Hey Chip, I got an idea. Since your name is Ben, you’re clearly the guy for this board, you stand a chance of both repairing & riding it, and it needs to be repatriated, I’d like to send you something.
Its a ‘Stubbie’, for certain. 5’2", 20" wide, 3.5" thick. I’ve had it since '83 or '84 and probably haven’t surfed it since '86. I dug it out of my dad’s basement yesterday. It was probably 10 years old when I got it at a garage sale ($15 in California) although you would probably know better than me. The fins are lightly foiled on the inside and very foiled on the ouitside, don’t know if the Bahne style boxes were original or not, but that’s how I got it.
Comes with ‘vintage’ stickers on the bottom and some kind of leaf under a little glass on the deck.
It needs a little repair, including redoing some “ding repairs” (unsanded laminations of glass cloth from when I was 16 or so) and fixing a cracking fin box.
At this size, I think its UPS-able. If you can figure out ths shipping details from San Francisco to you, you can have it. It needs to be returned to its ancestral homeland, and I can’t think of a better receipient than you (since I don’t know anyone in Australia).
Mmmm… If you want it returned to it’s place of origin then it’s off to South Australia for that board - sorry Chipfish… hehehe
Plenty of JA’s around here - some nice and some not so… but that board is different!!!
FREDO
benny ,
thanks very much for the kind offer, but Fredo is right…John Arnold was /?is? a south australian.
At 5’2, an s-deck and a twinfin, I think ‘Gatordave’ down the tracks at newport beach may be a more worthy and practical / 'local’recipient of it. [he would be able to ride it.]
[I just gave the 5’5 fish to Hicksy’s kids, because THAT didn’t float me !]
I recall seeing a cover shot of Australian Surfing World around 1971 , showing Terry Fitzgerald and Mark Warren holding very similar tails, for a cover story on the [early 70’s incarnation] twin fin.
I’m sorry to sound like a bummer benny, like I say it IS a very kind offer, but I really think ‘Gatordave’ [‘team zephyr boys’] would use that board and make it work, better than I could …imagine him kneeboarding that at the Wedge, or beating blackball ? on it during his summer lifeguarding stints…SPECTACULAR…wish I was there to see it !!
I wonder how that board got to be in the shed in California ?
gotta love the “no sharks” sticker towards the nose…that ought to keep em away eh?..this is about the same length as a board david and i chopped up and reinvented but way thicker and a bit wider
i love garage sale finds…i found a 6’6’’ patterson a while back for super cheap, but i didnt have it for too long before my brother took it out, ditched it on a head high + day, broke it, and then laughed :(…oh well, he had to pay me $150 which funded a brand new board
Oh well, I guess that means I have to fix it. Dang, I was hoping to be both magnanimous & lazy all at once
I’ve got 5 & 7 yr-old boys. One of them might be able to figure it out in a couple more years.
Anyone think I should add a center box to it for a single-fin option? I remember (vaguely - yes, I “installed” the organic decoration) that it was incredibly skatey…
The decoration may have to go before I give it to my kids. Or maybe just cover it up with a big sticker until they’re older.
I actually had wondered if this board was cut down from something like that, since it seemed older than its boxes. It does have the red glue line ‘stringer’.
Here’s another ‘vintage’ Austrailan shape that I used to surf in California. 7’10" Farrelly V-bottom by G&S. Stringerless. I broke off the nose except for the bottom glass and filled it with bondo. Then the whole deck delammed and I made it into a step-deck. Sort of. Now its gonna take a lot of work…
Edit: those ‘repairs’ were more than 10 years ago. Don’t worry, I know better now…Jeeze, I can’t believe I did that crap.
