Surf City, Sydney

Couldn’t possibly miss visiting the Surfing Heritage Foundation compound in San Clemente.

displayed treasures of the SHF collection [the web site here]

This is ground zero for collecting, preserving, cataloguing and celebrating surf history, as well as the beating heart of contemporary research into the ongoing evolution of surf culture and surfboard design. Key strands of surf history and culture, including characters, board designs and technology, can be drawn between post war California and Sydney in the 50s and 60s and this is the place to uncover it. I even met co-founder and benefactor Dick Metz, who ran me through the aims and objectives of the SHF as well as his own amazing story. Read the rest of this entry »

Couldn’t help thinking of Bob McTavish paddling out here in late ’67 on his newly hawaiinised pintail, gleefully announcing the arrival of short boards amidst bewildered yanks, or George Greenough gliding down that pacey, tea coloured line nearby, amidst oil tankers, rigs and derelict pylons in the early minutes of Bruce Brown’s The Endless Summer a few years earlier.

Rincon video Gary Crockett 2010

George Greenough at Sandspit near Santa Barbara, screen grab from Bruce Brown’s The Endless Summer 1964

Malibu video Gary Crockett

Classic 3 foot swell wrapping around the lagoon point at Malibu looked like lots of fun. Spared a thought for Joe Quigg, Matt Kivlin, Dave Rochlen and of course Bob Simmons who together set the course for stand up board design in the late 1940s that would eventually wash up in Sydney under the arms of visiting California lifeguards Noll, Bright, Zahn and co. At a pinch, could even imagine Dora circa ’66 hassling the kooks, jiggling his Noll ‘cat’ nimbly through crowds and knee high soup, fearing the worst for the future of surfing.

video Gary Crockett

Just back from the California/Hawaii odyssey/road trip stumbling across heaps of surfing sites, collections and characters. Here’s a bit of a surprise… a bunch of brave San Franciscans working the chilly left hander under the Golden Gate southern pier.

This 1966 image showing smartly suited northern beaches board builders donating surfboards to the South Vietnam war effort comes from the amazing Surfresearch website, run by the unstoppable Geoff Cater.

Photograph courtesy of Dennis McDonagh, copied from Geoff Cater’s Surfresearch website.

According to Geoff, the photograph is also held by the Australian War Memorial along with the following press release:

[ref SMT/66/179/EC]

July 1966

Nearly $500 worth of surfboard equipment, given by seven manufacturers, was handed over to the Australian Army on behalf troops in South Vietnam, at Victoria Barracks, Paddington, on Wednesday, July 20. The equipment was received by the Acting Chief of Staff (Colonel P. Tancred).

Pictured receiving the boards, Colonel Tancred thanks Denis McDonagh (McDonagh Bros Surf Boards Pty Ltd, Harbord Road, Brookvale) , on behalf of the manufacturers.

The manufacturers with their gifts from the left are:
Messrs Lance Platt (L. and J. Platt, Surfrider Board Shorts, of Foam Street, Harbord),
Danny Keogh (Keogh Surf Boards Pty Ltd., of Sydenham Road, Brookvale) ,
Scott Dillon (Scott Dillon Surf Board Pty Ltd, of Winbourne Road, Brookvale),
Bob Brewster (Manly Surf Shop and Stor-A-Bord, Pittwater Road, Manly),
Gordon Woods (Gordon Woods Surf Boards Pty Ltd, Harbord Road, Brookvale),
Bill Wallace (Wallace Surf Boards, Winbourne Road, Brookvale),
Barry Bennett (Barry Bennett Surf Boards pty Ltd, Harbord Road, Brookvale).

image taken from Jackson Surfboards site.

A local incarnation of ‘surfer style’ tempted Sydney sportsware consumers from the early 1960s, with swell summer shirts like these featuring south seas ‘tiki’ imagery, assorted aztec-cum-mexican motifs and nautical references splashed on boxy cuts and easy wearing, easy washing woven fabrics.

Look out for duds, bikinis and beachwares by Platts, Speedo, Sutex along with rarer imports by Hang Ten, Catalina, Katin, Birdwell and Jantzen.

Unlike pre 70s California, where board maker t-shirts, jackets, pendelton checks, sporty windcheaters, striped jersey knits, ponchos and raybans leapt from surf shop shelves, the equivalent Sydney surfware scene was less self aware, less poppy, less drip-dry , less uniform. That’d come later.

Will be hoping to borrow these classic shirts and other beachware treasures from vintage fashion collector Naomi Barwick.

This fragment of Ken Hall’s 1949 documentary The Thrill of the Surf bobbed up recently in bit torrent. Little do the surfers realise it, but the days of their hefty, finless paddleboards and box framed, plywood ‘toothpicks’ are sadly numbered. In a year or two, racy malibus will appear at Bondi and, pretty soon, start drawing a line in the sand between surfers and lifesavers. There’s unwitting poignancy in Hall’s shimmering closing shots as pre-modern surfers glide shoreward into the setting sun.

The original film is held by National Film and Sound Archive along with detailed curator notes and credits. Will hopefully negotiate use of this invaluable pre 50s footage to kick off the show.

Relentless Sydney ‘switchfooter’  Bruce Usher has photographed surfers and the surf scene, mostly on the northern beaches, since the early 1960s. His personal scrapbooks of print collages have an evocative, organic, salt encrusted quality and must surely rate high among Sydney’s surfing treasures. Bruce has written widely on characters and surf culture and also co-produced the 1977 surf movie A Winters Talewith Phil and Russell Shepherd.

This 1969 image of Jeff Sedevic and Richard Harvey is borrowed from Bruce Usher website

This great cover sleeve shot was taken by Sydney jazz musician and photographer Ron Falson in the early 1960s and used on the Australian All Stars beach inspired album Jazz for Beachniks Vol 2. Fortunately for us his daughter Ann Louise has dug out Ron’s own copy and is happy to lend it for the exhibition.

According to Murray Walding in Surforama, the boys in the background standing beside the balsa ‘pigs’ are Sydney surfers Mick Hall and Nipper Williams, waiting no doubt to split this hodad scene and get a few waves in before dark.