the pic below is a restoration job ( or restoration nightmare ) I know what it is, because Daryl brought it around to the shed and it still had the original sticker on the deck …If anyone can tell me what it is they win… a FREE schooner and counter lunch at the Kirra pub !!! anyone from the Gold Coast or Noosa who already knows is disqualified from entering , and overseas entrants must pay their own airfair to collect their prize…( sorry for the delay daryl …I’m gettin there slowly)
Kayu,
I'd be surprised if it is...and I don't think it is...but it looks like Pat Currens' 1958 balsa gun. Decal, if present, was probably a Velzy & jacobs. Pat, Al Nelson, Wayne Land, and Del Cannon all shaped for Velzy & Jacobs at that time. They were core guys of the winter crew on the North Shore. Windansea regulars, all. Later Curren guns would all sport four inch wide square tails. Don't keep me wondering, send a PM to me. Nice jig for cutting rockers with a router, BTW. That was something pioneered by Velzy, to boost production of balsa boards.
Nice try Bill- actually there is Pat Curren influence without doubt............the vintage is right ( around 58, maybe earlier).........................................................A clue !!------ the bottom contour is.....bowl...roll...into full concave
Simmons
Full concave? Hap Jacobs!
Dick Brewer?
Mike Diffenderfer?
[quote="$1"]
Dick Brewer? Not Dick Brewer JM -- I got a pic of the fin ,I'll post it first chance I get................a clue= it was made in Sydney-Australia
[/quote]
[quote="$1"] Not Mike Diffenderfer , but slightly warmer
Mike Diffenderfer?
[/quote]
Downing?
Not George Downing SammyA
The bottom --
Bob Cooper?
Not Bob Cooper Balsa - I;m not sure , but I think Bob Cooper landed in Australia early to mid 60's ?
OK, what about Greg Noll?
Here’s an excerpt from Mr Gault-Williams’ “Legendary Surfers”:
“In 1956,” Noll wrote, "I was
one of the lifeguards on the American paddling team that was invited to
participate in the surf paddling contests being held during the Olympics
in Melbourne, Australia. For me, at age nineteen, the trip became
one in a series of firsts.
"After having revived the sport
in Hawaii, Duke Kahanamoku had introduced surfing to Australia at Manly
Beach, Sydney, in 1915, and introduced it to both coasts in the United
States. Australian lifeguards picked up the sport and used the long
planks for rescue craft. By 1956 they had graduated to hollow surf
skis that were all but impossible to stand on.
"Tommy Zahn, Mike Bright, Bobby
Moore and I paid the extra freight to take our surfboards with us to Australia.
By that time we had graduated from redwoods to the shorter, lighter balsa-wood
boards. We had come to race paddleboards. As it turned out,
our surfboards became the real attraction. When the boards were first
taken off the airplane and put on a flatbed truck, a head honcho from one
of the surf clubs in Australia came over to look at them.
"‘What are these for, mate?’ he
asked us. I told him that we surfed on them. He couldn’t figure
it out. To him, the boards were flat and funny-looking. Up
to that time, the Aussies had used a surf ski type of board, and the idea
was to go out and take off on some whitewater and come straight in in the
soup, while all the girls on the beach squealed. That was their idea
of surfing.
"The guy kept looking at the boards,
touching them, turning them over. He finally said, 'Give ya two bob
for the works, mate.’ His way of saying they were worthless.
"We intended to take the boards
with us to the paddle meets and, during our time off, try out the Australian
surf. I had bought a Bell and Howell movie camera from Warren Miller.
He was just getting into making ski movies then… I thought it would be
fun to show everybody back home what Australian surf looked like.
"During one event, we had noticed
a little point break off to the side, off a rocky point… After the paddling
events were over, we grabbed our boards and paddled out to the break.
There had been thousands of people watching the paddling events from shore,
and they had started leaving. Ampol Oil was covering all the paddling
events, and decided to stay and take films of us surfing. Word got
around in the parking lot as people were leaving, 'The Yanks are surfing,
you ought to see the Yanks.'"
"Ampol Oil, the sponsors of the
paddleboard race, have on film a free surfing session the Americans had
after a race," wrote C.R. Stecyk, dating the event as September 3, 1956.
“The Malibu boards’ maneuverability and speed made immediate converts.”
"People turned around and came
back to watch. An enormous crowd formed. Ampol Oil took films.
When we left Australia, we also left our boards for the Aussies.
Those films were shown all over the country to different clubs. The
films and our boards became the basis for the modern surfboard movement
in Australia."
While in the Land from Down Under,
the Americans also surfed new spots never before surfed in Australia.
"The idea of finding a surf spot
in a remote area was not what it was all about in Australia in those days,"
wrote Noll. "As we traveled from one [paddleboard] meet to another,
we saw several great-looking places along the way. I remember one
spot we passed. You looked down off a cliff and about a mile away
there were these beautiful lines stacked up, wave after wave. We
were riding in the back of a truck with our boards and I started pounding
on the cab with my fist. The driver, an Aussie, stopped and asked
me, ‘What’s the matter, mate?’
I said, 'Jesus Christ, look at
the surf down there! Has anyone ever surfed it?’ The guy thought
I was crazy. He said, ‘Why would anyone want to go down there?’
Like, there wasn’t a surf club down there, so what’s the point? He
refused to drive us there. Today that spot is a well-known surf spot
– Long’s Reef, I think they call it.
"For about two years after that
trip, I got letters every week from guys in Australia, pleading for pictures,
templates, design information. It was a new frontier for them…
It didn’t take the Australians long to get on with the thing. The
end result is that they have since produced some of the best surfers in
the world."
Noll’s fledgeling camera work
set the stage for him getting into making surf films on a regular basis:
"From the movies I took, I made
my own surf film. That helped get surfers up here interested in surfing
down there. Before that there wasn’t any traffic back and forth between
Australian and American surfers.
"I often wondered, as time went
by, whether the Aussies would rewrite history to suit themselves or give
credit to the Californians who introduced them to the modern surfboard.
A couple years ago I happened to be standing behind a guy in the airport
who was struggling with a bunch of bags, so I gave him a hand. He
said, in a recognizable Aussie accent, ‘Thanks, mate.’
"We got to talking and, as it
turns out, this guy remembers the trip the Yanks made down there in '56.
He tells me that one of the original boards is still hanging in his club.
We end up having a couple of beers in the bar and talking stories…"
Oh, and, Bob Cooper made his first trip to Australia in 1959 I think… That’s why your indication of “around 1958” seemed to fit…
That's a piece of history !! If Greg Noll shaped a board when he came over in '56 , it would be in a glass case , next to the board Duke made in 1915 ! ! ....... haha!! ......not Greg Noll Balsa ( thx for the post)
Joe Quigg?
