Greg Laurenson singlefin with rail channels

Australian made singlefin probably from 1978-80 shaped by Greg Laurensen under his own label, with very radical deep rounded rail channels. These are pretty unusual and must have been a short lived experiment before the straight hard edged multi channels of the 80s took over. I guess they acted as long shallow side bites, and the board is sporting an equally weird 'Hyperdrive fin' made by Surefin of Penzance, Cornwall from the early 80s. If anyone knows more about these designs let us know. The board is 6'2 x 20 x 2 3/4 and the channels run for 3 ft. It has a very light blue tint on the deck.
Greg was a well respected Aussie shaper, working at Blaxell and became head shaper at Cordingley surfboards in the 70s, and later shaped for Rusty.
This board was bought from a second hand rack in Perranporth in the late 80s; not sure how it got over from Australia though.

Back to the crazy scenes at the Tahiti Billabong pro being bombarded by swell from hurricane Irene. The comp was put on hold yesterday for the safety of the pros, the film crews and the judges ( the judging platform took a battering). Needless to say the tow in crews took advantage...

Classic Guls

These are my two favourite old Gul suits - the one on the left from the late 70s, and the orange one from the mid -late 80s. Very different suits - from the simpicity of the early one to the complex design and materials used in the almost over engineered later one.
The orange fits me perfectly and is pretty cool with its orange fabric, lots of smooth skin black neoprene, super hero leg stripes and ribbed padding - a cross between star wars and slalom ski suits. Would I wear it ? possibly. Would I get laughed at ? probably.

Billabong pro Tahiti - its a big one

This was yesterday's action from Teahupoo, with a huge swell tracking in from Hurricane Irene and due to get bigger today - possibly too big to paddle into. Which has left many of the pros feeling a tad apprehensive !

Hotspur for Boys, UK 1966, with 'Scruffy' teaching the moves to the British youth.

From 'You and Your Surfboard' , UK 1946. This seems to break like Teahupoo !

Coming soon !

Ted Deerhurst team bolt singlefin

There are various reasons why we buy old boards. Some people buy them to ride, others to remind them of their youth, others because they look good , and others to preserve a piece of history. This board solidly fits into the last category - a board shaped and surfed on the north shore by one of our legendary surfing figures 'Lord' Ted Deerhurst , aka the 11th Earl of Coventry. When I was alerted to this board on Craigslist in Honolulu Hawaii, I never imagined it would make its way back to the UK because of the huge cost of shipping etc. But Alex Williams had a moment of inspiration - a friend was going over there to do a paddleboard race and - just mabye - he could pick it up for him.


And that's how it happened - the board is now residing in Devon and Alex is pieceing together a bit of its history.

Luckily Alex has friends who may have seen the board first hand -
''I had a talk with Steve Daniel yesterday, when he Nigel Semmens, Graham Nile and PJ went to Hawaii in 1976. Ted was over there having boards shaped for him by Tom Parrish
(One of these is owned by the Museum of British Surfing) . Ted was also being taught how to shape by Tom Parrish. Steve tells me when they went to pick up the bolt, looking at it made him shudder! as that was, he thinks the board that Ted was riding when they were in Hawaii. Hence there being no shapers name on it. The words "the open door" along the stringer where the shapers name would normally be, was around the time of Rabbits article "busting down the door" So Ted must have seen this as a new open era of surfing in Hawaii.''

Dating this board exactly is hard. My humble opinion thinks the board is later - mabye 78/79 because I don't think I've seen that team Bolt logo before then - but I could be wrong !
The board dimensions are 7'4 x 19 x 3 - likely to be his Sunset board. Thanks to Alex- and well done for preserving a great piece of history.

If the board was from '79 that was probably Ted's most successful year in his career. He reached the semi final of the Jose Cuervo Classic (previously Smirnoff) at 10 to 12 ft Sunset beach, and arrived there by knocking out Cheyne Horan and Michael Tomson. He lost his chance to score well in the semis due to a heavy wipe out.

Also that year in the World cup teams event he hooked up with Mark Richards to form a Commonwealth team and came up against the star Hawaiian team of Michael Ho and Buzzy Kerbox. Ted and Mark won, Ted turning on some brilliant surfing when most people were just expecting him to be overshadowed by Mark. They eventually went down to overall winners the East coast US team , but Ted earned a lot of respect and friendships through his north shore performances that year.

'the open door'

1979

Ted's Bolt team mates. Not bad for a surfer from Coventry !

Ted starring in an ad for his Excalibur label, mid 80s. Is she countess material ??

This is another of Ted's personal boards, a 6'2 Hawaiian Bolt shaped by Bill Barnfield with Union Jack bolt logo. This was found at an English rubbish dump in bad condition and has been beautifully restored.

The board before resto - interesting to see the 'Lightning Bolt Great Britain' logo , suggesting that Ted had use of the label in the UK by then.

Tiki stinger late 70s

Thanks to Henry for sending in photos of this rare Tiki foray into the stinger concept, and the only one I've seen by them. At the time it was made in the late 70s, stingers were very popular in the US and Hawaii, but there weren't that many made here. The design favoured more powerful waves than the beachbreak most UK surfers were riding at the time.
Henry's one looks in great condition, with original white tinted deck - which always helps hide the ageing. Its 7'1 x 20 x 2, and 14'' wide below the flyers which are 2 ft from the tail.

From Atlantic Surfer 1978

Classic 80s board for sale - never surfed !

Nazara from Tenerife in the Canary Islands has emailed photos of this classic early 80s singlefin for sale - send offers to nazaralazaro@gmail.com . Its an O'Neill special edition Future Shock, approx 5'11 with satisfyingly loud graphics, plus its never hit the water ! Nazara's family used to be surf distributors and the board has been an office display for years. Obviously Canarian readers or some of you with a hioliday booked there could pick up a bargain. Otherwise theres a hefty shipping fee. Comes with an unused - pink (well of course !) boardbag.

80s revival at this years Echo Beach challenge at Newport.

One mixed up Tris

I picked up this Tris a couple of weeks ago. The poor thing has had the surfboard equivalent of two sex changes along its strange and turbulent life. It started out as a mid 70s ('74 ish ?) Tris 6'4 x 20 1/2 twin keel fish - which is a great start as these are very rare boards now and it'd be great to have an original fish in the quiver. However ....soon after it was made it was converted into a singlefin - which seems a bit crazy to me when you look at the width of that tail. At that time some top surfers and shapers in the UK were speaking out against fishes, saying that riding them would have a negative effect on your surfing, and that singlefins were the best set up for British waves. Mabye this swayed the owner to getting the board converted - probably back at the Tris factory. The keels were ripped out and the red and blue stripes were to hide the keel holes - although you can still see them; and a classic Tris wooden fin was put in.


The board survived in this guise until the 80s, when some bright spark decided to turn it into some kind of windsurfer or waveski ?! A hole was bored in the deck and took a screw in attachment for a mast I'm guessing (which I have repaired and cunningly hid with a sticker ), and two fin boxes were put in on the underside, which are too narrow for a surfboard fin to fit in. And to top it off the deck was spray painted like some 80s music video nightmare. At this stage the Tris probably wondered what the hell it was ! All it needed was an outboard motor and it could go on fishing trips too.

That was the story until I bought it, and I'm in the process of stripping off the add ons and getting it back to being a pure surfboard. Even with its sex changes its actually in amazing condition - hardly any damage, clean and hardly surfed , but a little weighty - hopefully that will improve when those fin boxes come out. The dark areas around the fin boxes are just dirt on a bad finish, not staining on the foam.
The big question is how far do I go in returning it to its original state ? Do I keep the singlefin in a board that was shaped for twin keels , or do I go the whole hog and reinstate a pair of keels which are as close to originals as I can manage ? I'd be interested to hear your views. I guess it could get quite a pricey project, but how many of these UK fishes still survive ?

You can just see the hole made by the keel fin under the blue stripe.

This is the only other Tris keel I've seen in the flesh, a kneeboard owned by my mate Myles. The keels are quite crude with basically a straight edge at the back. This looks to be the same tail set up as my board.