco-conscious. Sustainable.<br />
Hand-made. High performance.<br />
All Australian. Built to last.<br />
Boards. Kits. Fins. Blanks. Accessories.<br />
and BALSA BOARD BUILDING COURSES.<br />
www.balsasurfboardsriley.com.au
photo: Pieter Plooy photography<br />
Rider: Jeremie Bernard<br />
Courtesy of CLOUD IX SURFFOILS<br />
... there are just so many developing, morphing and<br />
emerging board “sports”, for want of a better word,<br />
that we thought, let’s bloody explore them all -<br />
every imaginable board sport. After all, that’s what<br />
smorgasboarding is all about – riding everything and<br />
anything that get’s you wet.
Surfing is truly an incredible thing. The mere fact that we can<br />
derive so much pleasure from something so many of us are<br />
honestly pretty crap at (if we stare down the cold hard truth of<br />
reality) is truly amazing. Imagine if it was drawing for instance and<br />
the best you could manage after years of practice was a stick<br />
figure. Would you still be heading out to the art studio early every<br />
morning, putting pen to paper to draw another stickman? We<br />
think not. And yet, so many of us embrace the ocean with open<br />
arms no matter how foolish she may make us look or how many<br />
beatings she delivers.<br />
Surfing brings a smile to our dial, prompts a laugh, a bit of chat, a<br />
holler and a hoot. Yes, it is such an incredible thing… an incredible<br />
feeling… and once you have tried it, you just want to experience<br />
more of it… in different places, in different conditions, and for<br />
many of us, on different craft.<br />
That’s what makes surfing even more addictive. Nowadays there<br />
are just so many different types of boards and ways to enjoy a day<br />
on the waves.<br />
Now the reason this edition came about in particular, was a new<br />
found obsession with foiling. Nothing like a bit of danger and<br />
excitement to get the blood pumping... or flowing... if you happen<br />
to fall off and slice yourself in half.<br />
Anyhow this obsession saw us, like most things in life, do<br />
absolutely nothing about it. I mean, how many years has it been<br />
around? At least a few? And do those silvery sharp bits that race<br />
along just below the surface of the water truly attract sharks?<br />
There has been a few incidents – looks like a big mackerel I am<br />
thinking. Nonetheless we digress, we had done nothing about<br />
our obsession with foiling until this edition came around and it<br />
prompted some action. We thought, let’s find out a little more<br />
about foiling, what the setup cost is, how you can learn to ride the<br />
thing and so on. It just looks so cool.<br />
Well, foiling then lead us down the garden path of wing surfing.<br />
Now, that looks super, super cool and best of all, you can<br />
combine the two. And if that shark does come along to bite your<br />
foil, you can simply go wooshka up in the air and fly over that big<br />
sucker.<br />
What this really highlighted is there are just so many developing,<br />
morphing and emerging board “sports”, for want of a better word,<br />
that we thought, let’s bloody explore them all - every imaginable<br />
board sport. After all, that’s what smorgasboarding is all about –<br />
riding everything and anything that get’s you wet. Or damp… if<br />
you’re in the snow. Or damp with blood if you’ve tackled downhill<br />
skateboarding or freebording.<br />
At the end of the day, apart from some self-proclaimed ripper who<br />
only rides a 6’0” and states all the other stuff is for kooks, we’re<br />
not going to upset anyone, apart from that guy, and he is probably<br />
way too cool to read this mag anyhow.<br />
You see at Smorgasboarder, we are truly all about inclusivity<br />
- shortboards, longboards, paddleboards, wakeboards,<br />
skateboards, kooks, rippers, retro riders, male, female, young and<br />
old. We’re here to celebrate all that is great about riding mother<br />
nature, in any form. Most importantly, how would you ever know<br />
if something is fun or not if you didn’t give it a go. So, enjoy the<br />
edition, have a read, feel inspired, hopefully have a laugh and go<br />
get out there and enjoy whatever you’re riding.<br />
The Smorgasboarders
Win!<br />
Viking Kayak<br />
2 + 1<br />
valued at $1199 AUD<br />
To celebrate all things watersports with this very special<br />
edition of Smorgasboarder, we thought it only fitting to have<br />
some additional prize draws, none more special than this<br />
cracking Viking Kayak from the good folks at Kayak & Sup<br />
in Kawana. These guys are a one-stop specialist shop for<br />
kayaks and paddle boards. You can even try before you buy<br />
at their Sunshine Coast store or you can order direct online.<br />
So what is up for grabs<br />
we hear you say?<br />
You can just picture yourself now heading off solo for a bit<br />
of fishing, or perhaps taking a cruise with your better half,<br />
even a paddle with the family. It really is the ideal kayak for<br />
those wanting the versatility of a double kayak that can be<br />
easily paddled solo too. The 3 moulded seat positions and<br />
foot wells are designed to make sure you're comfortable in<br />
all 3 positions. The Viking 2+1 is a double kayak that’s been<br />
designed specifically for easy paddling as a single, double or<br />
even as a double with a junior sitting in the middle, making it<br />
much easier to get the whole family on the water.<br />
Awesomely stable, the Viking 2+1 offers room and comfort<br />
while the rounded edges and sides make this an excellent<br />
kayak for easy re-entries during those snorkelling adventures<br />
along the coast or when having fun in the waves.<br />
So how do I enter?<br />
All you have to do is tell us what it means to be a true<br />
waterman/ waterwoman and send your entry to us at<br />
competitions@smorgasboarder.com.au We will choose<br />
what we believe is the best entry and publish it in our next<br />
edition of Smorgasboarder.<br />
Viking 2+1 includes:<br />
2 x Propelz Ergo Seats<br />
2 x Propelz Eco Paddles<br />
3 hatches & two hatch buckets<br />
2 x paddle parks<br />
Deck grabline<br />
Bow & Stern carry handles<br />
2 x flush mount rod holder<br />
Specifications: 3.9m length, 81cm width, 27kg weight,<br />
200kg carrying capacity, Stability rating = Very stable<br />
Things you need to know...<br />
We’ll pick a winner on Monday January 31, 2022 so<br />
you have plenty of time to enter. This competition is<br />
open to Smorgasboarder readers throughout Australia<br />
and New Zealand. It will be the winner’s responsibility<br />
to collect their prize from Kayak & Sup at 188 Nicklin<br />
Way, Warana, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia.<br />
This is a game of skill – the better you describe what<br />
it means to be a waterwoman/ waterman, the greater<br />
your chance of winning this awesome Viking Kayak.<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 12
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We are kayak, fishing and SUP specialists, carrying some<br />
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Our friendly, expert team can answer all your questions<br />
and guide you to your ideal kayak or board – you’re<br />
welcome to use the demo pool before you buy so you can<br />
be sure it’s perfect for you.<br />
Packages range from $399 to $4000+ so you can be sure<br />
we have the perfect kayak or Paddleboard for you.<br />
KAYAKANDSUP.COM<br />
07 5437 7035<br />
188 Nicklin Way, Warana, Sunshine Coast
comp<br />
Win<br />
Yep, there is even more stuff to win<br />
in this edition of Smorgasboarder!<br />
The legends at Ghost Racks have thankfully provided<br />
us with ANOTHER set of their super strong, invisible<br />
racks to give away. All you have to do to enter and<br />
potentially win is send us an email to competitions@<br />
smorgasboarder.com.au telling us why a surfboard, or<br />
skateboard for that matter, is a living piece of art.<br />
We will choose the winning entry from all the<br />
submissions and you never know, it just could be you<br />
staring lovingly at your beautiful board up on the wall<br />
thanks to Ghost Racks - just like Will Furney from last<br />
edition. Read all about the special board he is mounting<br />
on his set of Ghost Racks he won on page 88.<br />
Things you need to know...<br />
We’ll pick a winner on Monday, 31 January 2022,<br />
so make sure to flick us an email.<br />
Open to Smorgasboarder readers worldwide. Prize<br />
will be your choice of either a vertical or horizontal<br />
wall rack from the Ghost Racks surf or skate range.<br />
We will even post the racks to you at their expense!<br />
This is a game of skill - the smarter your comment,<br />
the better your chance. Dazzle us with your wit and<br />
win. RACK ‘EM UP!<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 14
surfer_ Benny Hansen<br />
photographer_ Michael Lester<br />
shaper_ dburge<br />
WORLD CLASS AUSTRALIAN MADE<br />
SURFBOARDS AT AFFORDABLE PRICES<br />
Custom Shortboards<br />
Hybrid & Fishes<br />
Mals and Logs<br />
Factory 3/6 Kerta Rd, Kincumber NSW 2251<br />
M: 0415 577 085
comp news<br />
Win<br />
Do you want wax with that?<br />
And if the last two prizes weren’t enough, thanks to the<br />
best surf wax in the land, Hueys Choice, we’re giving<br />
away 24 blocks of the sticky stuff and a Hueys Choice<br />
cap to the person who sends in the best wipeout photo.<br />
It can be of either yourself or a mate (always funnier<br />
when it’s not you).<br />
Make sure we are authorised to use the photo because<br />
it will more than likely feature in the next edition of<br />
Smorgasboarder.<br />
With so much bad news about the world of late there is<br />
nothing that brings a smile to your dial like a hilarious<br />
wipeout photo. The one featured here is of our good<br />
mate Pat Quirk, aka “Helmet”, and it never ceases to<br />
amuse, even though this is the third time it’s made an<br />
appearance in our mag over the last 10 or so years.<br />
To enter, simply send your wipeout photo to<br />
competitions@smorgasboarder.com.au<br />
Things you need to know...<br />
We’ll pick a winner on Monday, 31 January 2022,<br />
so make sure to send your funny photo in.<br />
Open to Smorgasboarder readers worldwide.<br />
24 block wax and cap prize pack can be one or<br />
a mix of Hueys different wax types – cold, cool,<br />
warm or tropical. And we will even post the wax<br />
pack to you at their expense! This is most certainly<br />
a game of skill, it takes a lot to wipeout with style.<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 16
news<br />
Endless Surf<br />
Surfers looking to jump on board continuously perfect waves of the artificial<br />
variety still have some time to wait in Australia it seems.<br />
UrbnSurf, which operates Australia’s only public Wave Pool at Tullamarine<br />
in Melbourne, has plans for a second venue at Sydney’s Olympic Park.<br />
The Sydney Olympic Park Business Association noted on its website that<br />
construction began there in August this year, and UrbnSurf has listed<br />
Summer 2022 as the likely date for first rides on the new waves.<br />
UrbnSurf Sydney will also have a café, function room and training centre<br />
attached.<br />
At Yeppoon, the Surf Lake design has been active for several years now<br />
as a research and development site for the plunger-based technology that<br />
promises to be able to cater for up to 200 surfers at a time.<br />
There have been several plans announced around potential tourism<br />
accommodation to surround the park, and the last media before we went to<br />
print suggests the opening is expected at the end of 2022.<br />
For those on the Gold Coast the The Club Parkwood, home to the Gold<br />
Coast Titans, has announced its intention to install an Endless Surf wave<br />
pool as part of its future development, adding to the golf course and other<br />
facilities already on offer.<br />
As of November, the concept was just that, an idea to incorporate a surf<br />
pool into a large-scale expansion including an eight storey, 222 room hotel<br />
and apartment complex on one side of the pool, all of which is yet to be put<br />
to Gold Coast Council for approval.<br />
The same Endless Surf technology, which is a brand created by its designer<br />
WhiteWater based out of Canada, has been mooted as part of a proposed<br />
Actventure water park and 160-villa Invigorate Family Resort on the<br />
Sunshine Coast, just up the road from Australia Zoo in Glenview.<br />
Groundworks on the theme park and villas started in November as part of<br />
Stage 1 of the development which is being overseen by Sanad Capital.<br />
Sanad Capital’s managing director Bradley P. Sutherland said the surf pool<br />
would fall within Stage 2 of the project and he was hopeful it would all be<br />
open in December 2023 / January 2024.<br />
Other Sunshine Coast wave pool proposals include Surf Ranch at Coolum<br />
Beach and Surf Parks Australia’s proposal for a park using the Perfect<br />
Swell technology at Glasshouse Mountains.<br />
Surf Ranch has been backed by Consolidated Properties, Hutchinson<br />
Builders and Kelly Slater Wave Systems. The proposal is for the surf pool<br />
to be part of a large residential and tourism development likely to have<br />
1500 homes if allowed. The project would require the State Government to<br />
change the status of the land in the area to allow residential development<br />
as it falls outside the current urban footprint of the Sunshine Coast. There<br />
appears to be little movement here since August 2020.<br />
Surf Park Australia at Glasshouse Mountains is at the stage of lodging plans<br />
with Sunshine Coast Council with no confirmation yet of any proposed<br />
dates for opening.<br />
RHEMAGRAPHICS<br />
THE ART OF<br />
SURFING<br />
SINCE ‘79<br />
DIGITAL DECALS | SCREEN PRINTED DECALS<br />
FULL BOARD DECALS | COLOUR MATCHING | INKS<br />
E: info@rhemagraphics Ph: 07 5534 1469<br />
Unit 1 / 7 Wheeler Crescent, Currumbin QLD 4223<br />
www.rhemagraphics.com<br />
17 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
ontroversy<br />
As the great Andy Samberg, aka Connor4Real,<br />
once said in his smash hit Equal Rights,<br />
“Discrimination, it ain’t right.”<br />
words: dave swan<br />
Well just as it is wrong to discriminate against one’s skin<br />
colour, height, weight, hair colour (or lack of it), sexual<br />
orientation or more... the same applies to surfing. We have<br />
to cease ridiculing the board sports we don’t participate<br />
in and appreciate their appeal to the devotees. And as we<br />
explore the myriad of board sports in this special edition of<br />
Smorgasboarder, we hope that it provides a pathway to a<br />
greater understanding of each discipline and the people who<br />
partake in it and true aquatic inclusion for all. Each one of us<br />
are surfers in our own special way.<br />
In essence, that means if you’d like to pretend you forgot how<br />
to stand up and lie down on a surf mat like good friend Neal<br />
Cameron, you go get ‘em tiger. You ride those waves all the<br />
way to the shore on your blow-up pin cushion without a care.<br />
Never mind what other people might say. If the truth be told,<br />
most surfers of the fibreglass board variety will be relieved<br />
to have you in the water - you guys, girls and others have<br />
absolutely no chance of fending off a shark with one of those<br />
things - reportedly it gives the sharks gas and slows them<br />
down somewhat as well, just enough anyhow for everyone<br />
else to make their way safely to shore.<br />
And to all those ocean janitors standing atop their trusty<br />
12-foot rotoplastic barges with paddles in hand, the same<br />
applies. You ride that big boy with pride. From all the way<br />
up there it’s easier to stay out of the commotion around you.<br />
Ignore all that screaming and<br />
shouting as you accidentally<br />
mow down a migrant family<br />
visiting the seaside for the first<br />
time. We get it. We understand.<br />
Those things are hard to control<br />
and accidents most certainly do<br />
happen.<br />
And speaking of those on high,<br />
foiling fans: we all welcome<br />
you and your flying Freddy<br />
Krueger fin as you head down<br />
the line towards us. Like a<br />
boiled egg welcomes the<br />
wire cutter that’s about to<br />
separate it down into neat<br />
salad slices... Who’s afraid of<br />
a bit of blood?<br />
The same applies if you’re a burnt-out shredder hasbeen<br />
on a partially submerged shortboard with a massive<br />
beer gut who paddles for every wave, swearing at all and<br />
sundry for dropping in when the only wave you’re getting<br />
is if someone gives you an almighty push. You carry that<br />
surf rage with pride, you’ve earnt it. No one more than<br />
you knows what it’s like to paddle for 600 waves and<br />
catch only one. You have the right to keep paddling and<br />
swearing incessantly.<br />
And the longboarders, hell, I guess it’s best we leave those<br />
guys alone for now (don’t worry, we don’t miss them later<br />
on). They’re on their way out the door of life so just let them<br />
experience a little joy before they catch their last wave.<br />
Then there’s those paragons of virtue and extreme patience -<br />
the kiteboarders who spend more time on the beach setting<br />
up their gear than they do actually getting in the water.<br />
Even goat-boaters with their budgie-smugglers and strap-on<br />
hats, they’re surfers too! Ok... I might have stretched things<br />
are little far there, but you get my drift. They’re probably<br />
officially classified as flotsam, but they ARE part of the marine<br />
environment too.<br />
And that’s where it is at people. Ride what you want without<br />
being discriminated against – simply ride the right board,<br />
craft, plank, inflatable, pool noodle or other for the appropriate<br />
conditions. Let’s be real: how cool are any of us anyway? It’s<br />
not about trying to be cool, it’s about having fun.<br />
To take a leaf from a different book... Cyclists for example:<br />
do you think those guys shave their legs and wear full body<br />
spandex for performance? Of course not, they do it for fun.<br />
And society is all the richer because of them. They don’t don<br />
those lyrca unitards and prance about your local coffee shop<br />
for no reason. It’s to put a smile on your dial.<br />
So, let’s not only cease discrimination throughout life in<br />
general but most importantly in our own ocean environment.<br />
Let’s put an end to discrimination amidst the various board<br />
pursuits. Let’s respect and appreciate people can do whatever<br />
they like for fun… within reason… as long as it doesn’t<br />
offend… including this article which may have but has been<br />
very much written tongue in cheek and you can rest assured,<br />
absolutely no small animals were harmed in the process. And<br />
it’s important to note that the author identifies as many of the<br />
described surfers in the rainbow of descriptions in this article,<br />
depending on the day, mood and conditions. No judgement,<br />
please.<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 18
OKE SURFBOARDS<br />
SINCE ‘68<br />
OKESURFBOARDS.COM<br />
1/1-7 Canterbury Rd, Braeside, VIC<br />
P: 03 9587 3553<br />
E: rory@okesurfboards.com
stuff<br />
BARZ OPTICS<br />
A desire to help protect surfers’<br />
eyes, combined with a plan to<br />
go out on his own in business<br />
inspired Kevin Barr to launch Barz<br />
Optics at Burleigh Heads nearly<br />
25 years ago.<br />
Kevin, a former surf champ, who started out<br />
working as a surf, snow ski and sailboard retailer said he progressed<br />
into his own business after finding many customers and friends suffering<br />
from eye problems such as pterigium – a type of cataract caused by<br />
prolonged exposure to UV rays, wind, spray and salt.<br />
“We were developing something different to meet a specific need,”<br />
Kevin said.<br />
He said surfers out early on the East Coast of Australia were faced with<br />
the sun and the reflection of the sun as they paddled out and looked for<br />
waves – an environment that was challenging for the eyes.<br />
Kevin said the other problem Barz Optics aimed to tackle was the<br />
challenge of surfing for people who had eyesight that was not 20-20.<br />
The Barz Optics sunglasses are designed in such a way they can easily<br />
take a prescription lense.<br />
Another innovation in recent times has been the addition of air cells into<br />
the temples and nose piece of the frames which meant if the glasses fell<br />
off, they floated and could be found again.<br />
Now sold in 32 countries around the world the Barz Optics brand has<br />
been a hit with mariners, be that boaties, yachties or windsurfers or<br />
surfers.<br />
Lately Barz Optics have picked up another market too – with their<br />
sunglasses becoming popular with road cyclists looking for prescription<br />
glasses that beat the glare and still let them read their on-handlebar<br />
technology such as Garmins.<br />
The full range of glasses is available on the website at<br />
www.barzoptics.com and includes floating models, photochromic<br />
lenses, prescription swim goggles and the Kiama cross sport sunglass<br />
/ goggle.<br />
The business has evolved from the early days as advances in<br />
technology have sped up the process.<br />
They were originally hand made from cellulose acetate requiring 16 hand<br />
routing processes and three days of tumble polishing. Each pair took<br />
twelve days in production.<br />
At that time, a maximum of 200 pairs could be produced per week.<br />
By 2004, and three design developments later, the frame was produced<br />
by injection mould using a hybrid nylon TR90 in Barz Optics Currumbin<br />
factory. The assembly was also carried out in the same facility enabling<br />
a capacity of 1200 pairs per week.<br />
In terms of the process for customers these days Kevin said most would<br />
choose their style of frame and send through their prescription to have<br />
the glasses custom-made and sent back for years of future use.<br />
If you happen to be down Burleigh way you can find Barz Optics at 11/4<br />
Leda Drive, Burleigh Heads.<br />
www.barzoptics.com<br />
Real Surf<br />
“Real Surf is a locally owned and operated Core Surf Store<br />
specialising in surfboards, wetsuits, hardware and rentals. Come<br />
check out our new store just down the road at 5/56 Kingsford<br />
Smith St, Lyall Bay, Wellington.<br />
“We’re open 7 days a week with a friendly and experienced team<br />
ready to help out with your next purchase!<br />
Alternatively check out our website for the latest products and<br />
sale deals at www.realsurf.co.nz or find us on social media.”<br />
+64 4 387 8798<br />
www.realsurf.co.nz<br />
team@realsurf.co.nz<br />
Maranui Surf Life Saving Cafe<br />
“Pop out to Lyall Bay to visit the iconic Maranui Cafe. Here you<br />
can forget about the time and tuck into something scrumptious<br />
while gazing out over the beach, which is often filled with surfers<br />
attempting to master the waves. Brimming with personality,<br />
Maranui has a feel for colour and embraces all things eclectic<br />
when it comes to design. Sitting above the Maranui Surf Life<br />
Saving Club with a great coffee in hand and staring into the<br />
glistening blue distance, you’re sure to feel the holiday vibes.”<br />
+6 4387 4539 cafe@maranui.co.nz<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 20
stuff<br />
NZ SHRED<br />
words: jase johns<br />
THE THREE R’S OF SUMMER<br />
RESILIENCE –<br />
RESOURCEFULNESS –<br />
RED PADDLE COMPANY<br />
If this last 18 months has taught us anything, it is<br />
about battling through, developing our strengths<br />
and just enjoying what we have around us. Outside<br />
of the day-to-day, the thing most of us have felt has<br />
been stolen, is our ‘freedom of movement’ - most<br />
importantly, our ability to get outside, travel and<br />
play. Humans are mobile creatures - we walk, we<br />
run, we climb, some of us fly … but this summer, we<br />
will float, we will ride, and we will paddle.<br />
Stand Up Paddleboarding (SUPing) is nothing<br />
new! A recent sport for the masses, however it has<br />
been part of the water culture for many of us for<br />
years. More recently, we’ve seen a development<br />
in customer interest in taking their paddleboarding<br />
experiences to the next level – Adventure SUPing. At<br />
the forefront for design and development is the RED<br />
Paddle Company. They have just landed their 2022<br />
range of inflatable SUP boards instore … spanning<br />
four riding genres and including a staggering 16+<br />
models - from the nimble 8’10” Whip (ideal for<br />
travelling surfers), through to the 10’8” Activ (for<br />
the Yogi in the group), to the enormous 14’0” Elite<br />
(accommodating the race and downwind rider).<br />
However for us, in the lakes, rivers and ocean of<br />
southern New Zealand, by far our most popular<br />
model is the award winning 10’6” Ride. These<br />
boards are easy to manage; with the well thoughtout<br />
backpack carry bags. They’re easy to inflate - in<br />
just over 5 minutes and have multi-purpose, double<br />
chamber pumps to care for your back. Using high<br />
density drop stitch in the construction, the boards<br />
are stronger and stiffer. Red Paddle Company has<br />
developed an application to laminate high-density<br />
structural PVC – meaning the boards look cleaner<br />
and ride infinitely better.<br />
With the decision making taken out of your hands,<br />
it now just comes down to “where can I take my<br />
new toy?” … and the answer really is anywhere.<br />
Here in New Zealand’s South Island, we are blessed<br />
with a multitude of different opportunities to SUP<br />
right at our doorstep. From a quick weekender down<br />
the coast for the easy beginner/intermediate righthander<br />
at Riverton, or the beachie at Colac Bay …<br />
to a noodle around the picturesque and secluded<br />
bays and coves of Lakes Wakatipu and Wanaka.<br />
However, one of our favourites, is only available to<br />
us from about this time of year. Traditionally, wellknown<br />
for the winter snowsports, Queenstown’s<br />
Remarkables mountain range holds a summer<br />
secret that really is something to behold. Perched<br />
some 2000m above sea level is the stunning Lake<br />
Alta. Frozen for well over half of the year, it is only<br />
within the last two months that the warmer Spring<br />
sun has enough punch to chemically deconstruct<br />
the 220 acres of surface area, from a flat pure white<br />
alpine plateau, to a crystal clear (freezing cold)<br />
amphitheatre of turquoise colour and contrast.<br />
With no road access further than the Ski Area base<br />
building, this is truly ‘an effort trip’. Once reaching<br />
the Lake edge, water access from the eastern shore<br />
allows the paddleboarder to circumnavigate the<br />
Lake, gazing at the 40 degree angled Alta chutes<br />
(familiar to our advanced snowboarding readers)<br />
or the breathtaking views up the Grand Coulour<br />
(leading to the high peak of Single Cone, at an<br />
impressive 2319m). While the board deflates, you<br />
can finish with a bone-chilling dip in the post-ice age<br />
water, then take the lazy downhill walk back to the<br />
carpark, through snow tussock fields and high alpine<br />
wetlands.<br />
Magical … but just one of the many “Adventure<br />
SUP” excursions that a safe andc thoughtful<br />
paddleboarder can engage in throughout the South<br />
Island, with a Red Paddle Company paddleboard<br />
available from NZSHRED.<br />
(Note: The waters of the South Island are cold and<br />
weather conditions can be unpredictable. Always<br />
have a plan and be prepared to cancel if needed).<br />
visit<br />
www.nzshred.co.nz<br />
21 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
stuff<br />
PEDal AND PADDLE<br />
“Explore Whangamata and the spectacular Coromandel region<br />
with courtesy vehicle pick ups and drop offs.<br />
“Extensive SUP hire range, surf or explore flat water.<br />
“Visit the now natural wonder of Whenuakura Island and its<br />
spectacular bush fringed lagoon.<br />
“Have a day off the water but wish to explore the region? We<br />
have a wide range of E-Bikes available, or walk our bush and<br />
coast tracks.”<br />
www.pedalandpaddle.co.nz<br />
Coastal Sports Kaikoura<br />
“We’re a small shop living the dream in Kaikoura NZ,<br />
with adventures from the surf to mountains at our<br />
doorstep. Since 2003, owner operated, hardware<br />
focused, passion run business. Coldwater surf<br />
specialist, adventure gear, and all the fun stuff. Shop<br />
smarter, surf more, and consume less.”<br />
+6 3319 5028<br />
www.coastalsports.co.nz<br />
LOCAL & INDEPENDENT<br />
MOANA SUP<br />
If you’re looking for personal<br />
service with a smile, drop in and<br />
see Toby and Bridget at Moana<br />
SUP in Nelson.<br />
Just across the road from the<br />
beach, Moana SUP is a familyowned<br />
independent surf and sup<br />
store selling premium gear, surf and<br />
sup hardware, boards, wetsuits and<br />
apparel.<br />
Toby has designed and shaped a<br />
wide range of products to suit the<br />
novice right through to top grade<br />
surfers such as Jamie “Chip”<br />
Andrews - one of New Zealand’s<br />
best all round surfers.<br />
If you’re in the greater Nelson area<br />
or just passing through you’ll get<br />
a wealth of knowledge about all<br />
things SUP and Surf from Toby and<br />
Bridget.<br />
“Best little surf shop<br />
in town (and beyond)”<br />
Shop 6, 623 Rocks Road, Moana, Nelson<br />
visit<br />
visit<br />
moanasup.co.nz<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 22
stuff<br />
SUPCENTRE<br />
SUPcentre may seem like a specialty<br />
stand up paddle store at first glance.<br />
However once you step inside it soon<br />
becomes apparent that it houses multiple<br />
wave riding tools. Its humble roots as<br />
a stand-up paddle specific store have<br />
slowly morphed over time into a hub for<br />
all watersports.<br />
The store is still renowned for its vast<br />
array of stand-up paddle equipment from<br />
high performance to all-round sup boards,<br />
paddles, fins and accessories. In recent<br />
years, SUPcentre has also taken on the<br />
role of a surf shop with longboards, soft<br />
tops, shortboards, fishes and specialty<br />
shapes by the likes of Auckland based<br />
shaper Steve Morris.<br />
If you have become or are looking to<br />
become one of the recent converts to<br />
wing foiling, SUPcentre is definitely worth<br />
a visit. We now stock boards, foils and<br />
wings from brands such as Naish, Axis,<br />
Ensis and SIC.<br />
All in all Supcentre is the destination for all<br />
your wave riding needs from surf apparel<br />
to boogie boards and hard goods. If the<br />
ocean is your thing then SUPcentre is<br />
sure to be able sort you out with all the<br />
accessories and equipment for your next<br />
adventure.<br />
The store itself is even an escape from the<br />
hustle and bustle of Auckland City. The<br />
friendly staff are available to answer any of<br />
your general or product related questions,<br />
the chilled atmosphere will likely lead you<br />
to grab a seat in front of our big screen<br />
tv and maybe a coffee from Aucklands’<br />
famous Cafe Lafarre just next door. The<br />
store is super accessible only as its only a<br />
few minutes off the motorway and not far<br />
from the CBD making it a perfect stop-off<br />
point for anyone wandering Newmarket or<br />
travelling through Auckland on their next<br />
mission.<br />
SUPcentre is one of the few inner-city<br />
surf/watersport shops, It is your one-stop<br />
shop for the keen water and outdoor<br />
enthusiasts alike. They offer a broad range<br />
of clothing, surf and sup accessories,<br />
wetsuits and more. There is sure to be<br />
something for every family member and to<br />
spark every interest. So next time you’re<br />
in Auckland pop in to hang out with the<br />
supcentre team and check out our wide<br />
range of wave riding goods to cater to all<br />
water sports.<br />
visit<br />
www.supcentre.co.nz<br />
23 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
The old shop at Cowes.<br />
Left to right - Sam Smith, Matt Ryan,<br />
Tommy Tyrrell, Neil Luke.<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 24
Holy<br />
Cowes<br />
Photos supplied by Island Surfboards.<br />
Smorgasboarder delves into the world<br />
of one of Australia’s most iconic surf<br />
brands and finds the reason for their<br />
success is hardly a surprise!<br />
In the year when the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Russell Morrison<br />
and Elvis Presley were top of the pops in Australia, two surfers<br />
with a dream started shaping boards in the garage of one of<br />
their parent’s homes on a little island most commonly known as<br />
the home of the Fairy Penguins in Victoria.<br />
It was 1969, and the two surfers, Matt Ryan and Tom Tyrrell,<br />
had worked out a plan to immerse themselves in the surfing<br />
industry with enough flexibility to be able to down tools, shut<br />
the shop, and chase the waves when they arrived.<br />
It was also the year that Island Surfboards was born at Phillip<br />
Island – a business that continues to this day as one of<br />
Australia’s longest standing independent surf shops.<br />
The shop’s been going so long, it has three generations of the<br />
Ryan family invested in its ongoing success – and a factory<br />
team with a combined experience easily clocking more than 200<br />
years.<br />
For Matt, who’s now 75, and not quite retired, it’s been one wild<br />
ride. While Tom retired a while back, Matt said the strength of<br />
the business had a lot to do with the strength of their friendship<br />
which stretched over 40 years in business together.<br />
“He’s (Tom) not involved in the business anymore. He retired<br />
about 12 years ago, maybe a little longer,” Matt said.<br />
“It was funny. I was going to retire, and he was going to<br />
continue working. And then, out of the blue, he changed his<br />
mind and said - `I want to retire, and you can buy me out’.<br />
“So, instead of retiring, I got back to work. He beat me to it. I’ve<br />
got one foot on retirement and the other on a banana peel!”<br />
Over nearly 53 years Matt has seen a lot of change in the surfing<br />
industry and the small island town he calls home. He counts<br />
some of their success to the timing of when they got started.<br />
“To a certain extent, we had the benefit of luck, there wasn’t<br />
anyone else making boards on Phillip Island.<br />
“The surf industry was in it’s infancy – most of the board makers<br />
were in Melbourne.<br />
“All I wanted to do was surf and making boards was a good way<br />
to get some work done and still have plenty of time for the surf.<br />
But yeah, being in the right place, at the right time.”<br />
Matt’s son, Sandy, who has built a strong reputation as a<br />
notable big wave surfer, now runs the business for the family.<br />
He said Island Surfboards had built a strong reputation for its<br />
focus on helping others to share in their love of surfing.<br />
“The business is an iconic place in the fact that it’s about<br />
providing a service rather than running a get rich quick<br />
scheme,” Sandy said. “We’re here because we enjoy it, it’s a<br />
fantastic lifestyle and it’s a pleasure to give people technical<br />
advice and provide them with the surfing products that allow<br />
them to go out and have the time of their life,” he said.<br />
The ethos has obviously worked well as Island Surfboards<br />
now has two shops, (Cowes and Smiths Beach) and employs<br />
more than 40 people when you include casuals during the peak<br />
season, manufacturing and retail staff at the two shops. The<br />
team produce about 350 of their own boards each year.<br />
The longevity of the business has carried on to the experience<br />
of the staff with the factory brimming with talent who have stuck<br />
with the business for more than 20 years.<br />
25 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
Above: The Big Dog - Matt Ryan - in his prime.<br />
Below: Styling in front of the Smith Street shop.<br />
Left to right<br />
- Matt Ryan,<br />
Greg Wilde, Neil<br />
Luke, Fatcat<br />
Marlborough<br />
(Angus’ Dad),<br />
Tommy Tyrrell.<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 26
27 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong><br />
Left to right - Neil Luke, Tommy<br />
Tyrrell, Phil Grace and the gang.
Glyndyn “Ringa” Ringrose<br />
Ringa doing his thing on a tiddly one!<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 28
29 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong><br />
We’re all good<br />
mates. We’re all<br />
friends. We started<br />
that way. I have<br />
been pretty selective<br />
when new people<br />
start, I like to have<br />
a good feeling with<br />
new people and I’ve<br />
been a pretty good<br />
judge of that so far<br />
I reckon,” Matt<br />
said.<br />
“We’re all good mates. We’re all friends. We<br />
started that way. I have been pretty selective<br />
when new people start, I like to have a good<br />
feeling with new people and I’ve been a pretty<br />
good judge of that so far I reckon,” Matt said.<br />
It’s a thought echoed by Sandy.<br />
“It’s just a nice place to work – it’s like a<br />
family,” he said.<br />
“Well, technically, it is a family, but it’s more of<br />
an extended family of staff and customers.<br />
“You know customers that have been coming<br />
in since before I started working here. It’s fun,<br />
it’s social, it’s enjoyable – rewarding.”<br />
On the family front, Sandy said plenty of<br />
Ryans had appeared behind the desk in the<br />
shop over the years including Sandy’s sister<br />
Julia, his other sister Kate, his Mum and Dad,<br />
and now Sandy’s son Jack. He fully expects<br />
his youngest two, Julian and Tamika, will get a<br />
call up too at some stage.<br />
With a policy of work being work, and home<br />
being home, Matt said there had never been<br />
conflict within the family and he felt having the<br />
family involved had been an asset rather than<br />
a liablity for the business.<br />
Speaking of family, we had to ask Matt<br />
whether all of his children were as seemingly<br />
crazy as Sandy when it comes to taking risks<br />
and chasing huge waves. Luckily for the<br />
fatherly stress levels, it seems Sandy’s on his<br />
own on that front.<br />
“He is unique. My other kids are totally<br />
different, I love them just as much, but they’re<br />
all three different personalities. They’re not like<br />
Sandy, not extreme risk takers like he is,” Matt<br />
noted.<br />
On the factory front, the Island Surfboards<br />
website proudly promotes the team behind<br />
the creation of the boards and the team has<br />
plenty to say about why they do what they do.<br />
The Island creative line-up includes:<br />
• Custom shaper and factory manager<br />
Greg “Hoges” Hogan who has more than<br />
40 years experience in the surf industry,<br />
23 of those at Island Surfboards.<br />
• Glyndyn “Ringa” Ringrose - custom<br />
shaper and team rider with 35 years’<br />
experience in the surfing industry, 23<br />
of those at Island. He was once ranked<br />
20th in the world on the CT and is a WSL<br />
water patrolman.<br />
• Newbie, Angus “Gus” Marlborough,<br />
custom shaping and sanding for two<br />
years with the team. Worth noting the lad<br />
has a sense of humour - noting on his bio<br />
that “I’ve got more freckles than the night<br />
sky has stars”.<br />
• Dean “Deano” Bould is a kneeboard<br />
shaper with 10 years at Island. He also<br />
happens to have won plenty of local and<br />
State kneeboard titles.<br />
• Adam “Adzy” Vyverberg has been<br />
spraying boards and sorting out dings at<br />
Island for 12 of the 15 years he has spent<br />
in the game. He also creates custom<br />
boards and reckons 99% of the dings he<br />
fixes are Sandy’s boards.<br />
• Peter “Pud” Coffey has clocked up more<br />
than 40 years in the surf industry, the last<br />
three at Island where he’s in charge of<br />
glassing and tints. He started at Klemm<br />
Bell Surfboards in 1967 and has probably<br />
forgotten more than most people will ever<br />
learn about this game. He’s often joined<br />
on the job by his son James.<br />
• Terry “Klemmy” Klem has the title of<br />
classic customer shaper - and with 56<br />
years in the game, the last 10 at Island,<br />
it’s a journey that started way back in<br />
1959 when he crafted his first board out<br />
of balsa. He digs recreating boards from<br />
original 60’s templates and at Klemm<br />
Bell was one of the first manufacturers in<br />
Victoria.<br />
• James “Jimmy” Coffey has clocked up<br />
three years at Island out of his 15 years<br />
in the industry. He’s on the sander and<br />
repairs and is the second generation of<br />
Coffey to work at Island.<br />
• Greg “Slim” Hyndman is a master glasser<br />
- 35 years in the game, 30 of those at<br />
Island. He’s been making boards since<br />
he was 16 years old.<br />
Slim remembers his start in the game.<br />
“I turned up here in ’86 and there was Tommy,<br />
Neil, Matt. Andy was the glasser – Greg Wild<br />
was here as well,” Slim said.<br />
“I did a few boards shaping and did all the<br />
polishing of the boards you know.<br />
“All the boards were polished in those days,<br />
so I did that. Andy left and I started doing all<br />
the glassing from then on - so it’s been a few<br />
years.”<br />
Veteran shaper, Hoges, has been at it for<br />
many a year too.<br />
“I shaped my first board back when I was 13,<br />
but I’ve done heaps of other sh*t as well,” he<br />
notes. Hoges was also quick to point out that<br />
it was about more than the shapers, saying<br />
everyone contributed to the creation of their<br />
boards.<br />
Former Tour surfer Glyndyn “Ringa” Ringrose<br />
is another shaper in the team. He started in<br />
1993 and has been there ever since. He jokes<br />
about riding his own boards during his time on<br />
the circuit.<br />
“There were a few guys before me that did<br />
that too, but I was the last one, the last bloke<br />
to ride exclusively my own boards on tour.<br />
Maybe it was my downfall,” he laughs.<br />
If you go looking online there’s a few pics of<br />
Ringa surfing all manner of boards including a<br />
finless selection in some pretty gnarly waves<br />
in Fiji. Just as the team will ride all manner<br />
of gear, they will not shy away from shaping<br />
anything.<br />
“No way. I have a go at it all. Everything and<br />
anything. Kneeboards, goat boats, wave skis,<br />
mals, sups, shortboards, fishes. Whatever<br />
anyone wants me to do, I’ll have a go,”<br />
Ringa said. “I just want to keep improving,<br />
keep getting better, adjusting to the times.<br />
Constantly tweaking to get something a little<br />
bit more.”<br />
While stories abound in the surfing industry<br />
about top secret designs and delicate egos<br />
in the shaping bays, the Island Surfboards’<br />
team say the years of working together have<br />
created an equilibrium that works.<br />
“Back in the day, shapers didn’t share<br />
anything,” Slim said. “It was like a secret<br />
society. No-one shared anything, unless a<br />
guy put you under his wing. Nowadays, some<br />
people share, other people go, `nup – I’m top<br />
secret’. We just do our own thing here. I come<br />
in, do my work. They come in and do their<br />
work – that’s it.”
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 30
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that too, but I was the last<br />
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Hoges said a few years of experience helped.<br />
“Most of the time, it works well because, number 1 –<br />
everyone’s really f*#ken old. You know, I say to them -<br />
`you’re on piece rates – you’re all f*#ken adults – I shouldn’t<br />
have to tell you what to f*#ken do,” Hoges said.<br />
“It’s the surfboard industry you know, the shaper can make<br />
it hard for the glasser, the glasser can make it hard for the<br />
sander, the sander can make it hard for the finisher. So,<br />
there is co-operation here so none of that happens.<br />
“But as I said, they’re all adults and they get paid to do the<br />
job. There’s a certain team that’ll share and another team<br />
that don’t. Personally, I couldn’t give a f*#k.”<br />
Ringa said the fact they all worked in the same factory<br />
meant they all saw each other’s work at any rate – and that<br />
both he and Hoges made a point of sharing their work with<br />
their apprentice Gus as part of his training.<br />
Matt said the strength of the factory team was reflected in<br />
the strength of the brand.<br />
“Everyone in the factory is an expert at their craft, and<br />
there’s always been a good mix of experience and youth,”<br />
he said.<br />
The other half of the creation of great boards is great<br />
feedback and Island Surfboards have a team of willing<br />
surfers on their list who are happy to help on that front.<br />
Aside from Sandy and Ringa, The Island Surfboard’s talent<br />
list includes: Harry de Roth, Carl Wright, Brock Jeffrey-<br />
Warren, Eli Curry, Simon McShane, Codie Jeffery, Francis<br />
Meade, Adrian Maier, Kirra Marlborough, Bridget Gregson,<br />
Nick Huigsloot, Blake Green, Josh Griffin, Kyle Griffin, Eden<br />
Goldsbury, Jamie Liatos, Niamh Moore, Ollie Van Venrooy,<br />
Rye Cicero and Jarrah Cicero.<br />
Hoges said different surfers had different strengths when it<br />
came to providing feedback.<br />
“Sandy’s exceptionally good. Harry’s sh*thouse. But nah, a<br />
lot of guys just grab them and surf them good, they like it,<br />
but they don’t really know why.<br />
“Sandy will go, `why does it do this?’ or `feel like this?’ and<br />
you can work it out from there. McShane’s probably as<br />
good as anyone, he’s incredibly fussy but you can learn a<br />
lot from that feedback.”<br />
For Ringa, all feedback’s worth noting.<br />
“You always get feedback from all sorts of areas,” he said.<br />
“You’ve obviously got the pros and the team riders, they’ve<br />
got their own ideas anyway, you’ve got to modify their<br />
ideas.<br />
159 ESPLANADE, PORT NOARLUNGA SOUTH, SA 5167<br />
PH: (08) 8386 0404<br />
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“He is unique. My other<br />
kids are totally different,<br />
I love them just as much,<br />
but they’re all three<br />
different personalities.<br />
They’re not like Sandy,<br />
not extreme risk takers<br />
like he is,” - Matt Ryan.<br />
Sandy Ryan,<br />
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<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 32
33 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong><br />
“Then you’ve got people who might not have a lot of idea,<br />
but they’ve got an idea in their mind of what it should look<br />
like or how it should go.<br />
“Everyone expects that their board is going to make them<br />
a surfer.<br />
“What I’ve learnt over the years is that you can make the<br />
board go. You are the person that has to adjust, work,<br />
understand the board to make it perform to its limitations.<br />
But you can always push those limitations to the max.”<br />
The combination of talent behind and on top of the boards<br />
has certainly worked for the business - taking them to great<br />
heights, including winning the Quiksilver Core Surf Store<br />
Challenge event held on the Gold Coast - up against some<br />
giants of the industry.<br />
“It was pretty big for a little surf shop from Phillip<br />
Island to take out the biggest and best surf shops<br />
across Australasia, so yeah, it was pretty huge,” Sandy<br />
reminisces.<br />
“On top of that it was really fun surfing Snapper, and<br />
obviously a big party ensued which was a bit of fun too!”<br />
Helping others to build their skills extends beyond their<br />
own team too. Island Surfboards is renowned on the<br />
East Coast of Australia for having one of the biggest surf<br />
schools in the country – a reputation that has been built<br />
over many years.<br />
“It’s been going a long time, coming up to 30 years now,”<br />
Sandy said.
Sandy Ryan<br />
Pic: Andy Chisholm<br />
“We provide a very hands-on service of teaching people<br />
how to surf, as opposed to just crowd control. A lot of return<br />
customers. We offer group lessons, school groups right across<br />
Victoria.<br />
“It’s a very personalised approach, no matter how big the<br />
group is.”<br />
With so much time in the market and such a strong brand to<br />
build from, the opportunity has been there for further growth –<br />
however Matt said it had never really been of interest to him.<br />
“I didn’t want the stress I suppose,” Matt said.<br />
“For most of my time, being directly involved, I’ve wanted<br />
to surf as much as I can as well. I just haven’t been that<br />
ambitious.<br />
“The potential was always there, but you have to throw a lot<br />
more time out of the water into it all. We’ve just been plodding<br />
along. It is a selfish point of view really, we just wanted to<br />
surf.”<br />
Sandy said it comes down what they love about the business.<br />
“We just love Phillip Island, it’s where I’ve grown up. We’ve<br />
only been growing within our means. A lot of other brands<br />
seem to go big and it’s often to their detriment. I guess it<br />
comes back to that lifestyle that we’ve got here on Phillip<br />
Island.”<br />
Off the back of a tough two years of COVID-19 restrictions and<br />
lockdowns Sandy said the focus for the future was to just keep<br />
getting better.<br />
“In terms of outlook going forward, we’ll just keep the same<br />
thing running and obviously try to improve where we can. Just<br />
do what we do, better,” Sandy said.<br />
As for Matt, he’s happy to take a backseat on what comes<br />
next.<br />
“I’ll leave that to the younger generation. No one wants to<br />
be taking any notice of what a 75 year old thinks. The young<br />
people can make the decisions now, and I’m happy with that.”<br />
Sandy said it comes<br />
down to what they love<br />
about the business.<br />
“We just love Phillip<br />
Island, it’s where I’ve<br />
grown up. We’ve only<br />
been growing within<br />
our means. A lot of<br />
other brands seem to<br />
go big and it’s often to<br />
their detriment. I guess<br />
it comes back to that<br />
lifestyle that we’ve got<br />
here on Phillip Island.”<br />
If you happen to be down south in Victoria and want<br />
to check out Island Surfboards, you’ll find them at<br />
147 Thompson Ave, Cowes or 225 Smiths Beach<br />
Road, Smiths Beach. Failing that, find them online at<br />
www.islandsurfboards.com.au<br />
Facebook: @islandsurfboards<br />
Insta: @islandsurfboards1969<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 34
Team Rider – Zac Haynes<br />
Pic – Matt Macdonal<br />
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35 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 36
Through a<br />
different lens<br />
words: geoff crockett<br />
37 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 38
If you happen to be<br />
wandering down<br />
a bush track to an<br />
isolated surf spot along<br />
the Great Ocean Road<br />
to make the most of<br />
some huge waves and<br />
you hear a rustle in the<br />
bushes – don’t be too<br />
alarmed.<br />
If the swell’s up and the conditions are right, that rustle<br />
could well be Torquay photographer Romy Roache<br />
heading toward the edge of a cliff for an eagle-eye view of<br />
nature unfolding.<br />
Romy is a multi-talented creative soul. She plays music,<br />
speaks German fluently, has travelled extensively and<br />
spent countless hours on the water sailing and enjoying<br />
nature with her family as she grew up on Victoria’s<br />
coastline. Right now, she’s also learning how to be a Yoga<br />
teacher.<br />
Most recently though Romy has developed a new career<br />
for herself, taking a childhood love of photography and<br />
applying a passion for learning to morph from interior<br />
designer to photographer and open her own studio in the<br />
surfing mecca of Torquay.<br />
For Romy it’s a journey she’s undertaken later in life. She<br />
said it’s been at times nerve wracking and scary, but now,<br />
it’s increasingly, rewarding.<br />
Her latest piece of good news was that one of her photos<br />
was selected by author John Ogden to open a section of<br />
his latest book Waterproof: Australian Surf Photography<br />
Since 1958. The book was released in September this<br />
year.<br />
Tracking back to when her interest in photography began<br />
Romy said while she can remember enjoying taking<br />
pictures as a child when it came to choosing a career and<br />
further study she had been drawn towards interior design.<br />
She said as she started to travel, taking photos was<br />
always part of the experience. Feedback from friends<br />
inspired by her snaps shared on social media or in person<br />
let her know people enjoyed her work.<br />
39 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 40
“I moved back to Torquay and I started going down the beach and<br />
enjoying the ocean and taking photos and got more and more into it,”<br />
Romy said.<br />
“I met my husband down here and he surfs and I think that’s been a big<br />
part of the bigger picture as well.”<br />
As for when the idea of being a photographer full-time became a reality,<br />
Romy said: “I do remember the moment very well”.<br />
“I made friends with a guy who had a studio down here – I used to<br />
come in with my Iphone and say look at the shot I took this morning.<br />
“Over time, he picked up my phone one day – and he took it out of my<br />
hand. He goes – `you’re buying a camera’.<br />
“I said I don’t know what to buy and he just said - go to Melbourne, pick<br />
them up, play with them and buy one. I came home with the Olympus.<br />
“He showed me a few things – I found this awesome lady to teach me<br />
too. That’s how it started.<br />
“Then he gave me a job to work in the studio on the weekends. Then I<br />
formed my own eye for the shots I like.<br />
“He pretty much said to me from the very first day – you’ve got<br />
awesome composition – he said don’t worry, whatever you’re doing,<br />
you’re doing right.<br />
“Some of my shots are not the correct composition as to what you’re<br />
taught at school. It’s not perfect. I don’t want that perfect look. I just see<br />
lines – as soon as I see lines, I’m hitting the camera button and I’m off.<br />
“I just wait. Over time you just learn how to read the waves – you can<br />
already see what’s happening in the background and you start to think<br />
what settings am I going to use for this shot. It’s all quick.<br />
“I do like to go up high to shoot – I usually climb in the bushes and hide<br />
from everyone else. Someone the other day went `Oh My God – you<br />
gave me such a fright’ when I came back out onto the track.<br />
“It is work though – I’m working and I’m out there to get something. It’s<br />
easier to do it without interruptions.”<br />
When it comes to the best time of year for photography, Romy said it<br />
was a mix.<br />
“I was going through my favourites looking for my best shots, and as<br />
much as winter are the best waves, autumn has the best colours.<br />
“Winter is my best time though – you need everything – you need the<br />
full gear – sometimes you can’t even tell if you’re a boy or girl. It gets<br />
really cold – Antartic winds blowing in.<br />
“Every time you go out, it’s so different.<br />
“The colours are different, the swells are different, the wind’s different,<br />
the tides different, what’s exposed on the rocks is different, you can<br />
never get sick of it. It’s such a beautiful thing to be part of. God I’m<br />
lucky, I’m doing this as a job.”<br />
Since taking up the camera in earnest – Romy said she was surprised<br />
by the speed at which her business has grown.<br />
“Some of my shots are not<br />
the correct composition<br />
as to what you’re taught<br />
at school. It’s not perfect.<br />
I don’t want that perfect<br />
look. I just see lines – as<br />
soon as I see lines, I’m<br />
hitting the camera button<br />
and I’m off.<br />
41 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
You owe it<br />
to your eyes.<br />
Barz Optics developed their initial surfing<br />
sunglass / goggle in the mid 90’s — since then<br />
they have developed a further six eyewear styles<br />
for surfing.<br />
Barz latest model The Coolie provides that classic<br />
sunglass look.<br />
Featuring a dual moulded nose piece and temples<br />
for a comfortable fit. Ideal for protecting the eyes<br />
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protecting the eyes from pterigium growth.<br />
Available in either a matt grey or matt black<br />
frame with either a amber or grey 1.1mm acetate<br />
polarised lenses.<br />
The Coolie can also be fitted with limited RX<br />
prescription lenses for those who are optically<br />
challenged.<br />
The nose piece and temple tips are non slip.<br />
Each pair is supplied with a leash that keeps the<br />
glasses close to the chest if the frame has been<br />
ripped off the wearer head in the surf.<br />
Available at good surf shops or at<br />
www.barzoptics.com<br />
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“For me it’s come a long way very quickly, even with the hard times of<br />
COVID.<br />
“There was one moment where I wondered what was going to happen.<br />
I feel very privileged, very looked after.<br />
“It is a good story – it’s a good story for people who don’t come across<br />
their dream until later in life.<br />
“I went to school as interior designer. When I took up photography<br />
again obviously all the cameras had really changed.<br />
“I found this amazing teacher. There were only certain things I wanted<br />
to freshen up on and learn and she taught me, one-on-one, about the<br />
<strong>digital</strong> cameras and all the different apps.”<br />
Much like a surfer, Romy said her days are planned around the<br />
weather and the swell – constantly monitoring the surf apps to try<br />
and understand when the next big swell is likely to roll through, and<br />
the weather apps to know when the conditions might be just right to<br />
capture nature at her best.<br />
“I’m not really a surf photographer, I’m a landscape or ocean<br />
photographer.<br />
“People love it – it’s a bit mystical – it takes them away from the reality<br />
of the hardships of life at the moment.<br />
“They want to know where it was shot and when it was shot. And they<br />
seem to like the idea that it was me who took the shots.<br />
“I just like to get out there and do my own thing. I think I always try to<br />
find spots that look appealing or different to me.<br />
“I think a lot of it is just luck and the only planning I really do is swellnet<br />
and the weather conditions.”<br />
Romy said she’d also developed a bit of a following with local surfers<br />
who’d message her to find out if she was going to be out shooting.<br />
“You get a lot of surfers going – are you going out? I can’t wait to see<br />
what you get.<br />
“The other day I went out and took a few shots of the 50 year storm<br />
down here at Bells – and they were in touch asking did you get any<br />
shots of me? I do have a good look and try and help them out.”<br />
Predominantly Romy said her photos were of the coastline around<br />
Torquay and along the Great Ocean Road close to where she lives.<br />
While most are ocean shots, she also has a love of the tree ferns and<br />
forests of the Otways and has started to take more shots of Australian<br />
native animals she encounters on her journeys.<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 42
There was one moment<br />
where I wondered what<br />
was going to happen. I<br />
feel very privileged, very<br />
looked after.<br />
“It is a good story – it’s a<br />
good story for people who<br />
don’t come across their<br />
dream until later in life.”<br />
Romy said the holidays she and her husband Phil take most often<br />
revolve around surf and photography, but so far, the timing’s not gone<br />
her way.<br />
“We often go up to Crescent Head, or Byron, but it’s funny, we keep<br />
missing the swell somehow. We keep saying next time there’s a<br />
cyclone we’re heading up and take photos.”<br />
When it came time to choose a honeymoon destination, Romy and Phil<br />
headed to the Mentawai’s, home to nearly 30 different surf breaks.<br />
For Romy, her surf time is normally spent up high, looking down on the<br />
action through the lense, although she said she has a longboard she’s<br />
been known to dabble with occasionally.<br />
On the business front, Romy said she had started an online business<br />
first and started to sell prints of her best photos to people all over the<br />
world.<br />
While slow to start, she said the interest grew, surf sites picked up or<br />
shared her posts, and the comments gave her the confidence to go all<br />
in and explore setting up a studio space in the main street of Torquay<br />
to better showcase her work for locals.<br />
“I had my online business and that was growing – I had people<br />
ordering stuff and I’d have it framed up. But I wanted to see those<br />
images on the wall. Not just be sending them away in a tube.<br />
“I put all my money into it and thought if I don’t give it a go, I’ll never<br />
know whether I’ll be able to do this. So I found a little studio that ended<br />
up opening way, way, later than it was meant to, which was in March<br />
last year, exactly when COVID hit.<br />
“Everything was done, and then I couldn’t get the keys. It was about<br />
nine months behind schedule – I missed out on the Christmas before,<br />
then Easter. I finally got the keys in March and brought them home<br />
and my husband and I just put them aside and we didn’t say anything<br />
about them for about a week.<br />
John Ogden’s latest book<br />
Waterproof: Australian Surf<br />
Photography Since 1958.<br />
43 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
“Then one day I just woke up and said I’m doing<br />
this and we started to set it all up. Decked it out,<br />
painted it, got the signage, tried to make it really nice<br />
and had it ready to go for when that first lockdown<br />
ended.<br />
“It’s just been a bit of a whirlwind – but I believe it’s<br />
been to my favour.<br />
“The locals have been so supportive. Predominantly<br />
I thought it would be all the tourists – but COVID<br />
stopped that. I’d had small pictures set up that<br />
would be easy for travellers to pack and take home,<br />
but it just never went that way.<br />
“Then I realised that people were coming in and<br />
wanting to buy big scale pictures for these holiday<br />
homes. I just think people wanted beautiful pictures<br />
on their walls to make them happy as well.”<br />
Right now though Romy’s continuing to explore<br />
what’s possible with her photography, creating<br />
postcards, pictures of different sizes and even<br />
having an image printed onto a surfboard created by<br />
Matty Shaw from Pale Horse Surfboards.<br />
“You know what I really love. I have my hours 11am<br />
to 3pm most days and you don’t have to always be<br />
there – it’s a nice atmosphere. I find it really present.<br />
“If there’s great swell you can put a sign on your<br />
door and say - `I’m out taking shots’.”<br />
Keen to be environmentally sustainable, Romy said<br />
she uses sustainable products for her frames and<br />
her paper choices and has also started to dabble in<br />
driftwood art and driftwood lights which are sold in<br />
the studio as something a little bit different.<br />
“I’ve tried to give it a bit of a quirky feel. I want<br />
something else in here that’s local and a bit of fun.”<br />
As for what’s next, Romy said she was looking<br />
forward to next year when the Bells Beach surf event<br />
would be on again, and hopeful that in a post-COVID<br />
world she’ll be able to share her photos with even<br />
more visitors.<br />
As for a favourite photo so far – Romy can’t go past<br />
a shot she calls the Golden Tube.<br />
“It was actually the biggest swell that I’ve seen to<br />
this date – it was a beautiful swell – it wasn’t blown<br />
out waves.<br />
“I remember taking shots and shots and shots and<br />
I thought I reckon I got this big tube and I reckon<br />
there’s guys in the back of it – oh my god I can’t wait<br />
to get home and check it.<br />
“And straight away, when I looked at it, it was<br />
exactly as I thought.<br />
“I’ve got that in my studio now in a beautiful acrylic<br />
and I ended up doing my A-Board and my photos<br />
on it too.<br />
As for what’s next,<br />
Romy said she was<br />
looking forward<br />
to next year when<br />
the Bells Beach surf<br />
event would be on<br />
again, and hopeful<br />
that in a post-<br />
COVID world she’ll<br />
be able to share her<br />
photos with even<br />
more visitors.<br />
To see more of Romy’s work go to<br />
www.romyphotographer.com.au<br />
@Romyphotographer<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 44
45 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
OARD<br />
ENSELE<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 46
GET READY BECAUSE WE’RE<br />
ABOUT TO THROW ALL<br />
MANNER OF BOARD SPORTS<br />
AT YOU, EVERYTHING YOU’VE<br />
EVER CONSIDERED BUT<br />
PERHAPS NOT YET TRIED.<br />
This feature article is perfectly suited for surfers like us<br />
with an increasingly short attention span. So, if you’ve<br />
grown tired of nowhere near mastering what you are<br />
doing now but want to try your hand at something else<br />
S<br />
you will be equally crap at, please read on.<br />
We aim to provide you with a rundown on the appeal<br />
of each given board sport, the initial bit of kit you<br />
require, associated setup costs, lessons, etiquette and<br />
any other useless bit of information we can find…<br />
basically everything you need to know to get started. In<br />
doing so, rest assured, in true Australian spirit we will<br />
mercilessly take the absolute p*ss out each discipline.<br />
After all, that’s part of the fun.<br />
words : dave swan & geoff crockett<br />
47 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
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SURFING EVOLUTION<br />
Dave’s grom boards<br />
The main thing to remember when looking<br />
through the history of surfing, the evolution<br />
of the surfboard and all its various offshoots is<br />
that you should assume everyone and anyone<br />
you know has invented something. There is<br />
no limit to the legends who have staked their<br />
claim on how they radically changed the face<br />
of surfing. So one thing is for certain when you<br />
read this article is that we will more than likely<br />
get it all wrong and give credit to the wrong<br />
person and offend someone, but as they say<br />
“sh*t happens”. So here we go, a speed dating<br />
approach to the evolution of the surfboard.<br />
Top image: Magazine illustration of First Nation Hawaiians<br />
surf-riding (surfing) from an article entitled "Our Neighbors<br />
of the Sandwich Islands" in Hutchings' California Magazine,<br />
November 1858. Butler / Hutchings’ California Magazine<br />
According to the Surfing Heritage and Culture Center<br />
in San Clemente, the oldest known papa he‘e nalu, or<br />
surfboard, dates to the 1600s and comes from Chiefess<br />
Kaneamuna’s burial cave in Ho’okena on the Big Island.<br />
Image: Wiki Commons<br />
49 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
There are reportedly some 23 million people across the globe who surf,<br />
close to 2 million in Australia and about 200,000 in New Zealand.<br />
Historians believe surfing evolved as part of ancient Polynesian culture,<br />
dating as far back as 1200 AD and although the origins of surfing are<br />
not known, sailors on a ship in Tahiti were said to be the first Europeans<br />
to witness it back in 1767. It was said the top surfer was also the chief<br />
of his local community. It is pretty much the same in our office, so it is<br />
clearly apparent that kind of thing continues to this day.<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 50
Making a surfboard was a spiritual ritual of<br />
sorts and a great deal of care went into its<br />
construction, which I can certainly relate to<br />
given my supernatural shaping skills. The<br />
Polynesians were interested in learning how to<br />
tame the ocean and only the most skilled surfers<br />
were highly respected in society.<br />
As far as surfboards go, they were made of<br />
wood: the smallest was the paipo, next was<br />
the 20 ft-long olo and the the third type was<br />
the alaia, said to be the predecessor of modern<br />
surfboards. Many may have seen them in recent<br />
times, they look like a wooden ironing board,<br />
flat as a tack with absolutely no fins. Only skilled<br />
people like myself know how to ride them, which<br />
I don’t mind informing you about.<br />
From Hawaii, surfing eventually made its way<br />
to the East Coast of the United States in 1912<br />
where James Matthias Jordan Jnr took to the<br />
waves at Virginia Beach on a Hawaiian redwood<br />
board. Then in the 1920s, surfboard design<br />
took a major leap forward when Santa Monica<br />
lifeguard and surfer Tom Blake took a boat trip<br />
to Hawaii. He was of the opinion surfboards<br />
were too bloody heavy (he probably didn’t use<br />
those exact words) and started adapting his<br />
15ft-long redwood model by drilling holes in it.<br />
Blake’s hollow style board was a massive<br />
success and in the 1930s the number of surfers<br />
in California quadrupled. Blake then decided to<br />
add a stabilising fin in 1935 and violà, we pretty<br />
much had the basics of a surfboard as we know<br />
today.<br />
Later in 1949, Bob Simmons, dubbed the “father<br />
of the modern surfboard”, became obsessed<br />
with creating the world’s fastest surfboard. His<br />
experiment with plywood, balsa and Styrofoam<br />
composites resulted in a board made of a<br />
polystyrene core and mahogany veneer sealed<br />
with resin and fibreglass. The result reduced<br />
the weight by 50% and created a massive<br />
improvement in performance.<br />
Fast forward to the 1960’s and things went<br />
crazy, possibly in part due to the types of<br />
lawn being grown as we entered what was<br />
considered surfing’s “golden era”. Boards went<br />
from 10ft long to around 8ft and by 1970, the<br />
top competitors in Australia had reduced the<br />
board size further to between five and six feet.<br />
This enabled them to adopt a lower and more<br />
aggressive stance, connecting more closely<br />
with the waves than ever before.<br />
51 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
Now before we get into all these other board<br />
sports, let’s talk about plain old surfing first,<br />
riding a wave in its purest form. At least this is<br />
something we can do here at Smorgasboarder,<br />
albeit not very well. It doesn’t matter if you’re a<br />
long planker w*nker who is really just there to<br />
drink cappuccinos with your mates afterwards,<br />
or a slop-groveller on a board so small you<br />
clearly love paddling for hours on end to just to<br />
miss out on every single wave whilst swearing<br />
at everyone around you, or even one of those<br />
weird kneeboarders. I mean, who would ever<br />
understand why you would kneel when you can<br />
stand, or even those poor boogers that resemble<br />
giant sea slugs, but we digress. Despite your<br />
preference, we love you all, in all your unique<br />
special ways, and we celebrate you. That is what<br />
Smorgasboarding is all about - ride what you like.<br />
Just don’t expect us not to have a little fun along<br />
the way. Life is just too serious at times.<br />
Appeal:<br />
For the water lovers among us there’s some primal<br />
instinct that drives us to want to be in the water,<br />
mixing it up with the waves and revelling in the power<br />
and beauty of nature.<br />
While body surfing could arguably present the purest<br />
form of human vs ocean, for thousands of years<br />
we’ve been tempted to take a plank of wood, or<br />
bark, or whatever we could find, drag it out to sea<br />
and then try and ride it back to shore.<br />
Whatever it was that drove us to want to be on<br />
the water, it is fair to say over the past 100 years<br />
in particular and countless thousands of hours of<br />
thinking, making, breaking and innovating have been<br />
poured into creating the perfect ride for just about<br />
any body shape, size, and skill level on the waves.<br />
While what “perfect” actually means will always be<br />
a matter of perception, the reality is, in 2021, surfers<br />
have access to boards made from cutting edge,<br />
space-travel worthy substances – right back to finely<br />
honed balsa wood masterpieces.<br />
Surfboards have gone from being super-heavy<br />
three metre chunks of wood, to being crafted out of<br />
polyurethane (PU) or extruded polystyreene (EPS)<br />
foam and covered in resin. Most recently American<br />
company Varial has developed a new core material,<br />
Varial Foam, which they say is not only 25% lighter<br />
than the usual materials, but 40% stronger too, so it<br />
can be used to produce boards without the need for<br />
wooden stringers.<br />
Needless to say surfboard design and construction<br />
is constantly evolving and as a result we are now<br />
spolilt for choice with a multitude of board designs<br />
to suit a broad range of environments and rider skill<br />
levels from shortboards to longboards, retro inspired<br />
shapes and fishes, big-wave guns and tow-boards<br />
to kneeboards and even finless creations. Plainly<br />
put, the world offers an infinite spectrum of waves,<br />
and that is why there is an increasingly wide range<br />
of surfboard shapes and styles. And that’s just<br />
the board styles themselves, there’s then all the<br />
elements of each respective design such as the<br />
length, width, thickness, outline, rocker, bottom<br />
curves, rails and fin setup to consider. Suffice to say,<br />
beginner, advanced, emerging or reformed, there<br />
are no excuses for not getting your share of waves.<br />
There is a board to suit everyone so don’t blame your<br />
equipment, just your own selection.<br />
As a basic rule, beginners tend to need longer<br />
boards with higher volumes to help them paddle on<br />
to waves. The more waves you get, the more fun you<br />
have and the more you learn. It’s that simple. Wave<br />
count is key. As you get better, there’s the myriad<br />
of board designs on offer that we just mentioned<br />
depending on what feeling or style of surfing you are<br />
pursuing.<br />
As a basic guide surfboards range in height from<br />
five feet for a Mini Simmons or Fish style board<br />
(which has a W-shaped tail), through to 10 foot for a<br />
Longboard and up to 12 foot for what is now referred<br />
to as a Glider.<br />
Shortboards obviously work best on fast, steep,<br />
waves. More often then not they have a pointy nose,<br />
thinner rails and are usually between five and seven<br />
feet in length. They are easier to turn and will respond<br />
quickly in critical sections of the wave.<br />
Longboards and Mini Mals range from eight to 12<br />
feet, generally have rounded noses and are up to<br />
3.5 inches thick on average. They’re easier to catch<br />
waves on and are often suggested as a starting<br />
point for beginners working on the basics of wave<br />
selection but equally as appealing to those who want<br />
to surf with style. These are the boards the really<br />
good riders like us can be seen walking up and down<br />
on the wave and occassionaly putting their feet over<br />
the edge (Hanging Ten as it’s colloquially known).<br />
Gliders are gargantuan longboards designed for<br />
when the waves are miniscule and you are desperate.<br />
The Fish, with it’s W-shaped tail is often shorter,<br />
wider and flatter than a shortboard with greater<br />
volume. This makes them plane better and generate<br />
a lot of speed in small to medium waves. They’re not<br />
so good for steep or hollow waves unless you can<br />
surf like Dave (or so he tells us).<br />
For big wave surfers there’s a board that kind of<br />
looks like a shortboard on steroids. It’s a little longer<br />
with a more narrow nose and tail and is known as<br />
a Gun. This style of board generally ranges from<br />
seven to 10 feet in length and is designed to be easy<br />
to paddle to generate enough speed to catch and<br />
drop into big waves whilst possessing all the turning<br />
capability of a shortboard.<br />
Tow-boards are really a different beast altogether<br />
and the technology employed insane – way too<br />
much to cover in-depth here. Suffice to say, if you<br />
are planning on tackling 20-30 ft plus waves you<br />
need some serious equipment. These boards can<br />
reportedly attain speeds of up to 120kms per hour.<br />
They need to be strong to handle the beatings, they<br />
need to be fast, and they need to be nimble and able<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 52
to turn on a dime in critical sections of monstrous<br />
waves. Think carbon/ kevlar materials, deep concave<br />
bottoms to reduce the “wetted” surface area, 80/20<br />
foil fins and you are in the realm of tow-boarding talk,<br />
which we have absolutely no idea of what all that<br />
means.<br />
Kneeboards are another option for those who like<br />
to tuck in and get inside the tube. Proponents of<br />
kneeboarding speak of the appeal of being able to<br />
see and feel the wave’s energy more intimately than<br />
when standing. The boards themselves are not unlike<br />
many of the performance shortboards and retro<br />
shapes we previously mentioned aside from being<br />
a little wider to accommodate a fin placement more<br />
suited to kneelo turns that are more drawn out.<br />
Then there’s finless creations - quite simply, boards<br />
with no fins! This style of surfing pretty much<br />
appeals to two types of people: those who could<br />
literally surf anything, meaning a tree has fallen down<br />
in your backyard, you lop off a couple of branches<br />
and that said person can take it down to the surf and<br />
go crazy; and those like us who haven’t mastered the<br />
true art of surfing but have decided to try their hand<br />
at something else to make it appear like we can surf<br />
when in reality we can’t. But hey, it’s fun.<br />
53 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
Cost:<br />
Just like the variability of the boards on offer in the<br />
surfboard spectrum the prices can differ based on<br />
board size, shape, the skills of the said shaper, or<br />
even just what’s popular at any particular time. As<br />
a guide, Australia’s longest running independant<br />
surf shop Goodtime Surf in Brisbane has an El Nino<br />
Scorcher 44” softboard with fins for $139.95 (great<br />
for kids getting started), entry level shortboards from<br />
around $600 such as their Goodtime 6’0 Hot Dog<br />
for $649 and longboards from around the $1000+<br />
mark. A quality hand shaped longboard however<br />
from the likes of the many custom shapers in this<br />
very magazine will set you back around $2000. It<br />
comes down to what you are after and your budget.<br />
As an interesting aside, a search for the most<br />
expensive surfboards ever brings up a $1.3million<br />
board called The Rampant, which, according to the<br />
Adventure Maldives site that compiled the list, was<br />
created by New Zealand-based surfboard designer<br />
Roy Stuart. It’s 3.2m long and made from the timber<br />
of a Paulownia tree, native to Asia. It’s crowning<br />
glory is a gold lion that’s been painted on with a<br />
red resin outline. It’s a big drop to the next most<br />
expensive board on their list – but still at $183,000<br />
the Aureus board created by Ellie Miller in a small<br />
studio in North Devon in England and incorporating<br />
24k gold plating in the fiberglass is something<br />
special.<br />
Lessons:<br />
Being the most common way to tame a wave has<br />
its benefits when it comes to hunting down surfing<br />
lessons. As a rough guide, two-hour group lessons<br />
at the King of Surfing (www.kingofsurfing.com.au)<br />
Surf Schools in South Australia will set you back $44<br />
per person, or three for $100. Like anything new, it’s<br />
well worth the money if you’re just starting out, or<br />
even looking for a refresher or to step up to your<br />
next level. Surf school instructors live and breath<br />
surfing. They can spot what you’re doing right and<br />
wrong, suggest where you move your feet, shuffle<br />
your torso, or focus your eyes and shoulder in just<br />
the right spot and all of a sudden your wave count<br />
will go up and the smiles will too.<br />
Etiquette:<br />
Because plain old surfing is the simplest, and<br />
arguably one of the cheapest ways to access the<br />
waves, more and more people are doing it.<br />
In Coastal towns across Australia and New Zealand<br />
it’s not an unusual sight to see a board in the back<br />
of a ute, strapped to the roof or across the back<br />
seat of a car as locals go about their days with one<br />
eye on the weather and the other on their watches<br />
just waiting for the chance to get out on the water<br />
at their favourite break. A big challenge is that the<br />
big breaks are now heavily trafficked, making it all<br />
the more important to understand a few of the basis<br />
rules that guide a surfing line-up.<br />
In its simplest form, it’s about common sense,<br />
respect and fairness.<br />
If someone has already jumped on the wave and<br />
you can’t slot in without getting in their way – they<br />
win, you lose, wait for the next one. Equally, if you’re<br />
a gun surfer and you know someone else is sitting<br />
there just waiting for their chance, don’t be a hog,<br />
maybe even give them a hand to get on a wave and<br />
have some fun.<br />
Apologise if you get in someone’s way, respect the<br />
locals, and if you know you’re out in a swell that’s<br />
really beyond your skill level, head back in and find<br />
a spot on the beach where the waves are bit more<br />
to your liking. The general rule is that the surfer who<br />
has the longest potential ride on the wave, is the<br />
surfer with the right of way.<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 54
55 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
ite<br />
It just looks so cool when you see them soaring<br />
through the air but when you get to the beach<br />
to give it a go, you realise there is just so much<br />
string... so much string, more string than the eye<br />
can see and you just know you’re going to get<br />
all tangled up in that sucker, flailing about like a<br />
drunken monkey working his way along a mile<br />
of grapevine. With all that said, it does look like<br />
a hell of a lot of fun and one day we promise to<br />
master it.<br />
Appeal:<br />
What to do when the surf is blown to buggery?<br />
Go fly a kite. The popularity of this said “board<br />
sport” is quite literally soaring and for good reason.<br />
Kiteboarding is such a “thing” these days it even has<br />
its own association Kiteboarding Australia (www.<br />
kiteboardingaus.com.au). This is great news for<br />
Smorgasboarder readers, and this scribe too – as<br />
there’s some great information available on what it<br />
all means.<br />
In a nutshell, kite surfing uses a giant blow up kite,<br />
some strings or “lines” to which they are referred to<br />
as, a steering bar and a board you’re able to strap<br />
your feet into to harness the power of the wind to<br />
propel the rider through, over, and along, the waves.<br />
It’s an evolution of the original “windsurfing or<br />
boardsailing” that traces its history as far back as<br />
late 1968 when sailor Jim Drake and surfer Hoyle<br />
Schweitzer patented a “sailboard” in California.<br />
In simple terms, kite surfing has taken away the need<br />
for a sail and a mast and created the chance for<br />
riders to have double ended boards, to jump off the<br />
top off waves and to “fly” for more than 30m being<br />
carried by the kite above and the enormous speeds<br />
they’re able to reach when flying up the face of the<br />
waves for take-off.<br />
The kite surfer’s kit includes a kite (the size you’ll<br />
need depends on the strength of the wind you’re<br />
aiming to tackle), bar and lines to match the kite,<br />
a board (beginners tend to be larger than experts<br />
which are shorter), a harness, safety leash, safety<br />
knife, flotation vest, helmet and a wet suit (if you’re in<br />
those cold waters down south).<br />
Cost:<br />
Kite Surfing’s biggest costs are the kite to catch the<br />
wind and the board to stand on. While there’s always<br />
the option of hunting secondhand gear to give it a<br />
go, if you’re looking for a new set up a bit of research<br />
shows the costs range between around $3000 to<br />
$4000 for a package buy including board, pump,<br />
harness, kite, bar and lines. The best site we found<br />
so far for all things Kite Surfing is www.kitepower.<br />
com.au. Of course, like anything, you can pay a lot<br />
more for the very latest technology, or less if you’re<br />
happy to run with something two or three seasons<br />
old. Ask your local retailer for guidance is probably<br />
the best advice here.<br />
Lessons:<br />
One thing that’s pretty obvious to any of us who<br />
have watched the kite surfers get their gear ready<br />
and head out on the water is that there’s a bit more<br />
to kite surfing than just turning up, throwing a kite in<br />
the air and going splash. Lessons are a great way<br />
to find out more about the gear you’re keen to use,<br />
and to learn all of the tricks of the trade that will<br />
keep you safe and save you time on set up and pack<br />
down. Kite Surfing Australia has a Lessons section<br />
of its website which would be well worth a visit for a<br />
provider near you – otherwise your favourite search<br />
engine is your friend. As a guide to price, the team<br />
at Exmouth Surf Centre in Western Australia offer a<br />
three-hour beginners kitesurfing lesson at $290 per<br />
person.<br />
Etiquette:<br />
From setting up on the beach to hitting the waves<br />
Kite Surfing offers plenty of opportunity to get in a<br />
tangle and find yourself on the wrong end of a not<br />
so friendly spray. It’s important to understand the<br />
kites need room to breathe and you need room to<br />
lay out the lines, so unpacking close to the packed<br />
beach between the red and yellow flags is not going<br />
to work. Take a stroll or find yourself another beach<br />
entrance with a bit more space to spread out. Like<br />
surfers, kite surfers tend to congregate – the wind<br />
turns, and they’re out. And just like surfers, it’s<br />
imperative kite surfers are always aware of their<br />
surroundings, watching the progress of their fellow<br />
enthusiasts and steering clear of any chance to<br />
cross kites, tangle lines, or smash your board into<br />
someone else’s body. Boards are hard,<br />
you’re travelling fast. Another point<br />
worth noting on the kite surfing front is<br />
to keep an eye on the shore. While the<br />
technology is pretty good at helping<br />
the kites rise from the waves in just<br />
about any conditions these days – if<br />
your kite won’t come up, you’ll be left<br />
swimming to shore and not all<br />
of us are capable of swimming<br />
the English Channel. Having<br />
some kite repair tape would<br />
be handy too – as essentially<br />
these kites are giant balloons.<br />
If something pierces the skin,<br />
air gets out, and you’re left<br />
hanging on to a few strings, a big stick<br />
and a very large, wet and heavy piece<br />
of plastic. They’re built tough, and it<br />
does not seem to be too common a<br />
problem, however it gets a mention on<br />
quite a number of advice sites.<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 56
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57 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
Growing up as a kid, I was one of those first few<br />
who jumped at the chance to windsurf in the<br />
early 80s. I loved it, wish I kept at it and indeed<br />
still dream of doing what Robbie Naish did on<br />
monstrous waves. The footage of windsurfers in<br />
huge seas is still etched into my memory. Perhaps<br />
it is not too late to don some fluoro boardies and<br />
relive my youth.<br />
BEER<br />
O’CLOCK<br />
“Is it surfable?”<br />
“Is it drinkable?”<br />
Scan the code to find out.<br />
ind
Appeal:<br />
So – as a kid you played around with sailing at<br />
school, you’ve dabbled with surfing, but thus far<br />
your financial limits have put the America’s Cup out<br />
of reach, or even some sort of small catamaran for<br />
that matter. If sails and boards are your thing, then<br />
the original wind taming, water riding gear of the<br />
windsurfer may be just for you. As the predecessor<br />
of kite boarding and wing surfing, wind surfing was<br />
once the biggest thing since sliced bread. School<br />
camps taught children how to do it, local lakes and<br />
dams on breezy days were a sea of colourful sails,<br />
and people of all shapes, sizes and levels of skill<br />
could be found floating around at the whim of the<br />
wind enjoying a fun day out. As the sport progressed,<br />
and the riders improved, windsurfers could be seen<br />
flying headfirst up the face of massive waves and<br />
launching themselves into the air to try all manner of<br />
flips, twists and turns.<br />
It certainly drew a passionate tribe, and none more so<br />
than Hoyle Schweitzer, who co-founded Windsurfing<br />
International in Southern California in 1968 with his<br />
wife Diana. In 1984 he described the windsurfer this<br />
way: “A futuristic vehicle for your dreams has risen<br />
out of the western sea, bringing new dimensions to<br />
life itself. How can such a simple, easy-rider device<br />
bring so much joy to millions? Because… it puts you<br />
– with your skills and your dreams and your hidden<br />
potential – into a perfect interaction with wind and<br />
water. Thus, this one small vehicle brings with it the<br />
power to make your visit here on planet earth even<br />
more fulfilling.”<br />
Windsurfing proved so popular world championships<br />
started in 1974, attracting 456 competitors to Nassau<br />
in the Bahamas in 1976 where a 13-year-old kid from<br />
Hawaii took out the title. The kid’s name was Robby<br />
Naish and it was the first of 22 world titles he won<br />
in the sport over the years. The sport proved so<br />
popular it was trialled as a demonstration sport at<br />
the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.<br />
In Australia, windsurfing continues to have a loyal<br />
following with the 44th Nationals coming to Parkdale<br />
Yacht Club at Port Phillip Bay in Victoria from<br />
January 20-23, 2022, offering events such as racing,<br />
slalom, marathon and freestyle.<br />
In terms of equipment, the windsurfer is going to<br />
need a decent set of wheels to cart all his gear -<br />
no mopeds here! Boards range from 2-4.7m, then<br />
there’s the mast, boom and sail, which can be<br />
anything from 3-4m2 to 7m2.<br />
Cost:<br />
So many components, so many opportunities for<br />
variable costs. Different sails, mast lengths, board<br />
lengths, board styles, materials, etc, play into the<br />
total cost here, not to mention the added bonus of<br />
cold weather wet suits and gear for those surfing<br />
at the southern end of Australia or New Zealand.<br />
As a guide, SHQ Boardsports has an intermediate<br />
package deal with all of the key elements for hitting<br />
the water on a mid-range set up for $4195.<br />
Lessons:<br />
Mastering windsurfing means mastering the feel<br />
of a board beneath your feet and the wind in the<br />
sail in front of your face. Those who learn to carve<br />
with the board and jibe properly with the wind will<br />
get the best results from their experience, go faster<br />
and have more fun. A couple of key tips from the<br />
experts online point to the need to learn the various<br />
balance points on the boards, and to teach the body<br />
the right posture, keeping your arms straight and<br />
relaxed, thumbs on top of the boom with a straight<br />
back and legs in a sitting posture. This posture will<br />
use leg power and strength to guide the sail. The<br />
alternative is a whole lot of pain for the hand, arm<br />
and back muscles and shorter days on the water.<br />
Interestingly, when you go hunting for “windsurfing<br />
lessons Australia” online Australian Sailing comes up<br />
as one of the major providers, with yacht clubs all<br />
around the country offering a range of longer courses<br />
from beginner to racing – pricing appears to be “on<br />
application”. As a guide, www.flyingfishsailing.com.<br />
au at Middle Harbour Yacht Club in NSW advertise<br />
their private lessons for $225 for three hours for one<br />
person, or as low as $125 per person if you can<br />
round up four other mates for a five-person lesson.<br />
Etiquette:<br />
When it comes to windsurfing there’s basic beach<br />
etiquette, and there’s windsurfer to windsurfer<br />
etiquette to master. On the first one – it’s pretty<br />
simple. You’re on a big boat-like piece of water craft<br />
capable of travelling pretty fast and loaded with gear<br />
including a solid mast and heavy sail that is going to<br />
do some damage if it hits or falls the wrong way on<br />
an unassuming bystander. Stay clear of the surfers<br />
and swimmers and find your own piece of beach<br />
paradise to play in. It’s a big ocean, and there’s<br />
room for everyone. If you’re windsurfing with other<br />
windsurfers, on a lake or in the ocean, there are<br />
three basic right-of-way rules that all windsurfers are<br />
taught in a bid to reduce the chance of crashes. The<br />
rules – leeward over windward, starboard tack over<br />
port tack, and responsibility to maintain direction.<br />
So - if two windsurfers are heading away from the<br />
beach with a wind coming from the right-hand side,<br />
the surfer on the upwind side (windward) must give<br />
way to the surfer coming from the downwind side<br />
(leeward) of them (in this example, a rider on the left).<br />
If two riders are coming at each other from different<br />
directions, the rider who is tacking into the wind<br />
with their right hand closest to the mast (a starboard<br />
tack) has the right of way. This rider must maintain<br />
their speed and direction – the other rider must take<br />
evasive action. On the waves – the first windsurfer on<br />
the wave has right of way, and the closest windsurfer<br />
to the peak has priority.
wing<br />
This board sport is so, so cool - yeah I know, we<br />
say that about all of them but this is the coolest<br />
and most surely would be something that<br />
we would never be able to do. It sure is good<br />
to dream about it though. Jokes aside, this is<br />
a “must master” before I die aspiration. I can,<br />
I will, I must. Sing with me, “I can believe I can<br />
fly, I believe I can fly…”, hang on, we probably<br />
can’t sing that song anymore. That dude went to<br />
prison. He ain’t flying anywhere, anytime soon.<br />
Appeal:<br />
So, wind surfing involves a sail attached to a largish<br />
board with a vertical mast more akin to a one-person<br />
yacht. Kite boarding ditches the sail and mast<br />
in favour of a parachute to harness the wind’s<br />
energy and is controlled by “lines” and a steering<br />
bar. Wing surfing/ boarding strips all of that away<br />
and opts instead for a giant inflatable sail with no<br />
chords, just hand grips and a wrist rope so you<br />
don’t lose it. With one of these blow-up wings in<br />
your backpack (literally – that’s what they come in)<br />
you can potentially harness the wind’s energy to<br />
add a bit of speed to any sort of board - if you have<br />
enough room and the inclination. Think high-energy<br />
skateboarding or snowboarding as just two ideas.<br />
Wing surfing is not necessarily<br />
a new thing – with history<br />
tracking back to the mid-80s<br />
when a bloke called Tom<br />
Magruder invented a wing<br />
called the Wind Weapon<br />
and rode in the Columbia<br />
River Gorge in the US. There<br />
was a product, Slingwing<br />
developed in 2011, but that<br />
product, and others like it,<br />
failed to captivate the market<br />
until around 2019 when<br />
Robby Naish released his<br />
Wing-Surfer and surfers around the world were becoming<br />
more interested in swapping out their shortboards<br />
for new challenges – who knows – maybe<br />
that trend has a bit to do with aging baby boomers<br />
finding the paddle out harder every day and looking<br />
for ways they can enjoy the ocean for longer. Naish<br />
was 55 years old when he launched the wing.<br />
Of all of the wind-driven surfing trends, wing boarding<br />
is arguably the most portable with the lowest<br />
entry price given you can simply buy a wing and use<br />
it with your existing stand-up paddleboard or similar<br />
to give it a go. Like most things though – there’s a<br />
high road or a low road, and if you’re super keen it<br />
would be easy to empty the credit card.<br />
Cost:<br />
A Cloud IX Wing Wing will set you back $849, which<br />
we don’t mind saying is a cracking deal. A specialist<br />
board complete with foot straps and set up<br />
to accept a foil attachment will set you back up to<br />
$2400. If you opt to go wing foiling rather than wing<br />
surfing, a carbon mast and fuselage with glass/<br />
carbon wings is $1399 at Cloud IX.<br />
Lessons:<br />
When it comes to mastering the mixture of surfing<br />
and sailing that wing surfing represents it helps to<br />
have some idea about both – but it’s not entirely<br />
necessary. Kitesandup.com.au at Warner’s Bay<br />
near Newcastle offer wing surfing lessons for $180<br />
for two hours for one-on-one tutoring, or $250 for<br />
a two-hour lesson for two people, including gear.<br />
The MACKite Wingsurf School has a few tips online<br />
for those looking for some self-learning first. Key<br />
recommendations include playing with your wing on<br />
land first to get used to the pull of the wind and the<br />
way it handles. Practicing on your knees, adjusting<br />
the sail into different positions to understand how<br />
it grabs the breeze, and how to release it and ease<br />
back if you want to slow down. The MACKite team<br />
suggest moving from ground practice to a large<br />
stand-up paddleboard on flat water with a decent<br />
downwind breeze and building your skills from<br />
there. They make the point that wing surfing upwind<br />
is near on impossible without a foil and suggest<br />
anyone who gives that a go and fails should not be<br />
too hard on themselves.<br />
Etiquette:<br />
Introducing a giant inflatable wing into a busy line<br />
up of nose to jowl surfers of all manner of skill levels<br />
is fraught with danger. Wing surfing is best done<br />
away from the main breaks where the crowds are<br />
smaller and there’s more room to take advantage<br />
of the wind power. Beginners tend to head out on<br />
heavy and stable stand-up paddleboards, the sort<br />
of weapon that can cause riders and anyone else in<br />
the water pretty solid damage at the best of times<br />
when they crash off the top of a wave and start<br />
spinning. Being trapped under a wayward surf wing<br />
would not be a great day on the beach either. The<br />
best advice appears to be to carry your board upwind<br />
and your kite downwind when you’re walking<br />
up the beach for the best control and to stay a safe<br />
distance away from other watergoers downwind<br />
when you hit the water.<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 60
oiling<br />
Let’s consider you’re a grumpy old bastard who’s<br />
packed on a few kilos with age and are frustrated<br />
with surfing your submerged high-performance<br />
shortboard. Perhaps taking to your crowded local<br />
lineup with a massive 3-foot butcher’s cleaver<br />
attached to your board is something you would<br />
like to consider? It will help get out some pent<br />
up aggression whilst culling the numbers and<br />
keeping the sharks busy – 3 birds with 1 stone we<br />
reckon. So, what’s this foiling all about.<br />
Appeal:<br />
Foiling is surfing for those who like to jump up and<br />
down like a jackhammer, whilst plummeting down<br />
the front of the wave with the added risk element of<br />
potentially cutting themselves in half should they fall<br />
off and get attacked by their board.<br />
Yep, what’s been hailed as potentially the “future” of<br />
watersports is all about using hydrofoil technology to<br />
help riders to generate their own energy in the water,<br />
offering the potential for more time spent riding on<br />
top of the board than splashing around in the ocean<br />
waiting for the next big wave to roll through.<br />
The ride has less friction than a normal surfboard,<br />
the long foil with its hydrodynamic wings is what cuts<br />
through the water while the board stays in the sky.<br />
When you lean back, the wings tilt upright, the board<br />
lifts up. You tilt forward, it dives back down. Pumping<br />
backwards and forwards, front foot, back foot, front<br />
foot again, generates forward motion thanks to some<br />
mysterious law of physics falling under the category<br />
of kinetic energy, and some pretty solid speeds can<br />
be reached.<br />
Depending on where you land on the world wide web<br />
of information, the “real history” of foiling will provide<br />
slightly different answers – but fair to say big wave<br />
surfer Laird Hamilton’s name pops up more than a<br />
few times, along with Australian inventor Brett Curtis<br />
who apparently developed a paddle in version in<br />
2009. And, 2017 in Puerto Rico a small company by<br />
the name of Lift Foils took the technology to a new<br />
level by adding a propeller and an electric motor to<br />
the foiling set up. In Australia – Fliteboard has taken<br />
on the electronic challenge.<br />
The foils come in all sorts of shapes and sizes to<br />
suit different wave sizes and rider skill levels. The<br />
best bet here is to find a foil supplier and ask some<br />
questions. With so many variables to play with the<br />
set ups are almost endless – different stem lengths,<br />
wing sizes, materials on the boards, weight capacity,<br />
wave capacity, battery power and propeller style on<br />
the electric boards – need we go on.<br />
Cost:<br />
Really, how long is a piece of string. For the bare<br />
basics, as we mentioned on the page prior, Cloud<br />
IX has a carbon mast and fuselage with glass/<br />
carbon wings for $1399. The Surfboard Warehouse<br />
has carbon foil boards from $1499 sans the foil. Put<br />
the two together and you’re looking at about $2.5k.<br />
On the other side of the ditch, Sup Centre NZ can<br />
get you set up on a Naish S26 Hover Wing Foil 85<br />
($1995) with all the necessary bits and pieces for<br />
around $3300-$4000 NZD. If you want to go top<br />
of the range – the Series 2 Fliteboard, which has a<br />
maximum speed of 55km/h, a range of 40km and a<br />
duration of two hours (based on an 80kg rider), be<br />
prepared to spend close to $20,000.<br />
Lessons:<br />
If you’re a first timer aiming to get out and foil –<br />
lessons would be a great way to start. These boards<br />
add a whole new level of juggling when it comes<br />
to playing in the surf, there’s way more than just a<br />
board to hit you on the noggin if you fall off the wrong<br />
way, and the hydrofoil wings and stem can be pretty<br />
unforgiving when they come into contact with flesh<br />
and bone. Not to mention they’re heavy – the top of<br />
the range electronic motor powered Fliteboard can<br />
weigh up to 30kg – which is a hell of a big rock to<br />
come screaming off the face of a wave and into your<br />
chest or someone else’s. If you google Foil Surfing<br />
Lessons you’ll find something close to you. As a<br />
guide, Ocean Addicts on the Sunshine Coast offer<br />
a private Learn to HydroFoil Lesson being towed<br />
behind a boat in calm water for $240 for two hours.<br />
Etiquette:<br />
If you’re heading out to your favourite break with a<br />
board that weighs as much as a pre-teen child and<br />
you are not 100 per cent sure about what you’re<br />
doing – it’s not going to end well. The debate over<br />
who has right of way on the waves is never going to<br />
be solved in this paragraph, but let’s just say, these<br />
things power themselves – so there’s no need to hog<br />
the waves. You’re faster and more deadly than most<br />
of the water-based contraptions us humans like to<br />
throw at the ocean, and if you cherish your own life<br />
and the lives of your fellow surfers the best bet is to<br />
find a less crowded or more isolated spot and carve<br />
it up in peace.<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 62
IMAGE: CLOUD IX SURFFOILS<br />
IMAGE: CLOUD IX SURFFOILS<br />
IMAGE: CLOUD IX SURFFOILS<br />
IMAGE: CLOUD IX SURFFOILS<br />
63 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
If you live somewhere like the Sunshine Coast<br />
where there’s no waves for long periods and have<br />
a rich mate with a boat, you might want to try<br />
your hand at wake surfing. In the open ocean it<br />
is kind of like trawling but a bit more challenging<br />
for the sharks. You can even try it with a string<br />
of sausages tied around your waist to raise the<br />
stakes.<br />
Appeal:<br />
If wave power, or wind power, just doesn’t give you<br />
the speed buzz you’re looking for when riding a<br />
board, then wakeboarding could be for you. Rather<br />
than waiting for nature to work her magic and give<br />
you a ride, wakeboarding relies on the machines of<br />
man in the form of ski boats or cable ski equipment,<br />
to pull a rider along via a tow rope at speeds of up<br />
to 50km/h.<br />
As a sport, its full history will likely never be known.<br />
The best guess is it evolved from surfers, waterskiers<br />
and snowboarders looking to replicate and innovate<br />
on the experience of being towed into waves or<br />
speeding down the slopes.<br />
One story goes that Scottish extreme sports pro<br />
Lachlan Snowie lent a “skurf” board to an Australian<br />
mate Jeff Darby in Queensland Australia in the late<br />
80s. Darby and his mates tried it behind a boat<br />
before going on to create their own boards, then<br />
meeting an American called Tony Finn and together<br />
launching boards under the “Skurfer” brand.<br />
Another is that Australian surfboard shaper Bruce<br />
McKee and a friend Mitchell Ross produced a plastic<br />
skurfboard named the “Mcski” with adjustable footstraps,<br />
a concave tunnel bottom and a keel fin – and<br />
this should be considered the start of wakeboarding.<br />
Given there’s Australians involved, there’s every<br />
chance the sport’s first true beginning came from<br />
some bloke standing up on an esky lid at the end of<br />
a tow rope and thinking there must be a way to make<br />
it go faster.<br />
All that aside, the sport has evolved, the boards<br />
have got lighter, faster, more aerodynamic, the<br />
bindings more comfortable, flexible and effective,<br />
and the human nature of always trying to go one<br />
better has created an extreme sport with a tribe of<br />
loyal followers and even a language of their own to<br />
describe the amazing array of tricks they’re now able<br />
to do by making the most of the “air” created when<br />
they jump off the top of the wave created by the<br />
wake of the ski boat and start flipping.<br />
As a sport, wakeboarding provides an option for<br />
board riders caught a long way from surf or snow,<br />
but still craving the challenge of sliding fast over the<br />
surface of the earth with the wind in their hair and<br />
tricks up their sleeve.<br />
It’s not a lonesome sport though. Unless you’re<br />
hitting a cable ski park, you need a boat and<br />
someone to drive it – which is perhaps another part<br />
of the appeal. Grabbing the crew for a weekend<br />
of waterskiing, wakeboarding, kneeboarding, and<br />
tubing behind a fast boat is part of the experience.<br />
Cost:<br />
Our friendly search engine kicked up prices here<br />
ranging from $450 for a basic board, to close<br />
to $3000 for a Ronix RXT Blackout Technology<br />
Wakeboard. The specs on this board point out that<br />
Ronix owner Danny Harf, who can land a 1260 spin,<br />
is a rider of this particular piece of high-end gear. If<br />
you’re super serious about the sport and want to buy<br />
your own boat – that’s a whole other level of expense<br />
with something like the Axis A20 specialised ski boat<br />
likely to set you back close to $72,000.<br />
Lessons:<br />
Having someone else who knows what they’re<br />
doing showing you how to get started is always a<br />
good idea. When it comes to wakeboarding, there is<br />
a fine art to understanding how to work with a tow<br />
rope, your boat driver, speeds, and stance on the<br />
board. You only need to drop by a lake and watch<br />
someone trying to teach themselves how to “get up”<br />
for the first time in an amateur environment to quickly<br />
understand that without following the right steps<br />
it’s entirely possible to find yourself moving from<br />
squatting in the water, ready to roll, to face planting<br />
in the water, hanging on to a tow rope you’ve<br />
forgotten to let go of and dragging your wakeboard<br />
like an anchor behind your ever stretching body. Not<br />
so pleasant. There are a few wakeboarding groups<br />
around the country and www.wakeboardaustralia.<br />
com.au seems to have the most links to other statebased<br />
groups and contact details that may help<br />
in finding a club close to you and someone taking<br />
lessons. As an example of pricing the good folk at<br />
the Mulwala Pro Ski Shop offer half hour lessons for<br />
$110 for 30 minutes for one-on-one tutelage, $200<br />
an hour for 2-3 people and $380 for a two-hour<br />
session with four to six people.<br />
Etiquette:<br />
If you’re wakeboarding at a cable park, the etiquette’s<br />
pretty simple. Follow the list of rules on the massive<br />
signs on the way in, wait your turn on the cable,<br />
move out of the way if you fall off, and stick your<br />
hand in the air and wave for help if you hurt yourself<br />
and you need one of the supervisors to come out on<br />
the lake and pick you up.<br />
wake<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 64
oard<br />
GIVEN THERE’S AUSTRALIANS INVOLVED,<br />
THERE’S EVERY CHANCE THE SPORT’S<br />
FIRST TRUE BEGINNING CAME FROM SOME<br />
BLOKE STANDING UP ON AN ESKY LID AT<br />
THE END OF A TOW ROPE AND THINKING<br />
THERE MUST BE A WAY TO MAKE IT GO<br />
FASTER.<br />
If you’re on a river or a lake with a whole lot of ski<br />
boats travelling at 50km/h with riders strung out<br />
30m behind them, the rules matter. Depending on<br />
where you’re enjoying the sport, consideration<br />
for the neighbours and their land is another factor<br />
– constantly smashing the water’s edge with large<br />
amounts of wake will erode the bank and gradually<br />
steal land from the very people who may be letting<br />
you use their lake. With that in mind, Alliance Wake<br />
produced a basic list of does and don’ts for boat<br />
drivers and wakeboarders including:<br />
• Middle runs all day – meaning try and take your ski<br />
runs in the middle of the lake as much as possible to<br />
allow the wake to dissipate before it hits the shore, or<br />
rocks other people’s boats unnecessarily.<br />
• Shoreline courtesy – they say if you need to go closer<br />
to the shore, aim for longer runs rather than running a<br />
short line over and over again.<br />
• Keep the tunes down – that $70,000 ski boat will come<br />
with some great speakers – but so does everyone<br />
else’s. If everyone keeps their sounds to themselves<br />
there’s less chance of fights breaking out between<br />
lovers of Pearl Jam and Justin Bieber.<br />
• Back off – don’t follow other boats too closely or go to<br />
close at the side.<br />
• Look forward – if you’re the captain, driving the boat,<br />
don’t be looking backwards at your mate, keep<br />
looking ahead so you don’t run into anyone else.<br />
• Be respectful – don’t be the one to give other<br />
wakeboarders a bad name by behaving badly.<br />
65 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 66
tand up<br />
You’ve possibly witnessed at first light someone<br />
gracefully cleaning up a spill in aisle four at your<br />
local lineup and thought that one day, you too<br />
would like to become an ocean janitor. If that’s<br />
the case, paddleboarding could be just for you<br />
and best of all, you never have to worry about<br />
crowded lineups. You simply plough through<br />
them all without a care on your giant ocean liner.<br />
Appeal:<br />
Look back far enough in history, or at least read old<br />
scripts or see pictures of cave paintings and there’s a<br />
fair chance you stumble across mention of a human<br />
standing on some sort of board or vessel and using<br />
a big stick propel themselves along.<br />
Taking that basic concept and converting it to the<br />
surf has been attributed, in the modern context, to<br />
a Hawaiian bloke called John Ah Choy who found<br />
himself struggling to paddle out prone on his board,<br />
so decided to stand up, grab a canoe paddle and<br />
use that to get him back on to the waves to surf. That<br />
was in the 1940s.<br />
Fast forward to now and the range of boards is<br />
bigger, paddles are high tech and generations<br />
of paddleboarders since have found new ways<br />
of incorporating their big boards into their lives<br />
including such things as SUP fishing, SUP yoga and<br />
SUP touring on flat water lakes and rivers.<br />
Most recently the nature of the physiological side of<br />
the sport, standing and engaging the core, twisting<br />
the hips, using the shoulders, has been hailed by<br />
many a sports / fitness blogger as offering a solid<br />
full body workout with the added bonus of being<br />
outdoors in variable conditions as opposed to<br />
running on a treadmill and staring at the same wall<br />
for hours on end.<br />
Surfers whose shoulders and hips may no longer<br />
allow them to get a lot of pleasure out of jumping<br />
up into a stance on a standard board, or freestyle<br />
padding their way out the back, can often still work<br />
with a paddleboard to catch a wave.<br />
For stand-up paddleboarders, the surf does not<br />
necessarily have to be pumping either for them to<br />
get out on the water – with the help of the paddle<br />
surfers can generate more speed than arms alone,<br />
and the size of the board (think malibu surfboard vs<br />
short board) means their platform is well suited to<br />
smaller swells and long, smooth rides. The boards<br />
will also work on lakes, rivers and streams, adding<br />
some flexibility for the rider looking for a day on the<br />
water.<br />
While historically, paddleboards presented something<br />
of a challenge when it comes to transportation, being<br />
up to 3m long and reasonably heavy, the advent of a<br />
range of blow up paddle boards that break down to<br />
fit in an oversized back pack has added to the appeal<br />
of the sport as a portable activity.<br />
67 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
For those who want to<br />
SUP with style there’s<br />
this Riley Balsa creation.<br />
Cost:<br />
The range of uses and styles to cater for<br />
beginner through to expert paddle boarders is<br />
reflected in the variation of prices available in the<br />
market. For beginners, who are better off on a wider,<br />
longer, more stable board, there are blow up boards<br />
starting from about $700.<br />
For the pro, or those who simply like to have the<br />
cutting edge, Surf FX at Southport stock a few high<br />
end boards such as the $4300 SIC RS 2021 from<br />
master shaper Mark Raaphorst that is the latest<br />
version of the RS Board that won the SUPConnect<br />
Race Board of the Year award in 2018. It’s nearly<br />
14ft long, about 23 inches wide, and boasts a<br />
full PVC wrapped core finished in a carbon and<br />
fiberglass skin and dressed in metallic flake pain<br />
with a crocodile textured EVA deck pad.<br />
So many of our good supporters here at<br />
Smorgasboarder have great deals on sups: Natural<br />
Necessity, Goodtime Surf, NZ Shred, SUP Centre<br />
NZ and Moana NZ Sup to name a few.<br />
Lessons:<br />
The good news for anyone looking to have a crack<br />
at Stand Up Paddleboarding for the first time is that<br />
lessons are relatively easy to come by and can be<br />
bought for as little as $60 an hour through gift giving<br />
sites such as Red Balloon. In most of our more<br />
popular tourist centres around the country the local<br />
surf schools are offering stand up paddle boarding<br />
classes with a variety of add ons, including lessons<br />
and tours, or lesson packs.<br />
Etiquette:<br />
For those venturing into the surf zones, use common<br />
surf etiquette, take your turn on the waves, be<br />
conscious of who is around you at any time, don’t<br />
cut in on people and if it’s a madly busy line-up, find<br />
somewhere else. Always wear a leash so your board<br />
doesn’t decapitate 10 people on its way back to<br />
shore and don’t paddle through the line up.<br />
The sheer size and weight of the paddleboards<br />
makes them a formidable watercraft when they are<br />
careening off the face of a wave.<br />
For stand up paddleboarders hitting the rivers or<br />
bays, one golden rule is to make sure you stay out of<br />
the shipping channels – boats are big, you’re small.<br />
Boats can move fast and be slow to stop – and you<br />
can only paddle so fast to get out of trouble.<br />
For stand up paddleboarders paddling in a group<br />
– the best advice is to use your mouths and<br />
communicate if boards are close to colliding. Push<br />
someone else’s board away with your paddle and<br />
there’s every chance you’ll both end up in the water,<br />
or at the very least the person pushed.<br />
THE SHEER SIZE<br />
AND WEIGHT OF<br />
THE PADDLEBOARDS<br />
MAKES THEM<br />
A FORMIDABLE<br />
WATERCRAFT WHEN<br />
THEY ARE CAREENING<br />
OFF THE FACE OF A<br />
WAVE.<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 68
HANDMADE SURF MAPS by Guy Hastings<br />
Over 100 hours per map to create the most detailed surf charts from around the world.<br />
www.guyssurfarimaps.com<br />
P : 61 422 175 706 | E : guy.hastings@hotmail.com<br />
75 Paterson Street, Byron Bay, NSW, 2481, Australia<br />
GLIDE<br />
RIDE<br />
RABBIDGE<br />
SURF<br />
DESIGNS<br />
PHONE: 02 4456 4038<br />
MOBILE: 0427 767 176<br />
EMAIL: markrab88@gmail.com<br />
mark_rabbidge_surf_design<br />
SLIDE<br />
69 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 70
Who wants to be a two-planker w@nker. Never mind<br />
what those toffy skiiers tell you, knuckledraggers<br />
(snowboarders) are the go. It takes you to a place<br />
where you feel like you are riding a 100ft wave<br />
without fear of a shark biting you on the ass. Better<br />
still, after riding your “wave”, someone picks you up<br />
and drops you out the back -aka the chair lift. Ride<br />
on snowboarding sisters and brethren. .<br />
Appeal:<br />
When surfers head to the hills to check out the<br />
white fluffy stuff on the top it’s not unusual to see<br />
them brandishing bags of a different kind that are<br />
carrying boards of the “snow” variety. Nowadays,<br />
there’s the extra bonus of having boards that split<br />
in two (split-boards) to allow their riders to more<br />
easily backcountry runs. It’s the latest incarnation<br />
of a snowboarding tradition that traces its origins all<br />
the way back to the infamous “Snurfer” created by<br />
one interestingly named character called Sherman<br />
Poppen on Christmas morning 1965 when he decided<br />
to brace two Kmart skis together and try and surf the<br />
snow in his backyard. Little was Sherman to know<br />
that nearly 50 years later snowboarding technology<br />
would again be based around two separate pieces of<br />
sliding material bound together for the downhill ride,<br />
and pushed apart for the climb. Not that he probably<br />
cares too much – his Snurfer sold 750,000 units over<br />
15 years and started a long line of innovation and a<br />
new sport.<br />
Early adopters of the technology included Jake<br />
Burton and Tom Sims and from 1978 they pushed<br />
their own brands of snowboards out to the masses in<br />
a bid to ride the wave of interest in the sport. In 1985<br />
the first US Open Snowboarding Championship was<br />
held at Vermont’s Stratton Mountain where it stayed<br />
as an annual event, attracting crowds up to 30,000<br />
people, before the event moved to Vail, Colorado in<br />
2013.<br />
For surfers, and skateboarders, the art of snowboard<br />
relies on similar concepts of balance, with the added<br />
element of having your boots strapped to the board.<br />
Styles of snowboarding range from flat out downhill<br />
and slalom racing, to tackling jumps and massive<br />
half pipes to showcase ever increasing feats of<br />
supreme athleticism. If you can make sense of<br />
this line describing the 2017 US Open run of Mark<br />
McMorris that “featured spins all four ways including<br />
a huge switch backside triple cork 1620”, then you’ll<br />
have an idea of just how far the best snowboarders<br />
in the world have taken their craft. The sport debuted<br />
at the Winter Games in Nagano, Japan in 1998 and<br />
remains to this day with categories including giant<br />
slalom, half-pipe, snowboard cross, slopestyle, and<br />
big air.<br />
In terms of the gear itself, much like surfing, length,<br />
weight, shape, balance, materials all play a part in<br />
how a board performs the task it’s made for. If you<br />
wanted to try and simplify the range, it might make<br />
sense to break it down to four overarching styles of<br />
board:<br />
• True Twin (completely symmetrical) – popular<br />
with freestylers, rides the same whichever way<br />
you’re facing.<br />
• Directional Twin (nose slightly longer than the<br />
tail) – another one for freestylers looking to<br />
switch leading legs while riding,<br />
• Directional Shape (longer nose than tail and<br />
often different nose and tail shapes) – optimised<br />
for carving, speed and powder in one direction.<br />
• Tapered Directional Shape – (width of widest<br />
point of the nose is wider than the widest point<br />
of the tail) – good for freeriders with a short tail to<br />
kick around trees with.<br />
As for the splitboard – or a snowboard that is split<br />
longitudinally and can be snapped together to form<br />
one board – their biggest use is for snowboarders<br />
who want to hit the back country and are sick of<br />
having to carry snowshoes and smaller skis on their<br />
backs to climb or find their next run.<br />
Cost:<br />
When it comes to all things snow there are really<br />
only two names we call on: NZ Shred in beautiful<br />
Queenstown and Shed Nine down in Rye, Victoria.<br />
Eddie Wearne always has awesome deals on his<br />
own Shed Nine branded boards starting at $499 for<br />
a Traditional Round through to $899 for a Splitboard.<br />
Jase Johns over at NZ Shred has all the top names<br />
from Burton to Jones, Arbor and more. A top of<br />
the pops Jones Hovercraft Splitboard retails for<br />
around $1500 and if you want to try something a<br />
little different there is the Burton Backstreet Driver, a<br />
snowboard sans bindings that goes for about $500<br />
odd. This is a pow surfer with an exaggerated spoon<br />
nose provides float and flow and is reportedly built<br />
to spread the joy of surfing on snow and we so want<br />
to give it a go.<br />
Lessons:<br />
When it comes to protecting yourself and others,<br />
snowboarding lessons are well worth the money<br />
spent. On the safety front, making sure you know<br />
how to unclick yourself from the board, and how<br />
to fall properly will go a long way to ensuring you<br />
don’t leave your knees on the slopes along with<br />
your pride. As basic as is might sound, if you’ve<br />
not snowboarded much it’s not a bad idea to have<br />
a refresh on how to ride the various forms of ski<br />
tows and lifts correctly, including sliding off at the<br />
end gracefully and not being the chump that puts<br />
the board down square and falls flat on their face<br />
while the chair lift threatens to take your head off (not<br />
speaking from experience here at all!). As for the cost<br />
of lessons, the average price for two hours of private<br />
tuition appears to sit around $190 per person.<br />
Etiquette:<br />
On the slopes themselves the etiquette is now pretty<br />
much the same as skiing – be aware of who is around<br />
you, don’t ski across other people and assume that<br />
whoever is on the slopes with you is no better at<br />
this than you are. If you don’t think you could stop<br />
if someone else landed right in front of you, there’s<br />
a fair chance if you do it to someone else, you’re<br />
going to get bowled over. Don’t push in on the lift<br />
queues and if you want to try and step up to a harder<br />
run than you’re used to, be conscious of how busy<br />
it is, and think about bring a mate along to try it with<br />
you so there’s someone close by should you get into<br />
trouble.<br />
71 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
Dave Hackett Slash 1980<br />
Image: 1GodDude viaWikimedia Commons<br />
Growing up in landlocked South Africa, skateboarding gave my<br />
good mate and Smorgasboarder partner Mark Chapman his “surf”<br />
fix. Indeed, he’s a pretty good skateboarder who can carve,<br />
cruise and drop into a bowl with the best of them. He can<br />
even kickflip, pop shove-it and do a benihana, whatever on<br />
earth that is. Anyhow, skateboarding is yet another outlet<br />
for us surfers to hone our skills and get our fix when the<br />
waves aren’t on… or break a few bones if your injury prone<br />
like me.<br />
Appeal:<br />
Starve surfers of good waves for long enough and they’ll likely<br />
start looking for alternatives to find their stoke. For the most<br />
part, all of the boards that have been created or designed and<br />
discussed in these pages have had at least one surfer involved in<br />
their creation – so it should come as no surprise that skateboarding<br />
is exactly the same.<br />
While skateboards appear to have been around from as early as the<br />
1920s, the early incarnations with metal wheels and pretty simple<br />
decks never really took off. It wasn’t until around 1963 when clay<br />
wheeled boards started to appear that a small following developed.<br />
The opening of the world’s first skate park in Anaheim California, Surf<br />
City, brought some more attention. When polyurethane wheels were<br />
added to the boards making it easier to skate on different surfaces -<br />
skating really started to take off. In 1976 Albany Skate Track was<br />
opened in Western Australia – one of the first in the country.<br />
When skaters in the United States started to skate in empty<br />
swimming pools, the trend caught on here with small “bowlriding”<br />
championships popping up across various states in<br />
Australia.<br />
While skateboarding dropped off from “craze” status to virtually<br />
disappear in the mid-80s, it made a comeback in the 90s as a street<br />
sport before being picked up as an extreme sport. Skateboarding<br />
was cool again, skate parks started to appear all over the country,<br />
skateboard lessons were available, skateboard riders became video<br />
game heroes too, and in 2016 skateboarding was announced as<br />
official Olympic sport for the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo – even<br />
if we had to wait until 2021 for that to happen and our stars to<br />
shine – no more so that Keegan Palmer who took Gold in the Park<br />
category at the Games.<br />
For surfers, skateboarding presented a chance to use gravity to<br />
ride the footpaths, streets and skatebowls of the land, performing<br />
a range of similar tricks to those made possible when surfing,<br />
especially among the surfers with a love of hitting big “air” by<br />
flying up the face of the wave and launching into the sky for some<br />
aerial acrobatics.<br />
The boards were small enough to take anywhere, required<br />
minimal gear and were of some training value in that the<br />
skateboarding and surfing stances are similar, as is the way<br />
you shuffle the body’s weight to change directions whilst being<br />
propelled forward by gravity.<br />
In the past 20 or so years skateboards have continued to evolve<br />
in style, shape, and technology to the point where there are now<br />
hundreds of different brands out there offering all sorts of board<br />
set ups, including several models of electric powered skateboards<br />
that add a whole new range to people’s riding skills.<br />
A bit like surfing, skateboards have been designed to suit<br />
different slopes, different terrains, different riders and different<br />
skill levels. For beginners the suggested path is a wider board<br />
with flatter concave (the size of the curve across the top of the<br />
board), medium to hard wheels and low trucks to keep your<br />
centre of gravity low and help you balance on the board. The<br />
better you get, the faster you want the wheels to roll, the thinner<br />
the board you’ll aim for and the more customised you’ll make your<br />
rig to suit your style of skating and the terrain you’ll be tackling the<br />
most of – be that skate parks or public streets.<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 72
Smorgasboarder team<br />
rider Sunny Jones airing<br />
at the local skate park.<br />
Cost:<br />
A decent beginners board packaged from a reputable skate shop will set you back<br />
around $150. Bigger boards such as Cruisers start heading past the $300 mark, and<br />
if you decide to trick up your accessories with high end bearings, different wheels<br />
or more, you could add another $500 pretty quickly. On the top end of today’s<br />
skateboarding market though is the electric skateboard such as the Evolve Hadean<br />
Carbon All Terrain model sold by Skate Connection for the princely sum of $3,399.<br />
This little toy has been crafted out of carbon fibre, a top speed of 42kph, dual<br />
3000w motors and a 40km range on one charge. It even has brake lights and usercustomisable<br />
LED lights that can be adjusted through the board’s remote controller<br />
or the Evolve app.<br />
Our personal favourite is the mid-range, electric FIIK Pool Cleaner V2 perfect for<br />
cruising the streets or hitting the skatepark. Super responsive with an authentic<br />
skateboard feel, it can hit speeds of up to 28 km/h and retails for $999.<br />
Lessons:<br />
Your local surf or skateboard shop is the best option for sussing out the range of<br />
lessons and coaches in your local area. Searching online shows plenty of options<br />
for children’s lessons, groups and otherwise, with specialist skate schools showing<br />
up in most states.<br />
Etiquette:<br />
On the street, skateboarders are a bit like cyclists who choose to use the footpath.<br />
Simple etiquette is to remember that those walking or jogging still can’t move as fast<br />
as you on a board. Depending on the surface too, skating up behind someone may<br />
well be something they just don’t hear. Play it smart, leave space between yourself<br />
and other path users and try not to scare anyone into jumping into your path. On the<br />
road – cars will kill you – play by the road rules or be prepared for the consequences.<br />
At the skate bowl, the rules are similar to that of a surf line up. As a guide, if you’re<br />
not skating, step off the park and watch for a distance – you don’t want to be that<br />
person who stuffs up someone’s near perfect run by standing in the wrong spot.<br />
Pick your times to visit to suit your skill level. If you’re just learning, turning up at<br />
peak times will be frustrating for you, but also for those more experienced skaters<br />
who’ve snatched half an hour to have a ride and spend 29 minutes of it dodging<br />
skaters who don’t yet have the skills to get themselves out of the way.<br />
73 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
freeboard<br />
Snowboarding is on snow. Freebording is on<br />
concrete. Powder snow is more forgiving than<br />
concrete. Freebording can certainly hurt if you’re<br />
flung to the ground like a mistimed snowboarding<br />
carve. It’s a little scary but well worth tackling<br />
your fear, just make sure have plenty of pads on.<br />
Trust me, no one will call you a pussy for doing<br />
so if they have a crack themselves. If you need<br />
further inspiration, just check out some YouTube<br />
footage of guys bombing huge canyons.<br />
Appeal:<br />
Snowboarders looking to hone their skills when the<br />
snow’s not there now have a chance to experiment<br />
with the closest thing to a snowboard on wheels, the<br />
Freebord. The Freebord looks a bit like a skateboard,<br />
until you turn it over and notice it’s actually more like<br />
a giant in-line roller skate with training wheels on<br />
either side that allow you to carve on the edges and<br />
mimmick movements otherwise only achievable on<br />
the snow. The wheels on the centreline of the board<br />
rotate 360 degrees allowing board riders to slide in<br />
any direction and even swap leading foot mid-way<br />
down a hill. Just like a snowboard, the Freebord is<br />
designed to lock your feet in, although in this case<br />
it’s a solid toe slide-in system positioned in similar<br />
stance to a snowboard, rather than the hard click<br />
lock-in of the snowboarding world.<br />
As a business, Freebord has been around since 1996<br />
when Steen Strand started to play around with an<br />
idea to bring snowboarding to the pavement. While<br />
COVID-19 has hurt the flow of boards around the<br />
world, Freebord’s CEO Bob Glashan and fellow<br />
freebord rider Bently Anderson have continued to<br />
push on with the development of their latest version<br />
of the board, the Freeboard 5-X which will hopefully<br />
make it on to the shelves in 2022. With independent<br />
suspension hangers now in place the creators say<br />
the board is perfect to master the edge-to-edge style<br />
of snowboard riding, with less vibrations over rough<br />
ground.<br />
Cost:<br />
While stocks appear to be low on Freebords<br />
right now in Australia and New Zealand, www.<br />
concretelines.com.au are still showing images of<br />
the Freebord Black Bamboo Series Pro Complete<br />
which was selling for $409.99 – so that at least is an<br />
indication of price. Much cheaper than a snowboard<br />
and a lift ticket it seems, but a little difficult to get<br />
hold of right now.<br />
Lessons:<br />
Still a relatively new addition to the on land skating<br />
line up, lessons for Freebording are not common<br />
place. If you can get your hands on a board it<br />
might be worth messaging the Freebord team at @<br />
freebordaustraliaandnewzealand and asking for their<br />
advice as to where to find a stockist or a tutor close<br />
to where you live. Key to surviving and thriving on<br />
this equipment would be learning how to stop quickly<br />
and to turn away from danger without falling off.<br />
Etiquette:<br />
Freebord’s are designed to turn any street into a<br />
downhill slope. The steeper the street, the more<br />
closely it resembles a black diamond experience.<br />
Sadly, most streets are lined with parked cars,<br />
driving cars, vans, trucks and motorbikes, the odd<br />
pedestrian, traffic lights and more. If you’re on the<br />
street, you’re another vehicle that needs to obey the<br />
traffic laws and behave in a way that does not put<br />
other people’s lives at risk.<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 74<br />
s
Now some may question whether skimboarding<br />
is a form of surfing and to that we say go google<br />
skimboarding Puerto Escondido in Mexico or<br />
The Wedge in Newport Beach California. After<br />
you’ve cleaned your shorts out and picked up<br />
your jaw, you will have a healthy appreciation for<br />
what talented folk can do on one. As for bloopers,<br />
skimboarders have some of the best of those too.<br />
Anyhow, what those skimboarders do nowadays<br />
is a far cry from the early 1920’s when American<br />
lifeguards would use a flat piece of wood to skim<br />
down the edge of the water to get to swimmers in<br />
trouble more easily.<br />
While there are still basic wooden skimboards in<br />
play, with a finely honed shape and polished epoxy<br />
coating for smoother rides, there are also carbon<br />
fibre weapons designed to create as little resistance<br />
as possible when it comes to riders flying fast on top<br />
of the water hunting the perfect waves for a trick or<br />
three and a ride back to shore.<br />
kim<br />
While the ocean is the most common place to skim,<br />
these finless boards offer endless opportunities for<br />
enthusiasts who have posted up videos skimming<br />
inland rivers, lakes, dams and even flooded streets<br />
and back yards.<br />
In Australia there’s even an Australian Skimboarding<br />
Association that’s been set up to link skim loving<br />
riders all over the country to regular meets and<br />
competitions.<br />
For skaters and snowboarders, the motions are<br />
similar – the boards can spin to have the riders swap<br />
leading legs mid ride, they slide and the edges are<br />
used to change direction.<br />
Rather than finding a giant slope to ride down, or<br />
jumping into a skate bowl and using the forces<br />
of gravity to generate speed for the uphill side,<br />
skimboards generate their own pace, charging the<br />
base of an incoming wave, riding to it’s peak, quickly<br />
flicking their boards around as they near the top and<br />
then racing the lip all the way back to shore.<br />
Costs<br />
A basic Ryder Series 41” skimboard from Zak<br />
Surfboards featuring a teardrop template and<br />
durable plywood construction retails for $69.95<br />
At the other end of the scale an Exile Double<br />
Carbon Hybrid skimboard will leave your wallet<br />
$947 lighter. You do get the same materials as<br />
an astronaut for that though and the knowledge<br />
that you’re on the same board as World Champion<br />
skimboarders Austin Keen and Blair Conklin.<br />
Lessons<br />
Finding skim lessons may be somewhat of a<br />
challenge if our google searching is anything to<br />
go by. A good start would be to ask the board<br />
store where you buy your skim board for any tips<br />
on locals who might be able to offer a bit of oneon-one<br />
tuition to get you started. Another option<br />
is to search for SkimBoard videos along with<br />
the names Blair Conklin or Austin Keen as these<br />
champions appear to have created a range of<br />
content for beginners to intermediates looking to<br />
get better at their sport.<br />
Etiquette<br />
Like most board sports, if you’re not too sure what<br />
you’re doing, the best bet is to find your own part<br />
of the beach, without a crowd, and practice where<br />
no-one else can get hurt. If you’re skimming with a<br />
crew, take turns and be aware of where everyone<br />
is – don’t steal anyone else’s waves and be aware<br />
of the dangers that surfing waves right on the<br />
shoreline present in terms of falling off in shallow<br />
water. Most importantly though – have fun!<br />
75 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
final word<br />
Being a passionate waterman and the founder of<br />
Australia’s largest independent surf store (Natural<br />
Necessity in Gerringong), with every bit of board<br />
sport kit you can imagine under one roof, we thought<br />
it only fitting to round out this special feature with a<br />
word from Kent Ladkin.<br />
Kent’s long been an advocate of the Smorgasboarder<br />
philosophy - ride everything and anything, just make<br />
sure it’s with a smile.<br />
We asked Kent for his thoughts on surfing and here<br />
is what he had to say.<br />
“Surfing is an opportunity to immerse ourselves<br />
in nature, to feel and become one with the energy<br />
vibrations of the universe.<br />
“It’s very fleeting, but the moments dropping in,<br />
getting barrelled, turning off the bottom or the top<br />
of a wave are moments of pure ecstasy. There’s no<br />
mind, we move into the realm of being, transcending<br />
time, gravity and limitations.<br />
“It’s like making love, meditating, being in nature or<br />
listening to great music. It’s these transcendental<br />
moments that give value to life. They are key, peak<br />
experiences that are a measure of who we are and<br />
the depth of our experience and being.”<br />
For Kent it all started way back in the late 1950s.<br />
“My first experience of riding a board was in<br />
Maroubra in 1959 at the age of 8,” he said.<br />
“My grandparents lived there. It was a neighbour’s<br />
board and we took it by tram from their house off<br />
Anzac parade.<br />
“This was only three years after the first modern<br />
boards were seen in Australia, bought out by the<br />
Californians during the 1956 Melbourne Olympics.<br />
“It was over a decade before leg ropes and I<br />
remember flicking out, which was the hot manoeuvre<br />
at the time.”<br />
Kent remembers fondly his first ever board too.<br />
“I was lucky getting my own board at the age of 11<br />
in 1963.<br />
“It was a 9’5,1/2” Bill Wallace, nicknamed the Banana<br />
Boat. Then immediately I went on my first surf roadtrip<br />
up the coast to surf Crescent, Snapper Rocks<br />
and Greenmount Point in uncrowded conditions.<br />
“After two weeks of epic surf, I returned home from<br />
the August holidays, transformed into a seasoned<br />
board rider.”<br />
And for Kent, variety in the craft he chose to ride<br />
soon became a part of life.<br />
“For the previous three years growing up in<br />
Merewether, I’d ridden 5’10,” rubber pump up<br />
“Surfo’s”. This was years before bodyboards were<br />
invented.<br />
“The next major change in the design of surfboards<br />
happened in 1967 when boards dropped from 9’6”<br />
to 8’6”, then in 1968 boards dropped to 7’6, so in my<br />
HSC year in 1969, boards were 6’6”,” he said.<br />
“The following year in 1970, Mark Richards was<br />
riding Twin-Fin boards under 6’.<br />
“Thrusters, credited to Simon Anderson, followed<br />
about a decade later in 1980.<br />
“Apart from the introduction of Modern Mals in the<br />
mid 70’s by Brian Ingham, a shaper at San Juan<br />
Surfboards in Byron Bay, which I was lucky enough<br />
to try and fall in love with, and the introduction of<br />
the new EPS foam and epoxy resin materials in the<br />
late 90’s, these meta steps in design have not been<br />
seen since.”<br />
As board styles, designs and materials evolved, so<br />
to has Kent’s riding experience. If it floats, he’s had<br />
a go on it.<br />
“Over the past 62 years I’ve surfed, I’ve been lucky<br />
to have worked in the surf industry for 54 years of it,<br />
enabling me to experience the cutting edge of break<br />
throughs in boards design.<br />
“But surfing is much more than one design or<br />
dimension.<br />
“It’s not just about riding any one type of surfboard<br />
or surf craft, it’s the whole opportunity of interacting<br />
with waves and the ocean any way you can.<br />
“Limiting yourself to just Shortboards, Mals, Logs,<br />
Bodyboards, SUP’s, Windsurfers, Kiteboards,<br />
Bodysurfing or whatever is just that, limiting.<br />
“Laird Hamilton, a pioneer in different modalities of<br />
surfing, nailed it in an old surf movie called “Tow,”<br />
which was the first time most of us saw Tow-Ins &<br />
Foils. Laird said `The true Waterman is someone who<br />
interacts with the ocean in many different ways, and<br />
are they not limited’.<br />
“I believe boards are like pieces of art, and I collect<br />
them and use different boards in different conditions.<br />
“I love my 7 footer, my 8’6, 9’6 and 10’6, plus my<br />
SUP. Each is ideal for different circumstances.<br />
“I embrace being a Waterman.”<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 76
Into<br />
the<br />
wild<br />
words: geoff crockett<br />
images: stephen liew<br />
Hitting the beach, surveying the waves, smelling the salt<br />
air, feeling the sand under your toes, and then diving in and<br />
paddling out the back. For many surfers, those basic steps<br />
are like taking big, deep, breathes.<br />
Popping up to sit on the board and stare out to the horizon,<br />
a tiny speck in a seemingly endless ocean, is what brings<br />
peace, focus and a new sense of reality in what can often<br />
be busy lives.<br />
For Melbourne-based photographer, and practising dentist,<br />
Stephen Liew, that same sense of peace, relaxation and<br />
re-charge is to be found in travelling to off-the-beaten track<br />
locations, camping, and being at one with nature.<br />
What started as a hobby has morphed into a side hustle that<br />
has served up all sorts of adventures and a gallery of simply<br />
stunning images of our great wild world.<br />
“Perhaps the defining moment was an off-grid cabin holiday<br />
near Mangonui, New Zealand called Riverside Glamping,<br />
which is run by our now friends Maggie and Brooke,”<br />
Stephen said.<br />
“I’d always travelled with increasingly complex photography<br />
gear and loved capturing natural escapes for personal<br />
satisfaction.<br />
“However, after sharing the images with Maggie and Brooke<br />
it became clear how the portfolio could really help boost the<br />
popularity of not only a particular cabin.<br />
“More importantly, every time we (Stephen and his wife<br />
Susie) checked out a new remote cabin and popped it on<br />
social media, a wave of ‘where is that place!!’ comments<br />
from our mates led me to push to shoot professionally to<br />
inspire people to get outdoors for their mental wellbeing.<br />
“It was a real lightbulb moment when I realised that I could<br />
combine what we love doing, to escape, with a professional<br />
activity.”<br />
Photography was a love Stephen developed as a child, with<br />
a bit of help from his parents.<br />
“I recently found an album of wind and click photos I took<br />
at a school camp when I was 10 years old, and they are a<br />
poorly executed set of images of some amazing old wooden<br />
huts hidden in forest. “Seems that since I was a kid, I’ve l<br />
always been obsessed by hidden cabins and the quietness<br />
of escaping into the woods!
“Music puts you in<br />
a flow state similar<br />
to photography or<br />
surfing. This state is<br />
absolutely vital for<br />
wellbeing.”<br />
For Stephen and wife<br />
Susie, time in nature<br />
is another way of<br />
attaining peace.<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 80
“My parents must have recognised my photography<br />
interest as they gave me a Canon Ixus IIs for my first point<br />
and shoot in my early teens.<br />
“I remember learning for hours how to use its long<br />
exposure setting to capture this stellar purple sunset at the<br />
beach and failing multiple times to translate what my eyes<br />
were seeing into an image.<br />
“This was actually how I came to learn about the effects of<br />
exposure time, aperture, ISO etc.”<br />
The creative streak is strong for Stephen who also is also<br />
musically inclined.<br />
“I’ve had a lifelong passion for music and taught USA-style<br />
drumline percussion for many years,” he said.<br />
“Along with an old mate we started an entertainment group<br />
called D2Drumline about 10 years ago.<br />
“We field choreographed, mobile drummers to entertain<br />
large events including the AFL Grand Final, World Cup<br />
Cricket etc.<br />
“Music puts you in a flow state similar to photography or<br />
surfing. This state is absolutely vital for wellbeing.”<br />
For Stephen and wife Susie, time in nature is another way<br />
of attaining peace.<br />
They have their own tiny caravan that they gutted and<br />
converted into a cosy, tiny home and bush retreat over a<br />
12-month period.<br />
“It’s our favourite place. Ask yourself when was the last<br />
time you spent a day tracking the changing light across<br />
your natural surroundings? This happens every time we<br />
visit, and we always feel better for it.<br />
“Anyone who has tried to live in a small home with less<br />
understands it ironically gives you more.<br />
“By that I mean, practically, there’s less to maintain or<br />
clean and it’s often a cheaper existence which frees you<br />
from the ties to conventional lifestyles, but in addition it<br />
flips your mindset to focus on your surroundings, explore<br />
your place in the natural world and gain understanding that<br />
there is another way besides the loop a lot of people get<br />
caught in.<br />
“Not everyone can ditch their job however, and cities have<br />
many benefits, but it’s easy to get so caught up in a narrow<br />
urban view you never have time for self-reflection, you just<br />
chase a material item instead.<br />
“My wife Susie and I love the outdoors. Half of our<br />
holidays are in that old caravan and we camp off grid really<br />
regularly.<br />
“We’ve enjoyed multi-day hikes for years. I think the driving<br />
factor was how obviously time in nature just calms the soul.<br />
The Japanese concept of Shinrin-Yoku - forest bathing - is<br />
real. I’m a better person away from the competitiveness of<br />
our time in major cities, and when we return, I have a more<br />
rounded perspective on what matters and humans in the<br />
context of our planet. This makes us more effective in our<br />
other roles in life.<br />
“I have a feeling most Smorgasboarder readers will<br />
absolutely get this.”<br />
The love affair with travel started as a youngster when<br />
Stephen’s Malaysian parents immigrated to Australia,<br />
landing first in Ballarat and spending many holidays<br />
exploring Australia.<br />
Over time they have travelled all over Australia and New<br />
Zealand and as a far away as Iceland, where Stephen’s<br />
favourite photo so far came about.<br />
“It’s a shot of a lone lady in front of Skógafoss waterfall,<br />
Iceland.<br />
“It’s an awe-inspiring spot, and unique in that you can walk<br />
right to the base of this massive wall of water which hits<br />
you with your insignificance.<br />
“The mood on the day was murky, crows circled and then<br />
this lone lady walks up, dressed like a viking and looks<br />
forlornly off into the distance. It just all came together to<br />
nail the feeling of Iceland.”<br />
While that shot and that trip had long been Stephen’s go to<br />
as his “favourite destination” he said his mind had changed<br />
over time.<br />
“I always used to say Iceland - it’s primordial. Literally<br />
forged from the core of our earth. I found it amazing that<br />
there’s no naturally occurring flora or fauna because<br />
mankind had to bring it all onto the island that formed after<br />
the eruption.<br />
“Nowadays, I actually say Australia and NZ. Nothing like<br />
home.<br />
81 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
When it comes<br />
to the style of<br />
travel, the more<br />
remote the<br />
better.<br />
“You can get everything from glaciers, volcanic plains and<br />
windswept islands to desert and tropical, world heritage, jungle<br />
across our two island nations. And it’s way closer than 28 hours<br />
travel to Iceland!”<br />
Asked for his top five dream destinations he’s yet to visit<br />
Stephen lists The Faroe Islands, Galapagos, Antartica,<br />
Greenland, and Patagonia.<br />
When it comes to the style of travel, the more remote the better.<br />
Stephen and Susie have travelled and worked with a number<br />
of different tiny home tourism businesses specialising in unique<br />
experiences across Australia and New Zealand, including<br />
Unyoked and Canopy Camping Escapes.<br />
“I’ve partnered with Unyoked for years now, and those guys<br />
really get it - they curate the experience to be accessible to all,<br />
including encouraging less outdoor-minded folks to turn off,<br />
focus into a flow state and remove the technology blinkers.<br />
“This is exactly why Susie and I get out to these cabins and<br />
decompress as often as we can. You can’t be concerned<br />
about how Karen from accounts treated you when you’re busy<br />
enjoying the view from the top of a mountain.<br />
“Having said this there are many in this world suffering right<br />
now so we cannot lose sight of the fact that enjoying nature in<br />
comfort is a genuine privilege.”<br />
Once at a destination, prior planning and preparation are key to<br />
Stephen’s amazing photographic results.<br />
“I try to work with contrasts - textures, light, colours/saturation<br />
and activities portrayed to focus the eye on the subject.<br />
“Crucially I always emphasise the scale of the natural<br />
surroundings and try to capture that feeling of how we felt<br />
walking into the site for the first time.<br />
“Given I work outdoors, I need to research the site well using<br />
sun and moon timing and angle apps to pre-plan the shoot.<br />
This eliminates the guesswork.<br />
“I never use artificial light, so timing is everything, and a lot<br />
cannot be faked during image development.<br />
“Once I shot sunrise over Wineglass Bay Tasmania from the<br />
top of Mt Amos in summer - this meant starting the climb at<br />
4am.<br />
“It’s always worth it.<br />
“I keep it extremely simple to ensure naturalness and agility.<br />
“The last thing you want climbing a mountain is a team of<br />
people tramping about in the mud.<br />
“Also, a number of my shots require hiking with a pack and the<br />
less you carry the better.<br />
“The weather changes so often where I work you must also be<br />
ready to shoot at short notice. For this reason, I’ve never aimed<br />
to work with dedicated models. Friends or family that happen<br />
to be on the hike? Sure.<br />
“That shot of the lady in the waterfall which I described before<br />
was purely chance, and we did chat with her beforehand.<br />
“The rest of the time it’s almost always Susie. She is pretty<br />
agile and a lot of the time is in a position that’s useful for<br />
framing so we capture it.<br />
“Now and again, for more precise framing, we’ll work together<br />
to find the perfect position.”<br />
Once the photograph is in the camera Stephen said he tries to<br />
minimise time spent on editing.<br />
“I rarely use Photoshop, which focuses more on creating, not<br />
editing.<br />
“It’s entirely necessary to develop the image however, and for<br />
that I use Lightroom.<br />
“Proper development is crucial, but my workflow emphasises<br />
elements of the shot, rather than adding them. My workflow is<br />
quite fast due to this.”<br />
The development of drone technology has added to Stephen’s<br />
photography practice, providing him the opportunity to capture<br />
the grand size of nature in both photo and video format.<br />
“It evolved out of a need to frame images more evocatively<br />
than what I could reach on my feet.<br />
“For my field of photography, a drone is indispensable. The<br />
vastness of nature is more obvious from the air.<br />
“I lose a drone to nature almost as an annual sacrifice, so it<br />
continually evolves!<br />
“I currently use a DJI Mavic which I love due to its DNG raw file<br />
ability - vital to allow the correct processing and preservation<br />
of data in post.”<br />
When he’s not behind the lense shooting photos, Stephen<br />
said his aims are simple: “Get outdoors! Crank some music.<br />
Whiskey.”<br />
To see more of Stephen’ s work go to www.sjl.photography<br />
@steve_jl_photography<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 82
83 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
Into<br />
the<br />
words: geoff crockett<br />
wild
It’s amazing what you stumble across when you have<br />
a chat to someone. While interviewing Stephen Liew<br />
about his amazing photography, he mentioned staying<br />
at some amazing locations in New Zealand sourced<br />
through a company called Canopy Camping. Inspired<br />
by the photographs and the sense of freedom Stephen<br />
described when staying at these locations we thought<br />
we’d dig a little deeper and find out more so our<br />
Smorgasboarder readers could share in the joy.
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 86
We caught up with Liz Henderson, who together with<br />
Sonia Minnaar, started Canopy Camping Escapes in a<br />
bid to meet the demand from their own families for luxury<br />
camping in stunning locations.<br />
Here’s a little bit of our chat with Liz:<br />
Q. Tell me a little bit about how canopy<br />
camping came about?<br />
Back in 2012, my business partner (Sonia) and I were<br />
lamenting the lack of ‘cool places to stay’ in New<br />
Zealand.<br />
If they existed, they were hard to find.<br />
We discovered glamping around the same time - and<br />
loved the connection to nature and experiential nature<br />
of a glamping escape... having a campfire, enjoying an<br />
outdoor bath, sleeping under canvas in the middle of<br />
nowhere.<br />
We were looking for a business idea and thought that<br />
glamping would appeal to New Zealanders - and help<br />
farmers and landowners diversify into tourism.<br />
It took a few years to gather momentum, but it’s definitely<br />
a well-established trend now.<br />
Q. How many sites do you have now?<br />
About 90 and growing!<br />
Q. What do you think people get out of a<br />
canopy camping experience?<br />
The chance to escape the everyday grind and immerse<br />
themselves in beautiful, natural surrounds.<br />
It’s a chance to slow down, rest and reset.<br />
Many people turn up thinking that they will get out and<br />
about to explore the local area - but often they never<br />
leave the property.<br />
Q. For the surfers out there, are there any<br />
sites that are closer to the waves that you’d<br />
recommend?<br />
We have some great spots near amazing surf breaks<br />
- two that spring to mind are Kawakawa Station which<br />
is very close to Ning Nong break on Cape Palliser and<br />
Woodpecker Hut and Fox Hut which are just above<br />
Safety Bay on the West Coast near Punakaiki (www.<br />
nzsurfguide.co.nz/surf_breaks/west-coast/safety-bay)<br />
Q. What about the snowboarders and skiers –<br />
do you open in Winter in the snow country?<br />
The best stays we have for skiers and boarders are Ringa<br />
Kaha Cabin on the Central Plateau in the North Island<br />
and a number of Canterbury based places 40-50 minutes<br />
from Mt Hutt, a Summerhouse and converted railway<br />
carriage at Rockwood Station and a shepherd’s hut at<br />
Washpen Falls.<br />
Q. What’s on the cards for 2022 for Canopy<br />
Camping?<br />
We have lots of new and amazing sites coming on board<br />
over the next 3 - 12 months so we’ll be busy onboarding<br />
our new hosts.<br />
Q. Do you have a favourite venue?<br />
It’s too hard to choose!<br />
Q. Do you have a favourite photo of Stephen’s?<br />
Yes, I love the drone shots he took at a Kawakawa<br />
Station - beautiful! But I love all the photoshoots he has<br />
done for us over the years. Damn COVID for trapping him<br />
in Australia! He never fails to deliver exceptional shots.<br />
To check out the full list of Canopy Camping<br />
NZ’s offerings, see www.canopycamping.co.nz<br />
@canopycampingescapes<br />
87 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
gear<br />
William Furney<br />
Josh Dowling<br />
A ghostly tale of JD<br />
Josh’s chopnosed<br />
design<br />
all set for<br />
Will’s wall<br />
with his new<br />
ghost racks.<br />
This story is a cracker, if I<br />
don’t mind saying so myself. As<br />
it goes, we recently drew the<br />
Smorgasboarder Ghost Racks<br />
competition. We were stoked<br />
to get so many entries. one in<br />
particular stood out however<br />
from a guy called William<br />
Furney down in Shellharbour.<br />
The competition question was to simply to tell us in<br />
one or two sentences what you missed most about<br />
Smorgasboarder following our hiatus. William’s<br />
submission was as follows: “What I missed most<br />
about Smorgasboarder: Sitting back with my feet up,<br />
a hot cup of coffee and just reading about people,<br />
places and products that ‘I’ can relate to. That could<br />
be your neighbours, your local spot or your next<br />
favourite accessory. That’s what Smorgasboarder<br />
gives me and what I missed.”<br />
Being a mag for grassroots surfers William nailed it.<br />
What he said is in essence what we are all about.<br />
So we get in touch with William, or “Will” as I will<br />
now refer to him, to let him know he has won himself<br />
an awesome set of Ghost Racks. He then tells us he<br />
has the perfect board to mount on his wall.<br />
“I have one of the last boards Josh Dowling has ever<br />
made. It’s an absolute wall hanger and now it will<br />
finally have a home.”<br />
This piques my interest. How does a guy from<br />
Shellharbour have a board from one of the Victorian<br />
Surf Coast’s most notable shapers? Josh had<br />
always, intentionally it seemed, flown a little below<br />
the radar. I had the great pleasure of interviewing<br />
him back in 2011 and was absolutely blown away by<br />
his craftsmanship.<br />
Long story short, Josh was instrumental in the<br />
development of Firewire Surfboards. He later left<br />
the coop and started shaping boards under his<br />
own name. His boards employed the sandwich<br />
construction method with a twist that made them so<br />
unique. Below is a little snippet from that interview.<br />
“I start out with a flat block of super lightweight EPS<br />
foam instead of a blank. And unlike a blank, there is<br />
no rocker established in the plug. I actually create<br />
rocker by building the board in layers, bending and<br />
gluing each one in much the same way as how<br />
skateboards are constructed.”<br />
“On the top and bottom of a super lightweight,<br />
‘bouncy’ EPS core there is a 3mm layer of either<br />
timber or very hard high-density foam, which is a<br />
different chemical structure all together to normal PU<br />
and is very durable. This ‘outer shell’ has fiberglass<br />
on both sides as opposed to just on the outer as<br />
with other composite board construction.<br />
“The reason I fiberglass both sides of the ‘outer<br />
shell’ is because I believe with EPS you need more<br />
glass. It is much the same as a zigzag steel truss as<br />
opposed to a solid wood rafter. You are removing<br />
the material in between and reducing the weight<br />
but not the strength. The top and bottom truss is<br />
separated by the lightest possible material and this<br />
EPS core, which is holding the deck and the bottom<br />
apart, has some give in it and flexes as opposed to a<br />
more solid construction without sacrificing strength.<br />
“In the lamination process I use epoxy resin as<br />
opposed to polyester. It has a different molecular<br />
structure and in my opinion is more resistant to<br />
fatigue plus the boards stay fresh and crispy longer.<br />
“It is similar to Surftech’s Tufflite technology but as<br />
opposed to being a moulded clone of an existing<br />
shape, my boards are custom made to suit the<br />
individual. Therefore you have an individually tailor<br />
made surfboard that is still extremely durable.<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 88
gear<br />
evel knievel<br />
Josh’s flaming arrow board<br />
“Further to this, I hand laminate my boards which<br />
makes them less rigid than other sandwich<br />
construction methods.”<br />
No doubt you now get the drift. Josh is an absolute<br />
freak and quite possibly one of the most talented<br />
board builders and spray artists I have ever come<br />
across.<br />
Anyhow, Will sends this photo through (top left) and<br />
it is pretty clear the bloke can surf, and then he tells<br />
me he was a guest rider for McCoy.<br />
“I think I get away with it because I am a big bloke<br />
that surfs small boards. I’m not now but at the time<br />
that photo was taken I was about 118kgs and it<br />
just kind of happened. I got some nice photos for<br />
McCoy and he wanted me to ride his boards. I think<br />
I am still up on his social media page. And I got<br />
some nice photos of Josh’s boards and sent them<br />
off to him and he said he would like to use them on<br />
his social media page.<br />
“Getting back to Josh, some mates kept saying<br />
to me to check out these Josh Dowling boards. I<br />
started getting Josh’s boards and loved them and<br />
took them overseas. I was really enjoying them. I<br />
ordered this particular chop-nosed design and it<br />
took months. And I knew it always took months but<br />
this one really stretched out.”<br />
To cut a long story short, unbeknownst to Will,<br />
Josh was struggling with an allergic reaction to the<br />
epoxy resin he used every day in board building.<br />
It’s a condition known as Allergic Dermatitis<br />
(Sensitization) where the body overreacts to an<br />
allergen. The reactions range from irritated skin<br />
(much like a reaction to poison ivy and may include<br />
swelling, itching and red eyes) to respiratory<br />
problems that can be mild or severe, acute or<br />
chronic. Josh’s condition was quite serious.<br />
“Anyhow, Josh apologises for the delay and<br />
finished up my board. It is the one I am surfing in<br />
the photo. It is a spectacular board, almost too<br />
good to ride.<br />
“Yeah, Josh apparently tried the space suit<br />
(special protective garment like the covid<br />
garb) and even still, he said when he peed<br />
it smelt of epoxy resin. So, he stopped<br />
shaping.”<br />
“Anyhow it is an incredible board and<br />
that is me riding it in the Mentawais. I<br />
think it was one of the last boards he<br />
made. That’s why I want to hang it up<br />
on the wall with the Ghost Racks I<br />
won. It is a pretty special board.”<br />
Now I know what readers are<br />
thinking, have you confirmed this<br />
with Josh as to whether this is the<br />
last board he made and what kind<br />
of journalism do you call this? Well,<br />
my reply to that is, Will didn’t pull his<br />
finger out and get back to me until<br />
we were just about to go to print<br />
so you will have to wait until next<br />
edition for us to chat to Josh. Hey,<br />
it builds a bit of suspense. Anyhow,<br />
the story continues.<br />
“Earlier on in our relationship, a<br />
few mates and I followed him on<br />
Facebook because we rode his<br />
boards, and he spoke of the first four<br />
or five Firewires he ever made. He<br />
mentioned he had the first four but<br />
sold the first one because he needed<br />
the money at the time.”<br />
The board was called RD1 – Research<br />
and Development 1 – and one of Will’s<br />
mates tracked it down. It is reportedly the<br />
very first surfboard to have the Firewire label<br />
on it.<br />
“We tracked it down and talked to the guy about<br />
selling the board and thankfully we bought it.”<br />
They sent it off to Josh with a note that read<br />
something along the lines of, “Here you<br />
go mate. Just when things look shit (he<br />
was dealing with a bit at the time), here’s<br />
something you have been trying to find<br />
for years. Hope it brings you a little bit of<br />
happiness.”<br />
How friggin’ awesome is that?<br />
As for how Will’s own JD board looks<br />
on his set of Ghost Racks he won, it<br />
is apparently still before the Ministry<br />
of Works.<br />
“I am still in negotiations as to where<br />
I can place the board.<br />
“I dropped a few hints to my wife as<br />
to where I can place the JD board<br />
whilst on a recent holiday, when her<br />
defences were down. Unfortunately<br />
the return to children and work has<br />
seen a recent resurgence in the<br />
re-employment of the death star’s<br />
deflector shields. May the force be<br />
with me.”<br />
We will just have to wait and see if<br />
Will’s reverse Jedi mind trick worked<br />
and whether his board gets beautifully<br />
mounted on his new set of Ghost<br />
Racks. Stay tuned.<br />
Josh’s evel knievel design<br />
89 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
gear<br />
6’6” x 20 1/2” x 2 5/8”<br />
1970’s curved channel bottom<br />
inspired by Jim Pollard designed<br />
to generate more speed without<br />
tracking.<br />
Classic Single Fin feel jazzed up<br />
with some more functional presentday<br />
elements.<br />
All boards are completely handshaped<br />
and customised to suit<br />
surfer ability and wave condition.<br />
Just what we love about a custom<br />
board build. The customer gets<br />
what the customer wants. Copy<br />
of his favourite 80s board shorts.<br />
Amazing free hand artwork by the<br />
amazing @robinsurfboards<br />
HARVEST SURFBOARDS<br />
2/24 Christine Ave, Miami, QLD<br />
P: (07) 5576 5914<br />
E: hello@harvestsurfboards.com<br />
M: harvestsurfboards.com<br />
THE DING KING /<br />
CLARK SURFBOARDS<br />
Units 7 & 8, 9 Chapman Road,<br />
Hackham, SA<br />
E: leightonclark01@yahoo.com.au<br />
M: 0422 443 789<br />
ENDLESS FUNNER<br />
8’6 x 22 1/2 x 3<br />
Sooooooooo much fun to ride hence<br />
the model name whoo hoo!<br />
MID LENGTH QUAD<br />
PLUS ONE<br />
7’0 x 21 x 2 3/4<br />
DARREN DICKSON<br />
SURFBOARDS<br />
Shed 4, 10 Baines Cr, Torquay, VIC<br />
M: 0437 246 848<br />
E: dickosurf@gmail.com<br />
ENTITY SURFBOARDS<br />
Unit 1-2 / 1 Regmoore Close,<br />
Culburra Beach, NSW<br />
M: 0423 987 492<br />
E: entitysurfboards@gmail.com<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 90
gear<br />
DARKSIDE MID-<br />
LENGTH<br />
6’10” x 20 ¾” x 2 ¾”<br />
42Lts<br />
Double stringer T-band with<br />
coloured high density foam.<br />
Custom shapes to suit the individual.<br />
MR DAMAGE SURFBOARDS<br />
Shed 2, 44 Hill Street, Port Elliot, SA<br />
MARK BENSON SHAPES<br />
M: 0416 199 764<br />
E: nxtsurf@hotmail.com<br />
FRIAR TUCK KNEEBOARDS<br />
David Parkes<br />
M: 0408 663 862<br />
E: d-par@bigpond.com<br />
W: www.parkesaustralia.com<br />
Dbl stringer<br />
9’- 2”× 221/2” × 2 7/8”<br />
Made in Australia. Not an import.<br />
3 stage bottom fin box and side fins<br />
can be made with only a single fin as<br />
well.<br />
zombie fish twin<br />
5’9” x 20 x 2” 3/8<br />
RON WADE<br />
8 Angorra Rd, Terrey Hills. 2084<br />
M: 0410 443 776<br />
W: ronwadesurfboards.com.au<br />
ESP SURFBOARDS<br />
Byron Bay<br />
M: 0404 059 321<br />
E: axissurf@yahoo.com.au<br />
W: espsurfboards.com<br />
I: @edsinnottsurfboards<br />
91 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
gear<br />
Balsa board courses<br />
Keep an eye on www.balsasurfboardsriley.com<br />
for the next course.<br />
“Custom made surfboards for<br />
real surfers”<br />
MUNRO SURFBOARDS<br />
2/7 Acacia St<br />
Byron Bay, NSW<br />
M: 02 6685 6211<br />
W: www.munrosurfboards.com.au<br />
Darcy Twinza Pin<br />
5`11” - 19 7/8-2 1/2<br />
D’ARCY SURFBOARDS<br />
Gold Coast, QLD<br />
M: 0409 527 467<br />
W: darcysurfboards.com<br />
www.balsasurfboardsriley.com.au<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 92
HOW COOL?<br />
PERFECT FOR CHRISTMAS.<br />
T-shirt $39<br />
T-shirt + annual subscription $55<br />
Order at www.smorgasboarder.com.au
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 94
Aires art<br />
We recently cornered Smorgasboarder<br />
designer Valeria Borscak to ask her<br />
about her move from Argentina to the<br />
Sunshine Coast and how on earth she<br />
became so lucky to work with us.<br />
So aside from being so incredibly fortunate to<br />
work with the immensely talented and humorous<br />
crew at Smorgasboarder, what is so good about<br />
living on the Sunshine Coast?<br />
For a girl who was born in the City of Buenos Aires,<br />
Argentina, moving to Australia and more specifically<br />
Sunshine Coast has been like a dream.<br />
I´ve gone from living almost 500 km from the sea, to<br />
having it only five blocks away. From stepping on the<br />
beach two or three times a year, to every day.<br />
A friend told me the other day: you live on vacation.<br />
And he may be right. Not only do I live here, but the<br />
office where I work is in Alexandra Headland, and it has<br />
an ocean view! I consider myself lucky.<br />
The days start very early, whether to go surfing the<br />
Bluff or Cotton Tree, go for a run or ride my bike, if<br />
there are not good waves. Then go for a good coffee<br />
and go to work. In order not to lose the habit, in my<br />
break at noon it is worth crossing to have lunch by<br />
the beach and watch the surfers. The afternoons are<br />
varied, if the swell is good you go back to the water,<br />
if not there is always a good place to go and watch<br />
the sunset, a walk through Mooloolaba, a hike to<br />
Mount Coolum, a few beers at Alex Hill, even a bit<br />
of bouldering in the climbing gym. Sunshine Coast<br />
is relaxed in tone, but it is full of activities to do and<br />
new things to discover every day. Yes, you can rest,<br />
but who can rest with everything there is to do?<br />
Local produce markets, a drive to the Hinterland,<br />
camping, fishing, diving, kayaking, paddle boarding.<br />
Non stop. It is also close to one of the most beautiful<br />
and paradisiacal beaches in the world such as Noosa,<br />
and an hour and a half from one of the largest cities<br />
in Australia such as Brisbane. I can’t ask for more, I<br />
love it! The truth is that I have not chosen this place to<br />
live, but I feel that it has chosen me, and I cannot be<br />
happier, because it is not a dream, it is a reality.<br />
In December 2020 I decided to travel from Palm Cove<br />
by car along the East Coast to Melbourne, where I was<br />
planning to settle down again and work as a graphic<br />
designer. There was a plan: celebrate New Year’s<br />
in Byron, drop by to say hello to friends, and maybe<br />
explore places I hadn’t been. Perfect! Did it happen?<br />
Well, no. From that plan, nothing has come of it. I met<br />
a friend in Noosa, we went to a surf shop, she bought<br />
a longboard, I bought a mini mal, and we celebrated<br />
the first day of the year surfing. Such happiness! And<br />
so it was, I went from vacationing a month in Noosa, to<br />
living almost a year in Sunshine Coast.<br />
I believe you have been in Australia for 2 or so<br />
years now, can you tell us a little about your<br />
mother country and where you grew up?<br />
I arrived in Australia in April 2019. So, yes, it’s been<br />
more than 2 and a half years. I did more than 11,000<br />
kilometres and felt that I was in another world. I came<br />
from living in a neighborhood with low rise houses and<br />
few buildings and getting to know everyone there, to<br />
living surrounded by skyscrapers, in a city that does<br />
not sleep like Melbourne, full of culture and trying to<br />
understand a different kind of English that I wasn’t<br />
taught at school.<br />
Argentina is as big as Australia. We have large cities<br />
but far from each other, a large urban concentration<br />
near the coast, different climates from north to south,<br />
each province has its own style ... just as here each<br />
state has its own personality. So far, I have lived in<br />
Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, which is<br />
my favourite now. I don’t know if it’s the weather or the<br />
people, or maybe both. I like the relaxed atmosphere,<br />
the simplicity and the appreciation of a healthier and<br />
more active life.<br />
In Buenos Aires, Argentina, where I was born and<br />
raised, everything is more complicated. We have<br />
public education and health, but we end up using the<br />
private one, because nothing works as it should. Taxes<br />
are paid, but they are stolen by the state. There is a<br />
lot of corruption, insecurity, a lot of villages and little<br />
understanding towards poor people. The middle class<br />
abounds, and the vast majority get up very early to go<br />
to work even if it is a Saturday. And they give their all,<br />
but it is never enough ... you always have to put the<br />
other shoulder ... that’s Argentina, a fighter, it doesn’t<br />
get tired. And we complain, but still smile. I think that<br />
if something defines my country, it is that unity and<br />
95 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong>
We had no TV, no internet, and<br />
sometimes you had to have a shower<br />
in less than 5 minutes and go to sleep<br />
very early. But we spent the day on the<br />
beach, walking in the woods, reading<br />
or cooking. I had fewer distractions,<br />
and that’s when surfing started to<br />
catch my eye.<br />
passion that keeps us alive, so we give everything and<br />
endure bad times ... there is no resignation, there is no<br />
abandonment. We cultivate our customs, we focus on<br />
friendship and family, because that does not fail. We<br />
talk about it all, we tell each other everything. We find<br />
something to laugh about, we find an excuse to get<br />
together and celebrate.<br />
When did you first get into surfing and what<br />
initially drew you to the ocean?<br />
Despite having grown up far from the sea, my parents<br />
always took us (my sister and I) to spend the summer<br />
on the coast, to one of the most popular coastal cities,<br />
Mar del Plata. Only two weeks during the year... I have<br />
memories of great happiness, summer, sand, skin<br />
burning from being in the sun. It was never enough.<br />
When I was 10 years old, my parents decided to buy<br />
a house in Miramar, another coastal city located 50<br />
kilometres south from Mar del Plata, much quieter, but<br />
just as beautiful. I fell in love. It became my favourite<br />
place in the world. After that, we stayed there for one<br />
month or two months during the summer holidays.<br />
We had no TV, no internet, and sometimes you had<br />
to have a shower in less than five minutes and go to<br />
sleep very early. But we spent the day on the beach,<br />
walking in the woods, reading or cooking. I had fewer<br />
distractions, and that’s when surfing started to catch<br />
my eye. I don’t have an explanation, but I dreamed of<br />
being in the deepest part, far away in the sea, catching<br />
the waves without fear or just enjoying the silence of<br />
the water ...<br />
It took me 19 years to take my first surf class, thanks to<br />
a friend who insisted … and I remember it as if I hadn’t<br />
spent a single day, swallowing water, trying to get past<br />
breaking point and at the coach yelling: ¨Paddle Val,<br />
Paddle!!¨<br />
Of the three classes I took, I stood up only once. After<br />
that, I didn’t surf again until I did several surf trips in<br />
2016 and 2017. I don’t understand why I put it off for<br />
so long. I think I felt that I wasn’t going to be able to<br />
do it, that it wasn’t for me, that surfing belonged to<br />
others… but then I understood that surfing does not<br />
belong to anyone, that it is free, and that it is a lifestyle,<br />
waiting for you to adopt it, to practice it, to spend a<br />
little time on it, even once a week. And it’s not to prove<br />
anything to anyone, it’s to make yourself happy.<br />
Everyone gets something different out of their<br />
surfing ritual. What does surfing do for you? How<br />
does surfing make you feel?<br />
There are days when it is easier than others, you can’t<br />
wait to be in the water, there is no need for coffee,<br />
energy flows from you to the sea, from the sea to you.<br />
And there are other days when your strength is not the<br />
same, but you know that there is a good swell and you<br />
force yourself to go into the water, and you know that it<br />
will be worth it, that the effort you put in will come back<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #51 / 96
to you, and you will come out with a great smile, even<br />
when you didn’t surf your best wave.<br />
Surfing is something different for everyone. If I go<br />
alone, it is a moment of connection, it is the energy<br />
of living in the present, of being fully connected with<br />
what I am doing, without thinking about anything else.<br />
On the other hand, if I go with friends, I want to have<br />
fun, have some party waves and encourage ourselves<br />
in some difficult situations. Once you find your way to<br />
enjoy surfing, everything becomes easier. For example,<br />
I like point breaks better and surfing a longboard,<br />
and I’m practicing to be better at that. I’m not looking<br />
for a giant swell. or learning how to ride and turn a<br />
shortboard. Those kind of days, I know what makes me<br />
happy: admire from the shore, enjoy the show, while<br />
having a coffee and taking photos.<br />
Whether practicing it, or as a spectator, surfing is a<br />
magnet for me, an inexplicable positive energy that<br />
seduces and attracts. I don’t know if it’s something I<br />
could get tired of.<br />
We’re well aware you’re a talented designer but<br />
please tell us a little about your art, what you like<br />
to draw, your inspiration.<br />
Hahaha, I don’t know if I am talented, but yes, I<br />
like Graphic Design. And I consider myself quite<br />
passionate.<br />
Always gaining experience, through the years and<br />
trying to improve. But if we talk about a place where I<br />
can be totally free, it is through illustration.<br />
No matter how much you ask, I never took drawing<br />
classes. Since I was a kid I liked to copy cartoons, I<br />
spent the day drawing, locked up at home, and then<br />
I started making sketches of human figures, faces,<br />
bodies, eyes, expressions. I needed to create, all the<br />
time.<br />
Studying design at the university gave me certain<br />
tools and resources, it introduced me to photography,<br />
collages and different software. It was in that space<br />
that I started to play as I wanted. I didn’t need just<br />
pencil and paper, it was everything I wanted to add.<br />
There were no limits to colours or shapes. When you<br />
know that world, you realise that the only limit is in your<br />
imagination.<br />
If I can choose what to draw, it will never be something<br />
static like an object, or realistic based on a landscape.<br />
I had my moments of more decorative art, more<br />
abstract, full of colours. Then I approached lettering<br />
and calligraphy, but what I like and what I always come<br />
back to are figures, people, animals, the creation of<br />
characters. And that’s where your creativity comes<br />
into play, and that could keep me awake for hours and<br />
hours.<br />
Creativity depends on your inspiration, and inspiration<br />
will find you when you least expect it. While driving, in<br />
the shower, before sleep, cooking or even chatting with<br />
friends. In my case, inspiration can come in several<br />
situations: when I am reading or writing, sharing a deep<br />
conversation, listening to good music or visiting an<br />
art gallery. Not to mention when I’m bored and doing<br />
something I don’t like.<br />
Illustration can differ from design because if it is for<br />
yourself, you feel free, there are no customers to<br />
please, there is not just one solution, there is no right<br />
or wrong. It’s more like art, you can put as much of<br />
yourself in it as you please and find happiness in that.<br />
97 / #51 / <strong>SB</strong><br />
Photo: Tony Piper<br />
@tonypiperphotography
Art: Mitchell Rae - Telo Islands<br />
E_ outereye@gmail.com<br />
P_ 02 6655 7007<br />
www.outerislandsurfboards.com