board for sale

 Nice 6'8 Circle One by Jeff Townsley for sale. Very good condition, made in the late 70s and not surfed much by the looks of it; hasn't been in the water for eight years. Great colours and spray; fin included. Send offers to Matt in Brighton - mad.matt.69@hotmail.co.uk

Bellyboarding film 1930s

This rare and old piece of film reel was given to Shaun Boundy at the Trebarwith surf shop and he has transferred it to disc to preserve it. It shows summer in Cornwall in the inter war period and glimpses of bellyboarding at Trebarwith strand beach. At 0.34 it shows a guy at Bossiney beach holding one of the very early bellyboards made of planks, usually bought from the local coffin maker. At 2.30 they are trying bellyboarding on a much more familiar board, which hasn't changed for almost 100 years in basic design and will be seen a plenty at the Bellyboarding Worlds this sunday.

 The shop at Trebarwith, 1928

 Cornish surfing girl (Delabole beach babe !), 1930 with hire boards from 'Keat's shop' . Shaun's shop was owned by Cecil Keat up until the 2nd world war and supplied surf equipment for hire or sale. There's not many beach shops in the UK which have continually catered for surfers for the last 90 years ! The Cornish girl is very down to earth compared to the image of surfing in Aus or the US, illustrated here by Jayne Mansfield in a photo 'Jayne with surfboard' . What kind of surfboard is that ? more like a Hollywood film prop..

 Crest, 1950s/ early 60s ? Crest were made in Penzance, Cornwall. Below is a strange Woodward skimmer design 1970s with plastic channeled bottom. Mabye better as a sledge in winter ....

Many thanks to Shaun for sending the old bits in. Shaun I've lost your old email with details about the film etc, so let me know if you want to add more info. By the way - if anyone is emailing me at alasdairlindsay@aol.com -I can't get onto this anymore so won't be able to answer you !

 Thanks to Carve for doing a write up on the surf meet in this months issue, by Roger Mansfield and Chris Power. They both noted that the surf meet had grown in quality, collectors and visitors so hopefully these will all keep growing year on year.

 Hayle's Chris Ryan at the Surf Meet, made it into Wavelength's 'ultimate quivers' page, which I'm sure was a shock to Chris who calls his quiver the worlds ugliest surfboard collection. But for pure budget buying Chris deserves some kind of award - some boards photo'd here were 50 p each and the most expensive was the old d-fin bilbo bought from the red river rippers (whippet and mike careswell) some years ago for £14. Chris was a big part of the creation of the bellyboard worlds, see below - which is on next sunday !

upcoming events

 

 

James Parry's single fin event, Gwithian

Nights with Rod Sumpter showing his films of vintage UK and abroad surfing plus much more

Already half way through, worth a visit if you're in the south east

John Conway Eagle twin fin early 70s

Here's a radical little twin fin from Ryan's collection. Made by John Conway under his Eagle surfboards logo, around 1971/2 ,so part of the short lived first wave of 70s twin fins. It was made in Newquay at John's St Thomas rd. factory, which he took over from Fred Bickers and had been the Bickers factory in the mid 60s. Its a pretty radical size too, 5'6 x 21, so pretty small, and similar in some ways to the short and wide twin keelers which some of the more creative shapers are making today. It looks like John shaped up the top 2/3 of one of his standard singlefin blanks, cut out a wide diamond tail (similar to Phil Jay tails) , kept the standard amount of nose rocker and then made a couple of skinny fins (the early twinnies often had pretty inadequate sized fins) . A well preserved example of the the thinking and experimenting that was going on at the time. A beautifully finished board too with the pinlining and big logos. Ryan found it at Pool car boot sale a few years ago where it was for sale for £35 !! The board was definitely made for standing not kneeling, and has one of the classic old rubber stick on leash plugs. Great board..

                                                      1973

                                                    John in 1972

A couple of mini Conways - Ryan's board with my 5'4 which dates from around 1971

board for sale

 Rare Jacobs 6'6 singlefin with sidebites, shaped in August 1971 in California by an Australian travelling surfer, one Terry Fitzgerald ! Nice looking shape and fin set up ; the board is now in North Devon , offers to alexadahl@googlemail.com . As you can see it was signed again by Terry Fitz in 2007.
Here's some more history on it - The board was shaped on his way back from the hawaiian winter season of 70/71.He'd been staying with dick brewer in the spring on Kauai before stopping off in california on his way home. That season was when Alby falzon was filming the surfing of terry for morning of the earth. And if you look carefully at the hawaiian footage terry is holding a 2+1 in one of the shots. When you look at it in the flesh the board is incredibly advanced for 1971 and with 3 fins is still 10 years before simon anderson's thruster................

An important piece of surf history from the Morning of the Earth era, made by one of its stars .

rockin British blues from Free, 1968 on Island records.

Boards for sale

NOW SOLD Nice fully restored Piran 6'9 singlefin , shaped /glassed by Martin Geary made around 1977. Glassed on leash bridge, great colour and ready to surf. , collection from Torpoint, Cornwall or help with delivery in the South west by arrangement.

NOW SOLD Also for sale is this very rare Bilbo mini-gun , which would have been a custom build for a good surfer, mabye for a travel board to Hawaii thinks Roger Mansfield. It was probably made around 1971, no shapers name, just number 1610 , but its a beautifully made board, with orange tint on rails and underside, with three -colour pinlines and red panel design . Good original condition with original grey translucent fin , nice light board and rare- Bilbo probably made only a handfull of these sleek travel boards. It has down rails, rounded not hard, and a redwood stringer . 7'5 x 18 x 2 3/4.
Will go to the highest offer . Its near St Ives in Cornwall.