NOW AND THEN ! Early 1972 I worked at COCKATOO ISLAND SHIPYARD in the Heavy Shop as a Heavy Machinist on this baby The Thomas Shanks Lathe built in 1914, in the old photo thats me at the front on the toolpost just after we set the 30 ton drop forged Rudderstock for a tanker, this was just before I moved to Byron Bay, and after doing 12 hour shifts here, I had enough ,and enough money to go north with wife and baby Kris.
Frank Latta and San Juan
I first met Frank when I worked for Peter Clarke Surfboards at Brookvale. Frank worked for Peter Clarke on South side at Taren Point, and Barons , and at Peters Christmas Party, at his place, both factory workers got together, and after a small chat with Frank about Snooker, which both of us had been playing since 14 a kind of mutual friendship was maintained over many years. If you don;t know,... Frank was from Cronulla he was the best surfer from there, and was a holder of Golden Gloves( boxing) and maintained that rep till the day he left Cronulla, with another reputation as a fine shaper( it would be hard to find someone who didn't like the way his boards rode). It was nearly 8 years until I saw Frank again, and that was when he became San Juan's shaper about 1978. He was a competent and fast shaper and within a short time , with the help of an also fast glasser, but no sander, boards started to stack up. I got asked to do some sanding while working for Roy at Bare Nature to help them out, which I did, but the resin had hardened up on the boards, as the youngest Fillercoat was 2 weeks with some 4 to 5 weeks old,and this made it very hard sanding, that is, it would take twice as long to machine them apart from the hand sanding. Anyway eventually we caught up and San Juan found a full time sander and Frank continued at full speed ahead. Franks boards were well sought after, they were what I call, Hot Dog boards, highly maneuverable and well suited to North Coast waves. He had a close association with Simon Anderson and on Simons many trips north the pair were inseparable , they surfed made boards and surfed and a few memorable days at Lennox are what I remember well of same dam fine surfing. Frank was always surfing, and at night , practicing or playing competition Snooker( he was good) he became Northern districts champion! in and out of the surf , he made a lot of good friends tho, a couple of hotheads in the water, thought they were kingshit, and learnt very quickly, what many years in a boxing ring teaches you . One guy I remember,Frank kept saying to him before it started" now your sure you really want to do this, we can just walk away and forget it" , but as I said they were hot heads and Frank was always cool, and one punch later............ As the years rolled on after Franks Marriage broke up, He met Michelle and they went on a trip to India which she had won, and on the same tour was my Mum and her sister Aunty Edie, Mum told me about it, and when I finally caught up with Frank , he said he couldn't believe that he'd run into Tiki's mum in bloody India and said they ended up hanging with her for most of the trip and had a ball. I never saw Frank for many years until one day at Scotts Head Alb
y Falzon pointed out Frank in the water on a bellyboard surfing. We ended talking for some time that day and the next and I couldn't get over how well he looked still , he was still passionate about boards but his hip was that bad he couldn't shape anymore nor could he play snooker( he was just as passionate about snooker as surfing) The news of Franks death was a shock to me , he was a great guy, chirpy and full of energy, you don't get many like Frank coming out of the mould, he was unique and if my mum liked him ..... yeah he was alright.... Miss ya Frank
,
,
THE BASTARDS STOLE MY BOARD!!!
HEY GUYS AND GALS, ON SUNDAY NIGHT OF THE 5TH OCT MY BOARD WAS STOLEN FROM MY PLACE ,IF ANYONE FIND
S HER A REWARD OF A FREE FULLY FOILED FIN OR FINS IS YOURS, AND ITS GOOD TO KNOW WE HAVE SUCH FINE UPSTANDING PEOPLE STILL KNOCKING OFF BOARDS , THERE MATES MUST BE PROUD TO BE FRIENDS WITH THEM. The board is 9'5 x23 3/4 with a seasnake motif on the bottom and a TIKI motif on the deck the fin is orange and yellow as in the photo
Broken Head board made on the Beach
About 80 to 81( these were hazy pot fueled days) when I went back to Byron Bay , I was living in a tent with ocean views at Broken Head caravan Park, and was working for both Roy at Bare Nature and Warren Cornish. At the park there were a few long term renters and one of them( I cant remember his name so I'll use Bill) ,who was living close to where I was, asked me if I was interested in making a Knee board for him, I jumped at it as I was in need of money, and then he asked me to make it in front of where we were living,which is, more or less nearly on the beach. He had a 72 Landrover, so we made some stands and started working on the shape using the Landrover as a wind break. He left it all up to me with the shape and glassing ,so it ended up being a concave bottom with a bat tail at 5foot 6 by 22 inch wide and 3 inch thick, now at the time I was riding a 5 foot 4 kneeboard standing up when it suited the board ( which usually was on the small side)and I was pretty keen to also try this out too, and it became nearly like I was making my own. The shaping outdoors was ok but the drama came with the glassing ....I started glassing early in the morning , so as to avoid the wind , but by the time I was pouring the resin on( it was a yellow tint) the wind came up and I had 4 other guys hanging on to the glass to stop the glass flappin all over the place.... it was the same for the top,the dam wind just kept coming up early, and the beautiful half ripple half perfect fillercoat really put the icing on the cake, I nicknamed this the Windfinish.... , so the wind sand and sun ,made for an outside surfboard making experience that I have never repeated. I remember one of the guys from Warren Cornish's passing by when going for a surf when in the middle of glassing, and within a short time my expertise at outside boardmaking had become legendary Ha!! I handsanded the filler and gave it a wet and dry finish, so from start to finish not a machine touched her she was truly a HANDJOB. I made the fin at Roys and this was the only part of the board a machine was used, and then the the crunch time...surfing it! Bill took it out in a pretty fair kind of surf for Broken , came in said he loved it , couldn't believe the speed and how good it was on the turns . I took it out for a standup and was impressed , for a widetail single fin it really did hang in the turns really well but it was the fact the whole dam thing was more or less made on the beach in 3 days with bits of sand an whatever else was blowin in the wind, she was a true Broken Head board made on the beach with passion....
Me and Roy...1972 onwards
When I first met Roy he looked like one of the ZZ top boys ,long beard and hair , and being winter ,all rugged up in wooly coats and scarves.He had a slow Californian drawl and "man" was used to some extent in his conversation, at the time he was one of the few Yanks that were in town. Through the board industry I got to know him better and better, he had a heart of gold, loved surfing and loved being alive. The other Yanks, were his close friends from his home beach of Torrence beach in L.A. Pete Green , Bob Franjose and Bob Newlands ,and as time went on I got to know all of them well.Bob Newlands is back in the States, looking after some cabins on a lake after being out here for over 25 years. Peter Green , who I worked with also at Warren Cornish's,still lives in the area and Franjose is in between the States and Aussie. Roy was called up into the US Army when the Vietnam war was on and served 2 years , when he left the States he was riding 9'10 when he got out of the Army boards were 6' and Roy could never quite adapt to the shorter board, he did make some shorter ones but his favourite was an old "V" bottom 9 footer which he often surfed at the Pass and Broken, Pete Green had 2 modern longboards, one made by Blanchy and the other by Mctavish, I got to surf both these but the Mctavish was my favourite.Apart from these two and a board Nigel Perrow made at Bare Nature there were no modern longboards around and the old longboards that were around were your other choice, but as I said before hardly anyone was riding them.....it was Bliss for us, can you amagine, the Pass on a very good day at 2 to 3 foot with only 5 out yet, there were at least a hundred surfers in town, but were not interested unless it was bigger. So Roy and I had many, many wonderful surfs and made some great boards while having fun at the same time. Roy learn't to shape and made most of his boards over the years , even after Bare Nature closed down. H
e still has that old V bottom board apart from some others he has kept. My favourite ( and Roys ) is a 9foot 1957 solid Balsa VELZY and JACOBS, that was his brothers board and has been in the family all this time,I featured this a while back , but here's a photo ...... As the years rolled on I left Byron and did what I did with my life,working on Prawn trawlers,and then settling down here on the Central Coast as a gardener, and did a hell of alot of travelling overseas, with my wife Fiona and eventually coming back to Byron once a year and catching up with everyone for the Byron Bay Longboard Classic, while staying with Roy and his wonderful wife Marilyn, it has been a long friendship with my amigo Roy and we still get out together in the surf, sometimes the body doesn't want to but we do and will do til we drop...Luv Ya Roy xx............... Photos The Velzy, Roy and Shop, Roy and Father in law Jack Waldron...Anzac day
Roy Meisel and Bare Nature 1972 to 1984....and Mcoy
Around 1979 to 81 I left the Byron Bay area and started work sanding, at Mcoy surfboards. I had known Geoff since W and M days , 1966, but had never worked for him before this, it was full production 30 to 40 boards a week tints, sprays, pinlines , finishcoats and full polishes. Geoffs team of riders was impressive he had Cheyne Horan , Bruce raymond ,Larry Blair , Mark Warren and a few others whose names I've forgot, Geoff also had most of the Hawaiians when they came over and Barry Kanaipuni would shape 4 a day for about 2 to 3 weeks. So the passing parade of surfers through Mcoys was continual ,but this was a sad time for me as my marriage broke up and with my 2 kids gone it was heartbreaking at work ,I still had to do 40 boards a week( fin panels and cut outs and foils) in the end I had to leave and go back north and when I arrived at Byron I was back working at Cornish's and Roys at Bare Nature. Roy had now upped production to about 15 to 20 a week and Nigel Perrow was the main shaper with John Scott (american) doing a few. These were wild days, the Top pub was Rocking, as was the Northern hotel, but the town was not crowded and the Rails was just a watering hole fore the locals, and mushrooms and Gungha was aplenty. I don't recall many days up there then, that many people were straight, most of us who worked at Roy's were single and loose and lunchtime was Smoko time and sadly for Roy if there was a surf not many would go back to work. Roy was marvellous , he was going through hard times, with his marriage breaking up, but at the same time he had to cough up the money for his ex, and this went on to the eventuality of having to sell the buisiness and the shop. But it didn't stop Roy from being Roy, he maintained through it all , with the help of Tooheys Beer and some very close friends, and here I will tell you Roy was an ex Vietnam Vet. Both Roy and I had a passion for surfing Broken Head and many,many a great surf was had by us together there. We surfed the Pass a lot as Roy , myself and only a very few, Mark Smith , Nigel Perrow and Ronny Blewitt rode Longboards at either the Pass or Broken so , many a glorious uncrowded smaller surf in perfect conditions was surfed. I was also riding a variety of short boards too, I had an old 6'6" Barry Kanaipuni ( for bigger surf
, a 6'0 made by me, a 5'4" kneeboard that I rode standing up, and 2 different styles of Mals ,one being Peter Greens chiselnose 9' 0 made by Mctavish ( this was the first custom Longboard by Bob out of San Juan) I made a few boards at Roys, they all went well but my little 6 footer was the Magic Carpet . I rode her in 2 foot slop at the Pass and 6 to 8 foot at the Haven ,magic board and with me at 33 years old and still bulletproof. The beauty of working at Roys was the passing parade of surfers and boardmakers that were there, and that Roy would let you make as many boards as you basically wanted....to be continued
BOB WITH PETER GREENS LONGBOARD, and me on Peters board BROKEN HEAD
JUST SHAPED and A GOOD EXAMPLE OF A BARE NATURE probably 1978 0r 80
Bob Mctavish starting back at San Juan and me working for three different labels.
Before Bobby Mctavish arrived at San Juan....THE DUNNY!!
Just before John Thomas (JT) bought San Juan Nat Young used to do a few, and I mean a few shapes and they would get glassed there, Nat left 3,roughshaped, Morning of the Earth style , 6'4' pintails , in Blanchies Shaping room which did not have much room in it, due to, that, unshaped blanks had to be also stored there. For quite some time, 5 or 6 months, JB ( Blanchy) continually hassled JT to do something with them as he needed the racks where they were stored , now remember both JT and JB were now Jehovah Witnesses, and after a long period of JB threatning " if you dont do something with them ,I will" Blanchy finally did. I arrived at work at about 8.30 and went to the Dunny( this is a tin can,about 500cm across, used as the toilet before the sewerage went in) and shoved into the shit and piss were Nats 3 roughshaped boards, nose first. I went back to the glassing room where Billy Mclean was just setting up and told him what was in the Dunny....We cracked up as JB was a bit proud of what he had done , and when JT arrived and heard and saw the Dunny , he went red ,stormed down to JB and said half stuttering and trying very hard not to swear "ttthaattts not very cool BLANCHY" . JB who was in the shaping room working said" I told you if you didn't get rid of them I would so there you have it", with JT replying " bbuut thats not cool Blanchy" Blanchy replied " who really cares, there pieces of crap anyway and they're where they deserve to be." You can amagine them both trying to hold there cool with Bill and I laughing away in the background ,more so, when JT was pulling the blanks out of the Dunny ......They never got glassed, as we didn't have really good Shit brown tints in those days and to reflect on it now they would have made good collector pieces but would have been a bit smelly...... Later on Blanchy left and went to Coffs harbour and Bobby Mctavish returned to the Bay, and started at San Juan, after being down Sydney at Bennetts. I never knew Bob at all before this but in a short time , got to know him and respect him which is still a strong comradeership with him today, his early passion around the Plastic Machine era set many of us on the same creative path pursuing design and ideas , and to boot He was and is a Bloody good Surfer.... to be continued
San Juan Bare Nature Warren Cornish and Sky... and the Sugarcanefields.
When I worked at San Juan I was also doing some work for Roy at Bare nature as were a few of the boardworkers that were then in town, the South Africans Tony Cerf, Deri Star ,and Gunther Rohn had arrived ,as did a few Yanks, at this time they were the only " foreigners" that were in town ,not like today. Both Tony and Gunther went on to be sought after shapers with Tony being the glasser at San Juans before Billy Mclean. This was still the era of tints and pigments ,Sylene glass, the new no lap stuff was only about a year old and expensive, it was only used as a clear on the top of an insert glass job ie. with a taped up deck and glassed to the cut overlap from the bottom. Bill still does quite a few of these still and, it is a dying art, but then 4 out of ten boards that were glassed were Inserts. The finbox was just starting to be kinda accepted but, 9 out 10 were glassed on fins and this remained that wat for some tim as single and twin fins were the norm, so a sander had to be able to foil well and make the fin look good and work well, in fact
as a shaper , if you coudn't make a good fin ,well foiled, you didn't get much respect. At San Juans the sand room's duct dragged the dust and fibres out onto old Tony Kibblewhites house which was right next door, and had been doing this for years . Tony knew this but never complained until his wife got sick, and that was the end of sanding at the shop, from then on I had to load the boards into my car and take them out to the old Piggery ( where Byron Bay Brewers are now) on a set of portable stands amongst the rubble and the Pythons in the rafters( they were pretty regular there) . Not long after this I had a bit of indifference with John Thomas who now owned San Juan and by the end of May 73 I started work in the Sugar cane fields as a hand cane cutter down at Ballina on the Richmond and on the Clarence river near Yamba for the next 5 years and at he end of the season ( December) went back to boards at Bare Nature and then Warren Cornish where Bill Mclean was now glassing as John Thomas had sold SanJuan and with Bob Mctavish, started making the Bluebird at a shed they rented of Warren (Warren passed away this year) Around this time I started to work partime at Sky so, at one stage I was working for 3 different Labels .... But Byron Bay was changing ....to be continued .....P.S. Bob the Yank in the above photo is Bob Newlands who was glassing before he and Roy started Bare Nature
San juan an Bare nature continued...The shots are.. Bill Mclean and Roy Meisel 42 years later on
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
