Hendy and Harber surfboards

Hendy and Harber are one of those rare and short lived Cornish labels, who from '69 -'71 turned out shortboards with good quality finish. I met Rob Hendy at the vintage surf meet and have been in contact since then , and he plans to send me some photos and history from his H&H years. Rob is now a successful performing magician and member of the magic circle, but remembers his shaping days with pride.

So far all I have pieced together about H&H is -

They made around 200 boards, no longboards , lengths around 6 ft - 8 ft , most with Bilbo fin systems. I have only ever seen four survivors. They were sold at a surf shop in Hayle, and Maui shop and John Conway's in Newquay. The main shapers were Rob and Buttercup (Tony Holt) .Buttercup was an Aussie lifeguard working fistral beach, got his nickname because he was in the Australian olympic team doing butterfly. He spent summers in Cornwall and winters in France working at Barland surfboards , and brought new board ideas between the two. Gary Harber did the financial side , and provided the premesis above his Dad's shop in Roche, nr St Austell. The boards were well made, and had pretty solid glass jobs so most boards should have survived the years pretty well - but they still don't seem to turn up. The two boards below are from the Gul collection and have been fully restored, and the 'buttercup's mood' board was emailed to me through the blog , not such good condition and with a replacement fin.

This green 7'2 H&H is the one I bought from Tom near London. It was his dad's board and is having a bit of restoration done at the moment.