SINK SWIM : SIGHTINGS 1 / 6 from karmakaze on Vimeo.

Nice clip of the upcoming travel film by north cornwall single-finner John Eldridge and his partner Mathilda.

There's also a bit of surf history on tv tonight - Pete Robinson on the One Show, BBC1 7pm. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/b01m29kt for a clip of the show.

Kejo singlefin by Kevin Cross & John Hall

Thanks to Pete Newman for sending in photos of this very rare Kejo made in north Devon around 1971. Pete knew virtually nothing about the board until he met Tony Cope at last month's surf meet, who was able to give him a full history of Kejo, having owned one in 1970 . Thanks to Tony and Kevin Cross we can now shed some light on Kejo .....

''Kevin Cross, John Hall, and 2 mates turned up in Woolacombe late in 1969. I think they were looking for work as beach guards, but those jobs were all taken up well before the summer started,
and anyway they probably weren`t aware that the season finishes in September. They were typical Aussies, could all surf pretty well, had a lot of banter going on all the time : one of them was known as `Slack`by the others, we said `why ?`, the answer was `have you seen his reaction when something needs doing ?`.
Kevin & John immediately found premises ( the Laundromat in South st ,Braunton) , and by 1970 were making KEvin and JOhn boards , ie., KEJO.The Westcoast surfboards reaction was ` turn that around, it`s a JOKE !`.But we got along pretty well, especially with Rog Lynden (NZ) and Terry Hansen (OZ) already in our crew .
It was obvious that they made well shaped boards, and the glassing and finish were superb too.
Westcoast moved on. Fitz, the owner and my buddy and former housemate, got married and he and
Phyllis his Aussie wife moved to Capetown SA to work with Clive Barber Surfboards. Clive used to come over from SA each summer & shape boards with us for a few weeks. Rog Lynden took over Westcoast, & stayed on until 1975, changing the name to Celtic Surfboards a few years later. He had discovered his roots ( Lynden`s an Irish name ) during our Sept `69 trip to the Irish Surf Championships.It dwelt on his mind for a few years; then he put CELTIC on the boards, but upside down, to show his `down under` roots.
Kevin and John split up pretty soon - there weren`t a lot of KEJO`s made. Kevin went on living in the UK (north Devon) , got married and had kids here. He had 3 more companies, where he was the sole owner : Creamed Honey, Silverwings and Kevin Cross surfboards.( He went home late '76) .John Hall was TIKI head shaper for a while, but like Kev., he`s back in Oz now. John became a well known windsurfer shaper in the 80`s, he was one of the first to shape them as surfboards, getting away from the `boat` shapes of earlier ones.'' Tony Cope.
So as Tony says here, Kejo consisted of Kevin and John ,two of the main influences in Devon surfboards in the 1970s, shaping hundreds of boards for Creamed Honey and Tiki , sought after today.

Tony got in touch with Kevin Cross to see what he remembered about this board and Kejo in general. As we can see he had some good memories of those days, but this board has him a bit stumped as it uses some different logos, apparently borrowed from Westcoast surfboards Woolacombe..

''I had to track down John Hall for his recollection of the history of the board as well. Also talked to Carl O’Lachlan as we made him a board around that time. Anyway, both John and my recollection of that board was it was made as a stock board for someone with ties to the Westcoast.

I remember we did go and check out the small sheds ( the stables in Woolacombe ) where the Westcoast boards were made.

All the logos on that board were supplied to us  including the KEJO Powerboard and fancy Aussie map !

It was a one off.

John and I had already decided to start using “Powerboards” in our logo, however I don’t think we ended up having the logos printed.   I don’t know who purchased this board after it was collected from us, so not sure if I’ve been much help there??

 Anyway, to answer some of your other questions: Plan shapes we were using, we brought with us from SA. I had been glassing for Clive Barber ( where Fitz of Westcoast also spent the winters of '68 and '69 working ) in Cape Town and developing my own ideas, as you do. These were influenced by everything that had been happening in Aust and SA. The Sideslipper boards we had with us when we arrived, really started to evolve while in SA. There was a young hot surfer I was introduced to at Elands Bay  on the east coast of SA. In a 2m wave he was doing big bottom turns, up to the top, and then would drop his fin out and slide across the face of the wave. He was using a smaller fin than was the norm at the time, so with trial and error, I ended up with very small fins to make it easier to sideslip. Bottom rocker shape at the time was dictated by the blanks that were available. I used to increase the nose rocker by placing weights on the top of the board ( a lot of people did  ) after the top had been glassed, and pushing the nose up with a wood stay to hold it in place until the glass had gone off!! A bit primitive!! ( this sort of nose rocker was only really possible on stringerless blanks, as the stringer wood wouldnt bend enough). 

Not sure where the drop rails come from. John shaped all the early boards at that time, and he may have picked the idea from something he found in a magazine or just something he decided to try.

Almost every board he shaped for himself was different, so I can’t answer that question really.

No links between Roger ( LYNDON ) and KEJO. I did know him well from my short stint as a lifeguard, and of course many good times at the Red Barn!!! (-;'' Kevin Cross.

S deck with extreme nose rocker and down rails. Elements of board building which are almost never used today.

Diamond tail with stringerless blank, and trippy distorted lettering, very popular at the time.In case you're wondering why stringers were dropped in the late 60s/ early 70s ....

''The last of the Malibu Boards (ie. about `67 ) had stringerless blanks to save weight, as it became obvious they then turned far quicker . Similarly, 2 layers of 12oz cloth and an extra layer on the deck, changed to 2 layers of 6 - 8 oz cloth. The weight of a 9`board then dropped to about 20lbs instead of 30lbs +, but pressure dents started to appear due to the weaker construction. This was ignored , as progress was more important. So when Bob McTavish made the first shortboard, an 8` vee-bottomed stubby in Oz in July 1967, it was logical for it to be stringerless too. We made the first GB version of this in N Devon in March 1968 after Fitz had spent the winter in SA, where visiting Aussies introduced them .Trevor Espey and mates arrived in Newquay from SA in summer `68 with 4 of these on their hire-car roof, so Bilbo & others were soon making them too.

Within a year, most boards were stringerless, but people who wanted a board to last still had them.
After a lot of snapped boards stringers later made a big come-back, but they were much thinner than before. A compromise between weight & strength...... plus it`s easier to shape a blank with a stringer, you can get the two sides similar a lot faster when you`ve got a marker down the centre .'' Tony

Paper jam fin. The idea was to jam the fin in with a bit of newspaper, which swelled up when wet and held the fin in. Didnt always work though so was a bit of a liability !

Isle of Wight surfers on a trip to Barricane beach, Woolacombe 1971. Pat Ventor is holding an orange very similar board to Pete's , with seahorse and the same Westcoast lettering, same nose rocker and hard rails. Seems like Westcoast and Kejo may have been swapping ideas as well as logos; this board may have been made by Roger Lynden at Westcoast.

photos from www.wightsurfhistory.co.uk .

Phew that was a long post, plenty of surf history there, thanks to Pete, Tony and Kevin.

20 minutes with Carwyn

Carwyn Williams taffy dog talks about the ups and downs of his amazing career. Surfing and competing on the breadline, beating world champions, tour victories, living in cars , an erect penis at the golf club etc. -  he can tell a few stories...

 A couple of Carwyn's personal boards which have been on the blog

 This one has been found by Stephane in Biarritz, not a million miles away from where Carwyn lives. As this doesn't have the sponser decal its hard to know if this was a personal board or a Carwyn model. Looks pretty convincing to me though. All these three boards are shaped by Craig Hughes.

The Alder crew back in the days of tight shorts and Simon Cowell waistbands

The original British surf mag

This is one of the holy grails of our surfing history, Surfing UK was officially our first surfing magazine ; just think of how many hundreds/ thousands of UK surf mags have followed since these pioneering issues in 1969 ! Rare as anything ; you still see lots of 1969 boards but not the mags ! Thanks to Tony Cope for lending this one and remembering the history of the mag below-.

`Surfing UK`  was produced by Lindsay Morgan in Porthcawl, Wales, and sold in most surfside towns around the UK.

Issue 1, Jan. 1969 was a few typed sheets stapled together and it`s thought no copies still survive. Issue 2 ( shown here ) was printed as a newspaper 3 months later and contains photos and adverts…… a professional product.

Only 3 issues were made and sold before S.UK. folded, due to poor sales and lack of content, and insufficient paying adverts to help cover printing costs.  It was simply before it`s time, as were :

`British Surfer` ( 1969 – 70 ),  6 issues only, and
`Surf Insight`    (  1972 - 73 ),  4 issues only

 Overcrowding problems even then.
Comparing British Surfer no1 and Surfing UK they are quite different, although both made in Wales. BS no1 is almost completely about Welsh surfers, and didn't branch out to English, Irish and Scottish surfing till later issues when Rod Sumpter took over as editor. Surfing UK from the start covers a lot of South west surf, which I find a lot more interesting with focus on Gwithian, St Ives and Porthtowan, as well as Devon and Wales.

 Roger Brooks at Gwithian

 Chris Tyler, owner of Skewjack and Penzance's John Adams (3sss films) at Porthmeor

 Acorn surfboards, Swansea

 Keith Paull, influential Australian champion on his Bing foil at Porthtowan 1968.

 Surfari, Hayle's original surf shop .Now disappointingly a knitting shop !

 Mike Carr 'drives hard' ,Gwithian

Tony Cope's article as Devon correspondant.

Bob Powers longboard

This is a great recent find from Paul, a very rare Bob Powers longboard ;there are only four surviving boards we know of from Bob who was North Devon's first commercial board builder. The board was found floating in a river ten years ago and has been in a garden ever since, so is in great condition considering !!

Like Fred Bickers, Bob Powers was a cabinet maker by trade, and produced boards for a few years in the mid 60's ('64-'67) .He had seen malibu surfing on a summer holiday to Newquay in 1962, where he met Bob Head who was then shaping Friendly Bear surfboards, and took some mental notes on boardbuilding. He then made himself a board back in the Midlands to bring down on his next Newquay holiday.
In 1964 Bob and his family relocated to Mortehoe near Woolacombe and started supplying boards to the small but dedicated North Devon crew. A trade mark of his boards was the one piece stringer and fin, showing his woodworking skills. The boards were covered in coloured gelcoat rather than the usual resin finish.
Much like Bickers, Bob's slow and meticulous construction, and the still limited market for surfboards meant that he reluctantly stopped the business in 1967, going back to cabinet making. But he left a strong legacy, suppying boards to the pioneering surfers of North Devon, and area with a rich wave riding history. Of the 80 boards he made, only a fraction have survived ; so if you've got one tucked away send in some photos.

Bob reunited with the board last week, photo by Pete Robinson. He thinks this is an early board because of the tail thickness, around 1964-5.

Bob with one of his boards, Saunton 1965. Photo from 'the Surfing Tribe'

Bickers and Powers longboards at the Plymouth museum exhibition

September surf meet !

If like me you're thinking its going to be an awfully long time till the next surf meet in summer 2013 , fear not !¬ Plans are well underway for a meet hosted at the Museum of British surfing in Braunton, Devon. Details to be confirmed but the date is set for sunday 16th september 11am - 3 pm ,so put it on the calendar. The museum will be open, with a reduced rate for exhibitors , and US legend Bing Copeland will be there whilst on his European tour. More details coming soon...

The museum will now be free to exhibitors ! Plus theres a special package available of new surf meet t shirt, poster and food .

George Harrison's surf duel

The Americans cashing in on all things Beatles in the 60s; dodgy accents, dodgy surfing...........enjoy

Kaiki surfboards singlefin late 60s

 Kaiki is one of those lost British labels which had a short life, not much recorded history and is a bit of a mystery now. The only record of their existence I've found is this advert in a 1969 British Surfer mag, made by the dubious company 'north coast plastics' and with an address in Barnes, London. Where the board was actually made and sold I dont know; this one was bought in Newquay in the early 70s 2nd hand. Looking at the reg. sticker it was being surfed in Newquay in 1970, so may have been sold there originally. The board is a transitional s-deck , rolled bottom with 50/50 rails and scooped deck at the nose. 7ft 3 x 21 3/4 , it was pink originally, a bit tanned now. Nice slim fin. If you made these boards get in touch.

p.s. if you've emailed me recently and haven't got an answer my email has been down since thurs, will hopefully get it back in a couple of days !

summer waves

hope everyone got in for a few surfs this week. Its been a south west surfers summer dream - blue skies, waves (ok it could have been bigger ) and tanned bodies on the beach. Perfectly summed up by this John Conway shot for the contents page of Wavelength no 2 , all those years back in 1982. Some dreams don't change with age.

Plymouth museum - 'Endless summer' show

 This history of British surfing show in one of Plymouth museum's large art gallery spaces is a great mix of old boards, mags and memorabilia , with projections of some of John Adams' old films and some contemporary surf related art. If you're reading this blog you'll love it so go along , its on till september.

 Rob from the museum opens the show

 Alex , one of the main contributors along with the surfing museum ; with Tess

 Ted Deerhurst personal rider in Hawaii late70s/early 80s

 Painting by Kurt Jackson, wetsuits attached

 Mag wall with Chris Power and Jed Stone

 Steve Daniel with his first board, lost for years, found under a house and restored for his surprise birthday pressie !

 Tyson Greenaway, Porthtowan late 90s, photo by Alex.