R.I.P

Last week a good friend and a great surfer and shaper FRANK LATTA died while surfing at Valla beach , he came from a tough school that was Cronulla and he was king of his mountain, and I first met him through us both working for Peter Clarke Surfboards and over the years kind of kept in touch and also working together for different Surfboard companies. He was one of the GREATS ,so, if you come across one of Franks boards ,ride it, he loved his craft as much as he loved surfing.

red hot

The RED HOT was the 2nd board for Adam the first a 9' 8" with a very similar bottom so, having him hooked on a big one, the addiction to something smaller and more flighty was easy. I love making all the SNAKES they are my past and present in one and I think Adam summed them up when he said " there just fun". For me if a board does not have speed (lots of it) and positive turning, and fin( or fins) control, I'm not interested, a sluggish board isn't fun and generally will let you down when you need a board to perform, and remember ,once you have speed you have control...........

red hot 7'2

this is the red 7'2 single fin that Tiki made for me

it was designed around a egg shaped board that i have, but longer and a little wider

and with the smoking double concave which starts at about half way

we decided with a glassed in single fin because the way he does the concave you get a real nice and clean rise to the fin which you lack with the boxes

also with a glassed in fin you seem to get better flex and release

on my second surf, the board was past around a couple of guys who are all good on a pleather of equipment, all of us loved the board it drives well,nose rides, holds in the pocket and turns, but the real common occurrence you seem to get with Tiki's boards is the speed they seem to gather,

from take of to kick out( or fall off) they seem to fly, flat spot worries are a thing of the past cause the board effortlessly glides through all imperfections and fatness

There was no tar in the carpark

This photo was in Bill Cilia's Nirvana factory for years and he still has the original and only copy . It was taken at Avoca Beach carpark in 1969 0r70 , and from the left is

yours truly ,"Boobi" Steve Brennan, Nigel Websdale(deceased),Bill Cilia(aka THE FALCON) and Phil (gumboot) Coates.

The Kombi was Nigels and on a good day on the weekend you would be lucky if there were 10 0r 15 cars in the carpark. I was making boards with Nigel under the brand "FAT ANGEL" on his parents poultry farm at West Gosford and it was in these days that many a Bright and colourful, concave bit of foam and plastic, were created and built, some looked good but some were failures,

but most went like rockets.The average length of board then was 5'7" with a gun for a big wave being 6'10", I used to drag out and old log only on very tiny daysas we were so into our shorties. Bill at this time was just starting to make boards on the coast after shaping down in Sydney, Steve was a Nth Avoca lad who surfed at Avoca, and ,Phil, who was the youngest, and to this day one of my closest friends and no,

I did not hate Gringos.Si!

Broken Head 1977

I hated wetsuits then as i do now but I'm learnin.

This is me on the 9' San Juan McTavish and if it got bigger than this the 6' would come out .

In 77 there were not many longboarders so you can imagine how many waves i had to myself , and after 2 hr session on a day like this you were knackered as Broken always demanded many turns and much speed.

At the time I was working for my ole friend Roy Meisel at BARE NATURE Surfboards, which gave me many opportunities to surf here and also a lot of time to experiment, I liked concaves but there were other boards out there that were fun to surf but when Broken pumped only the concaves gave you that edge to come out of the barrels.

My recent trip up north I caught up again with Paul Joske of VALLA surfboards, you should check him out he's another old concave addict and a wonderful craftsman and in 77 was ahead of his time.

Congrads

A big congrads for Alex placed 5th in the open mens final at the Logger heads 2010

some of the action

Green Northern Delights

It was a boys only trip north, both sons Alex and Kris ,and Grandson Zac and, Callan, who has been a a long time part of the family on surf trips north. The surf gods were kind as we had good surf at both Crescent and Scotts head from 2 to 3' up to 4 to 5'. the best being Crescent . My eldest son Kris was the posessor of the 4' 10 green shred sled and a Goofy to boot, well no one else got a surf on his board , the boy loved it, and the more he surfed it the more he loved it . From my view , with knowing Kris's surfing pretty well, he was ripping on it ,it had good paddling power , speed to spare with full controlled carving turns and bloody hell ,he was hanging many a 5, yeah! the little Green Bugger flew. He did all this surfing without a legrope and the final insult was the boardbag for it was a boogieboard bag ! !

SHRED SLED LIVES and am happy to report, it CARVES..........TIKI