surfresearch.com.au   manufacturers : gordon woods surfboards

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1939
Early water activity at Bondi and Coogee includes tin canoe, followed by a canvas model.

Gordon Woods and Canvas Canoe Coogee Beach, circa 1939. Photograph Gordon Woods Archives, courtesy of Gordon Woods . Reproduced in Pacific Longboarder Magazine Volume 8 Number 2.  November 2004 Page 56.

1940 -1941
First board, self made hollow.

Gordon Woods and Hollow board frame. Backyard, Bondi, circa 1946. Photograph Gordon Woods Archives, courtesy of Gordon Woods . Reproduced in Pacific Longboarder Magazine Volume 8 Number 2.  November 2004 Page 60.

1955
Bondi, Gordon Woods' first production, mainly through Surf Life Saving Clubs.
Hollow timber boards. Toothpicks - Australian Racing Sixteens

circa 1956
Move to north side of harbour

October (?) 1956
The US and/or Hawaiian teams arrive in Sydney and are accomodated at the Army barracks on North Head.
Their Malibu boards and high performance surfing is immediately noted by Sydney surfers.
Gordon Woods arranged to purchase a 9 ft 6” Velzy-Jacobs surfboard from Bob Burnside on departure and to make certain of the deal, travelled to Torquay.
As future owner, he was able to surf the board, his first exposure to Victorian waves.
- Gordon Woods, Notes collated from phone conversation, 18 th July 2005

1957
Okinuee- a  hollow timber adaptation of the Malibu board.
The enthusiasm for the new design was such that Gordon Woods had built and tested his first Okinuee before the US team departed.
- Gordon Woods, Notes collated from phone conversation, 18 th July 2005

Board portrait, Dee Why, circa 1957 Left to right, Ron Perry and a Balsa Hawaiian board. Ross Renwick and Gordon Woods Surfboards  Balsa Pig. Gordon Woods and Velzy-Jacobs Balsa Malibu This board was  purchased in 1956 from Bob Burnside, a member of the visiting US-Hawaiian Team for the Melbourne Olympics. Wake Ward of Hawaii with Foam board. Photograph by Ron Perott. Photograph Gordon Woods Archives, courtesy of Gordon Woods . Printed in   Pollard The Australian Surfrider page 28. and Nat's History, page ?

1958 208 Harboard Road Brookvale NSW. First factory. employees. Glassed balsa. Image Right : Robert Conneely and his first board built by Gordon Woods, Bondi, 1958. Conneely Archive  Reprinted in Jimmy O'Keefe : A Life in the Sun... The Robert Conneely Story The Australian Surfer's Journal,  Volume 3 Number One , Summer 2000. Pages 28. 1958 Hayden Kenny's second board, Balsawood and fibreglass  board supplied by Gordon Woods. 1960 Hayden Kenny shapes his first board, shaped at grandfather's cow bales Maryborough, Queensland. Foam blank and materials supplied by Gordon Woods.

Atlas-Woods Surfboards (1963 - 1970)
Atlas-Woods was a NZ company (Atlas) using materials and experience sourced from Australia's Gordon Woods Surfboards,Brookvale.
For further information see...
Williamson, Luke: Gone Surfing
- The Golden Years of Surfing in New Zealand, 1950 -1970
Pages 46 and 50.

1964
Nat Young 1st Model

Mark Richards and Gordon Woods Custom Surfboard,  Blacksmiths Beach, Newcastle circa 1963. Photograph : Richards' Family Knox, page 13.

Nat Young and Gordon Woods,  Deewhy, circa 1965. Image courtesy of Gordon Woods Archives. Originally printed in Surfing World, 1965.  Subsequently in Nat's Nat, page 75.

1970
Peter Drouyn Model
See #218

circa 1972
Country Woods Surfboards, Coffs Harbor.
An off-shoot of Gordon Woods Surfboards, Brookvale.

2000
Handmade timber reproductions of the 1956 Okinuee - a Malibu board constructed using Tom Blake's Hollow timber design, circa 1931.

1965  Gordon Woods S/b, Stringerless Malibu 9 ft 4"

1966  Gordon Woods S/b, Nat Young's Sam  9 ft 4"

1967  Gordon Woods S/b,  Stringerless Wide tail  8 ft 7"

1967  Gordon Woods S/b,  Malibu  8 ft 10"

1968  Gordon Woods S/b, Tracker  8 ft

1968  Gordon Woods S/b, Pintail 7 ft  Contibuted by Jordon, Jan 2006.

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1969  Advertisement : Pintail . Roundtail . Tracker

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Image courtesy of Gordon Woods Archives.
Printed in Surfing World Volume 12 No. 1 1969

1968  Gordon Woods S/b, Pintail 7 ft  Contibuted by Jordon, Jan 2006.

1969  John Arnold/ Wayne Lynch  Double Ender  7 ft 9" #103

1968  Gordon Woods S/b, Tracker  8 ft  #305

Mick Dooley and  Gordon Woods' Island Model,  Bondi 1963. Above images courtesy of Gordon Woods Archives.

circa 1958. circa 1960. circa 1965. circa 1966. circa 1967. circa 1968.

7ft x 23"  Tk 3"  Nose 18"  Tail 14.5'' The fin has obviously been sanded down. Contibuted, with thanks, by Jordon. January 2006.

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Nat Young’s “Nautilas / Cuttlefish / Folly”
8 ft 6”
With Greenough spoon like nose, foam centre and flex tail, manufactured at
Gordon Woods Surfboards 1965.
The board is part of the Scott Dillon Museum.
Extensive warping of the nose section, the board is in otherwise original condition.
Photograph by Alby Falzon.
Image courtesy of Gordon Woods Archives.
Originally printed in Surfing World, 1966.
Reprinted in Carter1968   #117

Image left: Sydney surfboard industry representatives donate  surfboards to Australian  servicemen in South Vietnam,  July 1966. Photograph courtesy of  Dennis McDonagh.

Nearly $500 worth of surfboard equipment, given by seven manufacturers, was handed over to the Australian Army on behalf troops in South Vietnam, at Victoria Barracks, Paddington, on Wednesday, July 20.

The equipment was received by the Acting Chief of Staff (Colonel P. Tancred).
Pictured receiving the boards, Colonel Tancred thanks Denis McDonagh (McDonagh Bros Surf Boards Pty Ltd, Harbord Road, Brookvale) , on behalf of the manufacturers.

The manufacturers with their gifts from the left are,
Messrs Lance Platt (L. and J. Platt, Surfrider Board Shorts, of Foam Street, Harbord),
Danny Keogh (Keogh Surf Boards Pty Ltd., of Sydenham Road, Brookvale) ,
Scott Dillon (Scott Dillon Surf Board Pty Ltd, of Vlinbourne Road, Brookvale),
Bob Brewster (Manly Surf Shop and Stor-A-Bord, Pittwater Road, Manly),
Grodon Woods (Gordon Woods Surf Boards Pty Ltd, Harbord Road, Brookvale),
Bill Wallace (Wallace Surf Boards, Winbourne Road, Brookvale),
Barry Bennett (Barry Bennett Surf Boards pty Ltd, Harbord Road, Brookvale).

Text courtesy of Dennis McDonagh.

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Gordon Woods' handmade timber reproduction of the 1956 Okinuee.
- a Malibu board constructed using Tom Blake's Hollow timber design, circa 1931.
Pacific Longboarder Magazine Volume 8 Number 2. November 2004 Page 60?

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