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mctavish : honolua sessions, dec 1967 |
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Maui ...reeking of "the real islands". Green, high mountains, green deep valleys, pineapples, slow, rainy, hot, sunny.
Lahaina's the town.
Old whaling port, and it really says
so.
Docks, harbour, reefs, shanties, bars,
dens, pits, plenty of slow smiles.
A few tourists - mainly nights.
Beee-ootiful town calls beautiful people
- young people from U.S. east and west coasts are making
changes there, making their peace there,
making their love there.
Spiritual centre.
Christ centre.
Lahaina-mother Maui's third eye.
Everyone surfs - or knows what surfing's
doing.
Several small board shops - Thurston's,
Buddy Boy's and Brewer's.
Maybe Willie's.
Strawberry Fields kind of.
Boards are great.
Small shops have the freedom to be
great.
They can change fast.
These shops are one place where its
really happening.
R. B, Richard Brewer.
The wheel of U.S. board design - pintail
man.
Does his thing once or twice or thrice
a week at Buddy Boy's.
R. B. Dick is feeling things now -
Vees, tuned fins, lack of length.
Why?
Herein lies a story.
Up the coast a bit is Honolua Bay.
Wow!!
It's just a little cool-green of course,
thick, trees very trippy.
Buddy Boy's Bay.
Slow bouncy drive, cruise to a halt.
Silence till a set comes through.
Mmm.
Wall's good.
Its come up a few feet!
Aaaagh!
Did you see that curl?
That's a tube right there.
Lets get into those Mothers!
Paddle off the ramp through brown rainwater
for 100 yards, moving past the inside dribblies now.
Looking up - another set hitting outside
- Wow.
That's bigger than it looked in there
- must be six feet.
Faster paddling.
Move past the bowl.
Aaaagh!!
That's a cathedral!
Six feet high - moving fast, throwing
hard and perfect - out - arching curving down. .. keerrack!! whoomfff.
Water's so clear!
Green flat rock.
Glassy bay.
This take- off looks tight.
Deep water onto a ledge - in front
of a cliff with a just cave.
Just cave?
Bring good karma with you ...no pukas,
bad karma?
...Well ...Honolua breaks boards as
well as perfectly.
Set.
Visible a half-mile out, swinging on
those outside reefs.
Runs wide. .. then in!
Wow.
This thing is stacking up!
Might just move out a little more!
Take the second one I guess.
First one looks mighty good!
About 6 feet.
Aah ... let it go.
Ulp!
That's got to be eight feet!!
Wooo!!
Bowling slightly even here on the take-off!
Now. ..easy. .. two paddles. ..lift-off!
Deerop!! ... down into that curve.
..bring it up on edge.
..GET IT ON!!
Thhrrust!
Move it out!
Up.
Under.
Curl.
Coming over!
Right over! (that noise)
Inside! (that feel)
A GIANT GREEN CATHEDRAL AND I AM THERE.
Positive-Negative Pow!! Infinity.
Curl just going further ahead of me,
but it's right!
This situation is flawless.
Now only water visible sky gone
- can't see out but who needs to because time is gone.
Seconds?
Minutes?
A lifetime.
Crystals.
Soundsmells.
Tastefeels.
Forever.
Now.
The door is open.
The wave laughs, board breathes, sun
smiles, Cruise out into ... peace ...
Good Honolua is a tube from take off
to calm centre.
This day Nat and I had our deep Vees
going.
Ted S. had his 8'9" pintail in one
piece till it was two pieces.
Buddy Boy was visiting Him on most
rides - in spite of his overlong machine.
George did It quite often. .. Paule
made It.
Six hours at six to eight feet.
Only a few there.
Coupla cameras, coupla shapers--one
was R. B. Dick was digging the whole thing.
Those Vees - pulling turns in the most
tight spots, gaining speed in those turns, thrusting out of them.
Making waves, making them tighter.
Pintails were beautiful - in
the fall line.
Magical Mystery Tours.
But the U.S. - going round, up, thru-
thrusting!!
YOU got the speed.
YOU went where you wanted - when you
wanted.
Said R. B. when asked - "They work."
Dick Brewer went to his groovy tin shed and made a beautiful pintail - 'V' bottom.
Just a basic change of design - no "yippee-we
did it first" because who is "we"?
We are all brothers 'V' is one change
- many many more coming up from many many people - so names don't matter.
Minimum drag and high rise tails, flex
tails, interchangeable flex tails, false bottoms, keels rather than skegs,
bat ray bottoms - it's all happen\ing.
So dig it, brother.
2. The boards
taken to Hawaii in the winter of 1967 by Bob McTavish, Nat Young, Ted Spencer,
Peter Drouyn and other Australian surfers were in fact 'Gunned' versions
of the designs developed for Australian surf.
Between February
and November 1967 intensive competition between Sydney manufacturers and
their stable of surfer/shapers (primarily Midget Farrelly (Surfboards),
Palm Beach and Bob McTavish at Keyo Surfboards, Brookvale) saw length reduce
from 9 ft to 7ft.
3. The little wide-back machines
(Vee Bottom Stubby) were only a brief
stage of design development.
The gunned versions tested by McTavish
and Nat Young in Hawaii in December 1967 met with mixed results.
McTavish took Nat Young's invitation to
the 1967 Duke Kahanamoku Contest at Sunset Beach.
His performance earned the title from
one observer as "The Spin Out King" - see below.
|
Bob McTavish
& Little Red : Honolua Bay, Maui, December 1967.
Possibly printed in SURF International magazine (Colour), circa 1969. Photograph : John Witzig |
5. By the time this issue hit the
news stands, Bob McTavish had quickly revised his design concepts and was
developing a heavily forward foiled Tracker model.
In Australia, by mid 1968 the wide Vee
Bottom had been largely replaced by three designs -
Forward foiled Pin
tails or small square tailed Trackers
and Egg-type Double-ender round tails.
6. The only noted Australian surfer
who continued to use the wide tail concept during 1968 was Nat Young, who
was preparing material for Eric Blum's The
Fantastic Plastic Machine.
The film would promote the Vee Bottom
design to American audiences, for Australian designers it was past history.
US manufacturers would contine to produce
the model to1969.
7. Wide tailed templates would not re-emerge till 1978 with the No-Nose, typified by Cheyne Horan/Geoff McCoy's Lazer Zap.
8. Vee became a standard feature in bottom design, but has never been as deep as in these designs.
9. The accompanying image was a
tight crop of Bob McTavish at Honolua Bay by John Witzig,
Large version above from Jarratt
: Hakman , page 62.
10. The article does not have a
formal title - the first line is quoted.
Errata
The board details
were previously described on this page as...
Ted Spencer's
'Little Red', 8ft 9" x 22" stringerless rounded pintail. Possibly
Shane Surfboards.
and noted...
The board
itself, however, broke in two at the Honolua Bay sessions.
These details were
taken from multiple viewings of Paul Witzig's Hot Generation
and Bob McTavish's
account of the Honolua Bay sessions,
"A
plastic drinking straw...." SURF INTERNATIONAL
Vol. 1. No. 3 February - March 1968 Page 11.
In November 2003 Ted Spencer emailed...
For what it's worth, so called Little
Red board was 8'4" in length single stringer 23" wide and was shaped by
Bob McTavish and I at Keyo Surfboards in Brookvale Australia.
It didn't break badly in Hawaii
and I took it back to OZ. Regards, Ted.
Many thanks to Ted Spencer for this invaluable contribution.
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