Beautiful single fin egg shaped by Australian Peter Drouyn which dates from around 1969 (?) . In the late 70s he was over here as guest shaper with Jeff Townsley at Circle One .It is 6'8 x 20 1/4 , and similar to todays magic carpets, but with a bit more vintage pedigree ! Drouyn was one more in a long line of influential Aussie and Kiwi surfer shapers who came over to England in the 60s and 70s and added to the skill and quality of our board industry. Drouyn is most commonly known as the man who invented man on man surfing (rather than heats of six); and also a new points system , which was all started at the '77 Stubbies , the most successful contest in surfing history.Drouyn was also a great comp surfer in his own right, with two junior and one mens Aussie titles and he was always up there until he took a different path to go into acting in the early 70s , always the individual, Drouyn had a very different approach to most of the other surfers at the time.He was one of the first surfers to push for smaller and lighter boards which led to the shortboard revolution of the late 60s . He made a surfing comeback later in the 70s.
I'm not sure how long he shaped at Circle One but I have seen a couple of those boards around, definitely worth picking up if you see one. This board is from the Gul collection, photos by Alex.
1970
late 70s
1970
Correction - I now own this board and I think it predates Peter's years at Circle one by 6 or 7 years. It was probably made in Oz by Peter in early 70s and brought back.
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