Vitamin Sea surfboards 1970s single fin

Ad from Tube News dec 1981.

Nice early Vitamin Sea with a great logo by Kevin Russ featuring a tropical left hander; the board dates to the mid 70s. Vitamin Sea was started by Ted and Sue Ciastula in Newquay and was very successful during the late 70s and 80s with their Mark Richards and Cheyne Horan models and also Vit Sea's own twin fins and thrusters, many shaped by Chris Jones. I haven't seen a Vit Sea with this early logo before , check the leash fitting which loops through the board.

rare Newquay surfing guide 1966/7

Here are some pages from an early surf guide by Newquay lifeguard G. Roberts , published in 1967, which gives a good view of how the sport was growing and becoming a bit more commercial; someone told me the surfer drawings were by Fuzz Bleakley, not sure if that's right or not. The Bilbo ad shows what an important company it was at the time and why it was the leading maker in Europe through the 60s.

Now you're talkin

Donavon's back yard, the result of visits to 100s of thrift shops; he doesn't even have time to take the scabby wax off. If I had that many boards I'd never be able to choose which one to take out !

1970s Tiki single fin

Nice Tiki single fin, around 7 ft long which belongs to my friend Nick. Tiki was started by Tim Heyland and Dave Smith in south Wales in 1967 and relocated to Barnstaple in 1968; I think this board must date from 72/73, its got a nice logo and I like the bubbly bennet foam decal. Nick has a blog with some nice stuff on , http://www.frootful.blogspot.com/ .

1980s Hawaiian Style quad

Here's a board I picked up from the local car boot this morning. Its an early 80s quad made by Hawaiian Style. I can't find anything about the label but its a British made board and I'm guessing it was made in Newquay or possibly South Wales. It still has the original shop sticker saying supplied by the Newquay Surfing Centre in fore st.. Artwork is by Chris Gadd and glassing by 'the rattler' , no shapers name. I 'm hoping someone out there might know something about Hawaiian style boards ?

Its a nice 80s shape with quad fins, four channels and two small stingers in the tail, dimensions are 6'4 x 20 1/2 x 2 1/2. I guess the name was cashing in on the craze for all things American at the time and the board has US clark foam 'blue light' and 100 % American resin.

Pipeline in the 70s

Back in the 70s we didn't have a lot of home grown surf films so any foreign ones available were mainly imported by Three S films of Penzance, and came from Oz and the US. Check out the ad, a surf video for £35 in 1981 !!

In the US films Pipeline invariably plays a big part and here's a couple of clips of it in the late 70s; one from Freeride, one of the best films of the era http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5rNvQtLGQo ; and here's an obscure clip from a film called Sevano's Seven in 1979 which features a great soundtrack and some accomodating ladies, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLmjqtTa6MI ,the sort of film that inspired surf trips away from Britain in winter.

1980s Hott twin fin/ tri fin by Chris Jones

Staying with the Chris Jones theme, here's a board he shaped in the the early 80s for the short lived Hott surfboards label. It's got the classic features of its era, when needle or narrow noses were replacing the wide noses of the 70s, fins were changing from 2 to 2 1/2 to 3 and channels appeared, sometimes even at the nose and along the rails.

The dimensions are 5'10 x 20 1/2 x 2 1/2 and its numbered as Chris's 1008 th board. Many of the boards from this era are still not thought of as classics by their original owners and this one was heading for the landfill ;not any more !

Auction boards

Ebay is always a good place to see vintage boards and quite a few have been coming through recently, here are some of them.. in order of appearance, a 6 ft 6 Circle One by Jeff Townsley, a very rare 7 ft Space Gypsy which has been converted to fcs -why ??, a 6ft x 23 Tiki pig, early 70s and a 6 ft 6 Island Style singlefin.

1967 Bilbo Chris Jones model

This board is a Chris Jones signature model and at 7'10 x 23 x 2 3/4 marks a transition down from the 9 ft plus longboards which Bilbo had been making. It charts the beginning of the shortboard revolution in the UK which saw boards hitting 6 ft by 1970 ! Chris was inspired to shape this model after meeting Wayne Lynch and Nat Young ( who were being filmed for Witzig's film Evolution) and seeing them surf similar boards while on a surf trip to France; and also seeing a visiting US surfer using one at Newquay.

Its a fun and manouverable shape, which had a huge 12 +inch fin originally, mine has broken off a bit. The resin tint with red pin line would have been more expensive at the time so it was probably a custom board rather than a plain stock board. The bilbo logo has faded a lot, I think it was originally red. The board has a nice refined simpicity, the deck shows almost no rocker and there are two knee dents from where it has been knee paddled. The board was offered to me by a guy in Newquay who saw an article I did in a local paper; it needed a couple of repairs so it seemed right that CJ should fix it up 40 years after he originally shaped it !

Bilbo ad from the London Boat Show magazine, 1970.

Chris Jones at Newquay in 1967.

Rare early surfing clips 1960s Newquay

Here's a couple of rare short films of surfing at Fistral beach in the 60s; the first one is a great little film of a British championships circa 65 or 66 with some classic footage of Rod Sumpter, very stylish and the eventual winner of the comp, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONuXXCii2co&feature=related .
The second film is early 60s and shows Chris Jones ,Roger Mansfield and their mates as groms surfing at Fistral, and apparently the first surfing comp there, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRgjIe-qc20

vintage Creamed Honey singlefin by Kevin Cross

Heres a rare Creamed Honey shaped by Kevin Cross in the early 70s in North Devon; Creamed Honey's are beautifully made boards and are well sought after today .This one belongs to Chris Jones and I saw it the other day on his rack of relics and just had to take a few shots. Cross was a visiting Australian lifeguard who settled here from the late 60s and shaped at Watergate bay and then up in North Devon, making refined and well finished boards. Didnt get the dimensions but its about 6'7. Thanks to Chris .