SB_issue54_digital
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he is<br />
legend<br />
The title we refer to here is of course a play on the movie<br />
called “I am legend” although we couldn’t use those exact<br />
words because they would never be uttered from the lips of<br />
one of Australia’s most esteemed surfboard craftsman.<br />
Sam Egan is one of the most downto-earth<br />
blokes you will meet and<br />
is incredibly humble despite being<br />
revered by several generations of<br />
elite surfers and surfboard designers<br />
across the world. Simply put, Sam<br />
Egan is a legend. He’s a surfindustry<br />
pioneer. Now 80, he’s<br />
been shaping surfboards since he<br />
was 15 and commercially since<br />
’62 when Sam Egan Surfboards<br />
officially opening its doors in his<br />
beloved home of Newcastle. Sam<br />
estimates he has probably shaped<br />
more than 10,000 boards in his<br />
lifetime.<br />
His surfboards have been under<br />
the feet of many pro surfers,<br />
such as his son Luke, and while<br />
he regularly continues to shape<br />
surfboards every week, it is his<br />
wooden boards in particular that<br />
left my mouth agape.<br />
It is in essence a return to Sam’s<br />
roots. The very first board he ever<br />
crafted was a 16-foot plywood<br />
toothpick that he had modelled off<br />
the boards he saw washed up on<br />
the rocks.<br />
The board was built out of necessity.<br />
A member of the Cooks Hill Surf Life<br />
Saving Club, he had developed a<br />
love for surfing but back then boards<br />
were hard to come by. Skilled with<br />
his hands, and being an apprentice<br />
carpenter at the time, he crafted his<br />
own and the rest is history.<br />
<strong>SB</strong> / #54 / 36
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