Drifta by Mooney Mc Allum

Moony, Nick Carroll and drifta, early 80s Fistral .Photo Alex Williams

Here's an absoltuely classic - and very rare UK made Hot Buttered drifta. Shaped in around 1982 by Pete McAllum at Ocean Magic, who had a licence for making Hot Buttered boards over here. Pretty rare though, I haven't seen another UK drifta; I think this one is 6'4. The drifta concept comes from Terry Fitzgerald's experiments in combining twin fin reactions with single fin power., hence the standard fin box with side bites either side.
Surf research Australia describes the drifta's performance as -
'A basic cut-back is a stalling manoeuvre for a single fin and a sliding manoeuvre for a twin fin. On both boards you wait for the wave - a slowing manoeuvre.
With a Drlfta the cut-back becomes an accelerating turn!
The central wide base fin drives the board In a pivot arc determined by the rail fin which In turn provides stability and short arc direction.'

Sounds promising, and I'm sure Gee enjoys surfing it. Most of the driftas had round noses to prevent catching on the wave face, and pinched stingers or hips in the tail, with plenty of volume mid board. Thanks to Gee in Newquay for sending the photos in, its a beaut !I like the chopped logo on the underside - 'surf hot buttered boards '

Ad from Tracks 1981

Terry Fitz with Driftas. Similar zip spray to Gee's Cheyne Horan board.

Drifta ad, Surfer '81



Kye Fitzgerald on a 30 year old Drifta

Ouch

Untitled from leyre diaz on Vimeo. Surfer 1 gets the glory, surfer 2 gets the pain. Just another of life's ups and downs. Saw this on Pete's facebook.

An early Tiki

Martin sent in these photos of his Tiki singlefin, which I think is the earliest one we've had on the blog. He got it from a garage in North Devon where he now lives. Its an 8ft long transitional teardrop shape with pintail, shaped by Tim Heyland, and the label gives the address as Abergavenny in Wales, which predates their move to Devon. Martin thinks it must be one of the last boards made there before the move, dating it at around 1967.

'It surfs like a dog and with no rocker so it has a tendency to pearl. Still it's a little bit of North Devon surf history and is safely stashed in my shed awaiting renovation.' Looks like the renovations underway by the photos.

In 1967 Tim set up Tiki with Dave Smith, who he had met at a London boat show. They started shaping from a very cheap old wool warehouse in Abergavenny, South Wales. Tim and Dave blew their own foam, making the moulds out of wooden blocks, wedged under the beams of the warehouse. 'The roof would raise two inches under the pressure as the foam blew !' said Tim.

By '68 Tiki had moved to Barnstaple and later Braunton, and were producing Aussie inspired 8 footers with Tiki's own Castle foam. These details of Tiki's early days are taken from Roger Mansfield's 'a Surfing Tribe'.

Tim Heyland, watergate bay 1969

A flying Tiki in those fun pre leash days, Langland 1968. Photos from british surfer.

Occy and Aipa

Gavin came round last week with a couple of interesting 80s boards he picked up in Hawaii many years ago. A Town and Country stinger by Ben Aipa (1986) , and a Mick Zeh Crouteau channeled thruster from 1988 made for none other than Occy.The T&C has been awaiting restoration for years but is in good condition otherwise with the original gloss coat. A couple of classic boards; Gavin knows a bit more about their history -

With my good friend Rob i spent the winter/spring of 1988 living in Lanakai (Robs older brother Dave Cordell, at the time, was one of the UKs top windsurfers and had moved out to Hawaii) and surfing all over Oahu but mainly the North Shore (small days admittely).

The 6ft10 Ben Aipa was the board I bought when we first got there, from the T&C shop in the Ala Moana shopping mall. As you'll gather from the Surfer ad Aipa was revisiting the stinger concept. When i dug the board out of storage a month or so back I was struck by the huge V running pretty much full length, actually quite keen to get this one back in the water to see how it rides with 23 years more surfing perspective.

Anyway, I rode it for a few months before it became a victim of the shoredump at Ehukai (the break next to Pipeline) coming in from a session. Not a very glamorous ending! Its been in storage ever since waiting for the right guy to restore and repair it, and after a chat with renowned ding fixer-upper Coxie from www.dingdevilssurfboardrepairs.co.uk it will be heading his way sometime soon.

The other T&C, also 6ft10 I bought for $50 to keep me going. The board now sits in Robs garage (i'd love to get it back, but can't yet persuade him to sell it to me).

The Great White I bought new from Staight Up Surfboards Hawaii, it was just sat in their showroom. The story the guys told me was that It had been made for Occy but he did'nt like the look of it. Certainly Occy did ride some Zeh Croteau boards in the 88/89 period as there was a picture of him, possibly in France, riding one in Surfer (can't find it) or Surfing around that time.

The winter of 88 was the period of Occy's melt down where he became, according to Derek Hynd in Surfer Vol 30 no 4 (April 89), 'another victim of surfing's neo-rock-n'-roll generation' as he 'burned his good credit on the North Shore' and 'reached the outer limits of his excesses.'

The scan (Divine photo) i've attached is from the Hawaiian Winter of '88 issue of Surfer, the caption reads... Marck Occhilupo's 87/88 North Shore prescence was spotty, indeed the state of Occy was a hot subject this winter. The theory has it that after five non-stop go-arounds on the World Tour the boy wonder's spirit has been anesthetized. When Occy did have the feeling, however, his surfing was as dazzling as ever and all theories were crushed.'

The connection with Zeh Croteau, which i only found out whilst digging through stuff for this email, is that Croteau was a mentor of Rusty so poss thats the connection that led him to this shaper as Hynds '89 article reports that in the 87/88 season Occy was not happy with his boards that winter.

Mick (Mike) Zeh Croteau himself was a local of the North Shore, Oahu, Santa Cruz and La Jolla. Known and celebrated worldwide for his shaping that spanned over 45 years, he was originally a protege of master shaper Dick brewer. Mick was known for consistently creating innovative and cutting edge progressive designs. One of his boards, with distinctive bulls eye logo, can be seen under the arm of Shaun Tomson in Five Summer stories.


Occy north shore 1988

hawaiian boards... when they were fresh in the garden at lanakai where me and my mate Rob lived in a tent. the other 'complete' T&C is 6ft10 and sits to this day gathering dust in Rob's garage. 'Rob, sell it back to me!!'

Ben Aipa ad from Surfer mag '88.
Thanks to Gavin

Jolly good surfboards

Here are some classic photos from the short lived Jolly Good surfboards era, sent in by Tigger.
Jolly Good started in 1975 when Tigger returned from Hawaii, and ended in late '76 when he emigrated to Australia. They were shaped by him in St Merryn and laminated and finished at Tris in Porthtowan. Of the photo above Tig says ' lovely Nancy Dinmore art on a Jolly Good swallow at the chapel on the old WW2 St Merryn airfield, 1976. Door leads to vestry (should you need to change into your hassock).' Thats tigger at the shaping bay.

Nick Kavanagh, designer of the Jolly Good logo, with another great Nancy Dinmore spray on a Jolly Good pintail from 1976.

I always think of Dennis the menace when I look at this , and later found out that Tig and Tris were both huge fans of the Beano, and gave it as the brief for Nick who designed the logo.

'The vivacious Nancy was from Maui and graced my factory in 1975 and '76 producing beautiful sprays, seen clowning around with the equally vivacious Petroc Dann, Porthleven 1976'

Tigger , 1976 by Alex.

Thanks as always to Tigger for his priceless photos, many of which I guess have never been published before. If anyone out there still has a Jolly Good with a Nancy spray send some photos in !

stand up / sit down combos part 2

board by Bilbo, chair by Eames

bellyboard by Keo

board by Hayden, chair by Ernest Race

board by Freedom, chair by Eames

bargain of the week

Bargain of the week this week was this 5'10 Shaun Tomson twin fin, for the grand sum of £15. Made in around '81 by Steve Harewood in Jersey, surprise surprise it needs some work done - don't they all when you get em cheap. But its still light and a Shaun twinnie has been a long time coming for me so its worth the restoration. Its got a cracking pair of fins, one of the board's redeeming features.

Check your bins

One thing I love about collecting surfboards is that if you're at the right place at the right time you can get one dirt cheap, and sometimes even cheaper, when people are literally throwing them away. I have had two emails from people with such boards recently.
This 1970 Tig rolled deck 7'2 is owned by Alan from near Polzeath. The board belonged to a guy from Polzeath who left fo Oz. His mum was friends with Alan's wife and swapped it for a bottle of whisky ! At the time Alan didn't know it was such a historic board. Whether the guy freaked out when he returned from Oz to find his mum had swapped his Tig for a long gone bottle of booze I don't know !
Alan has given it some gentle restoration. It has a printed logo, although it looks hand drawn, and Tigger remembers doing the Jackson Pollack style drip artwork.

Here's another even cheaper board. Romain from France came out of his house the other day to find this Freedom in a nearby bin ! It doesn't even seem to have much damage and Romain is going to fix it up and get it in the water again. Its a classic 6'2 thruster from 1987 by Gordon Jackson in Jersey, with suitably cool 80s spray. It also has Victory and Gotcha decals under the glass, suggesting a team rider ? What a classic. Gordon did a big shipment of these boards for France in '87/'88 and some are still floating around in French collections like Stephane's in Biarritz, who has two. Freedom had a surf shop in Biarritz .

Check your bins and skips and have a bottle of whisky at the ready. Happy hunting...

Tigger Irish trip '67

Tigger Newling has sent a few more classic photos over from Australia, the first of which are these from an early surf trip to Ireland :
'Here is a shot of L-R Myself, Nick Kavanagh (designer of the Jolly Good Logo) and James Trout just about to head off to Ireland in 1967 for the First Irish International Titles at Tramore. We got great waves. John Baxendale even shot some Super8 footage he posted on YouTube of less great waves but kind of interesting. We are all on longboards. I had a Bilbo 9' and the other two boards on the roofrack were imports from Australia Shaped by Midget Farrelly at Keyo.'
Check out this Ballinkelligs footage in County Kerry from the same trip, you can even see the same land rover.








This black and white shot with Irish pioneer Kevin Cavey ran in Surfer Magazine that year.
Thanks to Tigger. More coming soon about the Jolly Good years with some beautiful board artwork.

for sale

If anyone fancies putting in an offer on this Simon Anderson contact Zac at zacadeezac@hotmail.com .Its in amazing condition , made in South Africa in the early 80s and near flawless - so much so Zac is scared to use it, hence it being for sale. Buy a legend.

Classic Occy from one of the best movies of the 90s, Green Iguana ('92). Unfortunately couldn't find a clip with the original music, so turn the sound down and it may come back to you ( if you watched it as many times as I did )

coming soon

Its time for a long overdue get together of vintage boards and collectors, so I'm planning a mellow affair by the beach where you can bring your favourite old boards (pre 1990), and if you want bring a few for sale or swap, and see what else is there. Some of the regular blog contributers will be there with their collections, so I'm sure there will be some stunning boards there. With over 100+ boards expected, it'll be a rare chance to get face to face with the evolution of British surfing.
Details to be finalised, it will happen on a sunday morning in late june/ early july, Newquay area.
For enquiries email me at alasdairlindsay@aol.com . If the waves are good afterwards there will be a vintage surf session, beaver tails optional !

early 80s Ocean Magic quad

A super light Ocean Magic 6 footer by Nigel Semmens. It has the requirements of the day - fluoro spray, channels, four fin set up, lots of volume and hardly any weight. A flying machine of the early 80s made in Newquay for gougeing fistral Semmens style. Big leading fins gave good holding power, followed by smaller trailing fins. A couple of pairs of hips kept the volume pumped up forward. A classic shape of its era.

Wavelength 1986

Ocean Magic team sponsered up, mid 80s.