San juan an Bare nature continued...The shots are.. Bill Mclean and Roy Meisel 42 years later on
SAN JUAN and BARE NATURE days 1972 Byron Bay.
I arrived in Byron with my FC holden station wagon packed to the racks with wife ,4 month old son and 3 boards, no where to live, only the hope of running in to a friend Bill Mclean. With that all sorted I chased up work which varied from working on the council, then the putting in of the sewrage system, and then San Juan surfboards and Bare Nature surfboards as a Sander and fin maker , gloss coat and pinliner. San Juan was managed by John Thomas ( J T) at the time with John Blanch the shaper ,Bill mclean the Glasser and me, it was still single fins and Keel fins were being played around with with no real success, which was apity as the shapes of the boards were , but the keel let them down. Many a nice board was made then there were some bloody great designer shapers around and the quality of the finished product was number 1. It was also a time of change for some ,with JT and Blanchy and Bob Mctavish ,among others .gave up drugs and radicalism for a more honest way of life and became Jehovah wittnesses, but the boards still had their flair and the rest of us Pagans still continued on our merry way. When Bob arrived,and after, the main focus was on a more gunnier board , hotdogging boards had lost out for the more sleeker looking gun , and pintail., but there were changes happening as Michael Cundith had been making short wide twin fins and the locals were like the feel of hotdoggin and within a year a big change in design and fins was coming about. Bob made a variety of shapes for a variety of surfers but i was his pintails that were the nicest and at that time he made his first asymetrical... yep there were changes a happening....... stay tuned more to come
Yeah! full concave pintail.... did it work!? Ian Lindsay who made this in 1980 said it was really fast, trying to control the speed on a turn was another story , this was in the days of invention and experimentation, trial and error ....ah! but what wonderful boards to look at and what wonderful boards that really worked , ask anyone from that era
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I made this for my youngest Alex it was 9'4" x 24" .I never rode it until 5 months after, and couldn't get myself off it, it performed so well in smaller waves .but, it was on bigger waves that it's true heart came alive, to ride a long board so easy and confidentally on larger waves was bliss. The mean green machine.....
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The 6th Annual Wooden Surfboard meet at Currumbin Alley is on again. Sergi Galano of Flame surfboards, Spain will guest speak at the opening on the 2nd August at 6:30 at gold coast Surf Museum and the open day on the 3rd August at the Alley. All things wood that move through the waves, organised and run so well by Grant Newby
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In 1972 Bob Newlands aka "The Yank" shaped and made his own boards and most of them were asymetricals, usually pintails. Bobby McTavish came back to Byron when i was at San Juan and made a 6'10' stinger ,hook tail asymetrical, these were the first and only non accidentally shaped asymetricals that I ever saw then . Now we see a variety of them and, I personally like what 's being made. a longboard that caught my eye was this one from Wayne Rich from the States who has a well earned reputation and lovely shaped boards.
NICATIKI UKULELE'S
I've had my NICATIKI ukulele for 3 weeks and have constantly been playing her, and the more I play the more I enjoy. The guys at Nicatiki are extremely helpful and passionate with all things involved, and Silvio the wonderful and creative Luthier ( guitar maker or maker of wooden musical instruments ) makes these all by hand and of solid exotic , erotic, timber scourced locally in Nicaragua and the finished product is a testament to his high standard of skill....I have other ukes but my Nicatiki is by far my favourite, and the better sounding of them all
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