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  surfers : midget farrelly 

Bernard 'Midget' Farrelly
13 September 1945 -


Midget Farrelly North Narrabeen 1975 Photo: Aitionn

Catalogue Entries:
#6      Farrelly, Square tail  6 ft 4"
#54    Farrelly Pop-out 5ft 5"
#34    Midget Farrelly, Coolite 4 ft 10" Rubber fin
Surfer, shaper, author, windsurfer, surfboard manufacturer, components manufacturer, hang-glider.
Born : Paddington, Sydney
Home Beach :Manly/Freshwater, Sydney
Nick Name : 'Midget"

1st Board - began surfing on a Blake Hollow timber board, found on Manly Beach,circa 1955, Age 10
In 1956 saw Greg Noll and other members of the US/Hawaiian Surf Life Saving Team,  surf their Malibu boards at Manly Beach - see 1956.


1958 1st contest,
South Avalon, fourth in the final
Early board building at...
Barry Bennett Surfboards,
Scott Dillon Surfboards
Keyo Surfboards, all at Brookvale, Sydney.

Image Left : Midget Farrelly and balsawood - fibreglass Pig board, circa 1958.
Note hand-painted 'Oval+M' at ss. and two tone offset bands at tail.
Probably not the board shown in Junior Surfers, Manly 1958.
Surfboard Design Modern World Magazine, July 1971, pages 30 - 36. 

Midget Farrelly, Balsa/Fibreglass Pig, circa 1958.

Midget Farrelly, Curl Curl Beach circa 1963 Photo: Perrott? Midget Farrelly and Makaha Trophy, January 1962.
Photograph : Ron Church
Reprinted in Australian Longboard Magazine June 2004
Page

Midget Farrelly, Curl Curl Beach circa 1963 Photo: Perrott? 1962  Makaha International Championship-1st,
1 January 1963, Makaha Beach, Hawaii  6 foot surf

Image Left : 
Midget Farrelly :Masterly controlled spinner circa 1963,
Pollard page 8.


1962-1963
Shaper for Keyo Surfboards
Surfabout Volume 1 Number 5 1963, cover right.

1964 Australian Championship
Manly Beach Sydney
Held as a preliminary to the World Championships
1st Midget Farrelly
2nd Mick Dooley
3rd Bobby Brown.
Junior:
1st Robert Conneely
2nd Nat Young
3rd Wayne Cowper


1964 World Championship
Manly Beach Sydney
1st   Midget Farrelly
2nd  Mike Doyle (USA)
3rd   Joey Cabell (Hawaii)
4th    L.J. Richards (USA).
5th    Mick Dooley
6th    Bobby Brown

Images above : Midget Farrelly -  Classic cutback, Manly 1964
Note that these photographs are often captioned to infer that they were taken during the Final.
They were taken in an earlier preliminary round, Midget wore shirt #2 in the final.
Right : Ross Perrott, from Farrelly : This Surfing Life,  page 12
Left :Jack Eden, First printed in Surfabout Magazine, 1964
The multi stringered foam board was strongly influenced by Phil Edwards'designs.
1964 This Surfing Life     Released
1965 Australian Championships

Manly Beach Sydney May 1965
1st Midget Farrelly 2nd  Nat Young 3rd Bob McTavish. Junior Peter Drouyn
First use of stringerless design.
circa 1965
Started Farrelly Surfboards,
PO Box Palm Beach 
919 4409
Decal image left, with thanks,
Pete Williams

1965 World Championship, Semi Finalist,
Punta Rocas Peru ,
Small waves -1st,?
Positive response to the stringerless design sees this model liscenced to Gordon and Smith Surfboards, California. The first of many.
1966 Australian Championships, 4th

Coolangatta, Queensland
Ist Nat Young, 2ndBob McTavish  3rd x, 4th Midget Farrelly

1966 World Championship finalist?
 Huntington Beach, California- finalist?,
1966 Stringerless Model for Gordon and Smith Surfboards, USA.
 Image contributed by Brandon McKenney, October 2005.

1967 Australian Championship, 3rd,
Bells Beach Vic.
See Part Five of The Hot Generation
1st Nat Young 2nd Peter Drouyn 3rd Midget Farrelly
Midget Farrelly rides a volan glassed clear stringerless board, with concave nose and distinct nose lift, approximately 9 ft 2'' x 22''.  Nat Young's board features 6 ft of Vee in the tail.  The basic elements of these two boards in the next six months would be developed into the Vee-bottom Short board

Midget Farrelly and Stringerless V Bottom, Palm Beach  Oct 1967 1967   Windansea Contest, finalist
-October, Northern Beaches (Long Reef, Palm Beach)
Image Left : Midget and his version of the Plastic Fantastic Machine, 
Palm Beach Oct 1967 - stringerless, Vee bottom, chamfered pod with own fin design in adapted finbox. Carter page 71.
This design made under liscence in the US by Gordon and Smith Surfboards.

1968 Australian Championship , finalist
May, Northern Beaches, Sydney (Long Reef, ) ,
1st Keith Paull, 
also Nat Young, Ted Spencer, Midget Farrelly, Robert Coneneely, Lester Brien.
Junior : Wayne Lynch,
Held over several rounds, huge seas forced some heats to be run at Chinaman's Beach in Middle Harbour. 
Image Left : Three finalists, Midget Farrelly, Nat Young and Ted Spencer, ethusiastically gulp down the sponsor's product - Milk.
From Margan and Finney, page 226
Note not a Vee bottom in sight, but boards still to go sub  7 foot.
Also note advaned fin placement on ted spencer's board.
Also see Kim McKenzie's Hayden Surfboard shaped by Bob McTavish, 1968.

Midget Farrelly Noosa 1968  Photo : Unknown Image Right  :Midget Farrelly Noosa Heads 1968
Pintail, About 8ft
Similar board to those used at the 1968 Australian Titles 
and 1st Bobby Brown Memorial Contest.
Photograph : Unknown

1968 Bobby Brown Memorial Contest 1st,
Cronulla Australia,
1968 World Contest 2nd,
Rincon, Puerto Rico ,
See Evolution, Part 7
1st Fred Hemmings (H), 2nd Midget Farrelly, 3rd Russell Hughes, 4th Nat Young, also Mike Doyle
(USA) and Reno Abelleira (H).
 Midget rode a Pintail 7ft10"?, Midget Farrelly Surfboards, Red bottom with Blue wing, Yellow deck 
Image,  left: Photograph by David Singletary 
Surfer magazine Vol 29 No 9 September 1988, page 124

Midget Farrelly and  Rounded Pin,
Huntington Beach  probably after 1968 World Contest.
Further models for Gordon and Smith, California.

Photograph : Leroy Grannis
From The Next Wave, page 41.


The Side Slipper design by Reno Abellia for  Inter-Island Surfboards was first noted at the Huntington Beach Contest, 1969.
In Australia the  design was taken up by Midget Farrelly (Farrelly Surfboards) and Terry Fitzgerald at Shane Surfboards.
#45, Keyo egg fin


The only board that allows the surfer to ride sideways, backwards or in a spinning circle.
The slipper has advantages a conventional board lacks
Speed comes easy,  control is super positive through the flat bottom and low, soft rails.
Basically, the board is longer, thinner and a diamond shape in outline.
The fin is smaller to facilitate release only when desired.
The rails amd bottom allow a shallow draft fin in any case, and the fin used is both adjustable and removable. Midget has ridden this shape in most every kind of wave.
Reef surf was where the speed from the bottom and the rails was best put to use.
In beach break the board responded to all manouvres and created new freedoms with side slips to hold curl position and 360's to fill the gap between peaks of sections.
Fantastic sensations can be had riding whole sections backwards.
Th e most average surfer is going to find this surfboard easy to ride.
Thje side slipper can't be compared to any other board that has gone before it.
The only limitation this surfboard has is the surfer who rides it.

Farrelly Surfboards, 230 Harbord Road, Brookvale 2018  Phone : 939-1724.


Above quoted text and images and text from...
Farrelly Surfboards Advertisment, circa 1969.
Re-printed in Walding, page 76.
Note : - The red board on the left has a much wider tail than the two to the right.
 - Volan deck patches.
Since 1969 he has made a major contribution to the components industry.
1971# 54 Farrelly Popout 5 ft 5
1970 World Contest 2nd,

Johanna Beach, Victoria, Australia
1st Rolf Aurness (USA), 2nd Midget Farrelly, 3rd Peter Drouyn, also Nat Young, Reno Abelleira and Keone Downing (both Hawaii)
See Sea of Joy, Part 6?
Midget Farrelly rides a approximate 7 ft Side-slipper with Yellow bottom/clear deck with black pinlines, but like Reno Abellira on a similar board, surfs in the conventional manner or the day.
# 45 Farrelly script '69
1970 Gunston 500, 1st

South Africa
1971 # 214 Farrelly Diamond tail 6 ft 3
# 45 Farrelly script '69
1973 Bells Beach Contest- finalist

Easter, Bells Beach, Victoria
Rip Curl Bells Beach Pro Am
First Australian Professional Contest, Cumulated points for manourve system 'Objective System' over several rounds (originally designed by George Downing, Jeff Hackman and Duke Boyd  and first used at 1973 Hang Ten Contest, Hawaii).
The surf ranged from 6 ft to plus twelve feet fot the whole contest.
"Best surfing since Bells 1963 " Rodney Sumpter, Surfer magazine Vol 14 No 3 September 1973
1st Michael Peterson, others Midget Farrelly,Tony Hardwick, Simon Anderson and Ted Spencer 
circa 1972

Midget Farrelly Sufboards leaves 230 Harbord Road, Brookvale address and Surfblanks factory is established at:
7 Perak Street Mona Vale, Phone : 997-2014 , 919-5319
Michaelangelo (of mallet and chisel fame) has been doing some wood and glass fins with beautiful laminated colours.
SW January 1974 Volume 18 Number 6 Page ?

Retail sales at Number 1 Alexandia Street, Collaroy.
Specific wave range performance is Midget's speciality, the final interpretation of the wave is yours.
Saturday 10-12 am only. Call Surfblanks weekdays 997-2014 (Mona Vale), 919-5319 (Palm Beach?).
Average price $120.00
SW January 1975 Volume 20 Number 4 Page 16?

This issue also contains an article with photographs,
"Shaping New Designs" by Midget Farrelly, pages 14 - 19.
Also note previous article in SW January 1974 Volume 18 Number 4 Pages 30 - 32.
"Sanding and Finishing a Surfboard" by Midget Farrelly,
Photographs by Bruce Usher (of Midget and  Warren Cornish).


1975 Coke Contest
Northern Beaches, Sydney
See Photographs top and bottom of this page.
In 1975-1980 he pioneered Hang-gliding in Australia.
circa 1976- 7

Surfblanks factory and  Midget Farrelly Sufboards moves to
11 West Street, Brookvale, Phone : 938-3220.
Surf Magazine (ed Steve Core), 1977 Volume 1, Number 5
In 1980-1987 he pioneered surf sailing in Australia.
Midget Farrelly Designs (mini + malibus) are available under liscense, circa 200.


REFERENCES
Books
This Surfing Life
Other Books
The Australian Surfrider   Chapter 1. For Real Kicks ....Bernard ("Midget") Farrelly     Pages 9 - 16.

General

Web Pages


Magazines
Tracks MagazineOctober 1990 Interview by Nick Carroll Pages 45 - 49.

Film(Appearances)
From  Thoms :Surf Movies, above.
Header Image

Midget Farrelly, North Narabeen, Sydney.
1975 Coke Contest Competitor.
Photograph by Aitionn
Apparently a favourite photograph, a graphic version remains the familiar logo of Midget Farrelly's Surfblanks components company.
Cliff, Paul (editor):
A Sporting Nation - Celebrating Australia's Sporting Life.
Surfing World Magazine Pty Ltd (inc. NSW)National Library of Australia.
Canberra ACT 2600 Australia, 1999.
Soft cover, pages, extensive black and white and colour illustrations and photographs, Bibliography, Acknowledgements, Index.
Review
The article of interest is Boards, Sand, Togs and Flags, pages 68 to 77, with comments by Benard 'Midget' Farrelly recorded 30th October, 1984.
Page 68

Boards, Sand, Togs and Flags.

STARTING OUT: Bernard 'Midget' Farrelly

I WAS LIVING AT MANLY, round about 1955 or 1956, less than 100 yards or so from the beach ...During one of the many storms that occurred through the winter months ...surfboards would get washed out of the area underneath the surf dub where they were stacked... I picked up a battered long board, it was about 18 feet [5.5 m] [and] discovered that it either had no owner or the owner no longer wanted it ...I took it home, repaired it, got a set of wheels for wheeling it down to the surf, and I started surfing.

I rode those sort of [hollow, plywood] boards for the next couple of years ...' until I saw a visiting Hawaiian Olympic team come to Manly on short balsa boards ...10, 11 foot [3.3 m] balsa boards covered with fibreglass ...it was the '56 Olympics ...

Surfing hadn't even begun other than in the surf dubs ...Around about '58 or '59... I [became] a member of the Freshwater Surf Club.
At that stage balsa boards ...around about 10 feet [3 m] in length, were well and truly established ...

I BOUGHT A BALSA BOARD KIT ...and built my first board while I was living in South Curl Curl... around about 1958 or '59 ...[Roger Kieran, at Beacon Hill, NSW, came] up with production balsa boards ...with the removable fin, and ...

Page 69

... fin-box system ... Roger sort of fiddled with anything-and-everything that looked like it might work... Some of the better [boardmakers] were Joe Larkin, who did cedar and ash, Bill Wallace, who did Pacific maple and ash and some other nice versions, Gordon Woods, Barry Bennett-and at that stage I think Greg McDonagh was probably fooling around with polystyrene, trying to do in polystyrene and epoxy what the Hawaiians had done in balsa and fibreglass ...

I started building surfboards completely on my own in 1964, up at Palm Beach, in a boatshed.

there were two major influences in getting Australian surfing going .. .
(1) was Bud Brown's surfing movies.
And (2) was the first two or three issues of the American Surfer magazine ...a collection of stills and
written material giving more depth to that sport and lifestyle.
It was this strengthening of the sport and the lifestyle that ultimately led surfers away from the surf club.

Page 70


Image left:
Midget Farrelly and other competitors, Australian Championships or World Contest, Manly, 1964.


(above) 'Midget' Farrelly, World Surfboard Champion.
Farrelly had won the Makaha Hawaiian Championship in 1963, prior to the first World Amateur Titles held at Manly Beach, Sydney (above), in 1964.
He competed successfully until 1970.
His lively, graceful style is often contrasted to fellow rider Nat Young's high-speed, more aggressive attack, which saw the latter take out the World Title at Ocean Beach in San Diego in 1966, as well as the 1970 World Pro Championship.
Together, Farrelly and Young paved the way for later riders such as Mark Richards (four times World Champion, 1979-82), Tom Carroll and Pam Burridge, in a sport in which Australia would seem destined to remain a major player.
ANIB; courtesy National Archives of Australia

WINNING MAKAHA - AND AFTER

I ENTERED THE [1962] MAKAHA CONTEST and most of the other Australians were eliminated .., And it came down to the final day, where the surf was relatively small... The waves were around six feet [1.83 m] maximum, averaging about four feet, and I happened to come further inside... I sort of cut the course in half, so to speak... I just moved inside and caught more rise in a wave that came along ...

There happened to be three Californian judges on the stand at the time ...
The fact that they appreciated small waves ...combined with the fact that I had an ability to ride small waves, probably made the result come out the way it did .., The uproar caused by a non-Hawaiian winning that event was completely unbelievable ...The newspapers in Honolulu at that time carried [such] headlines .,. as 'Hawaiian Surfing Prestige Wiped Out.'
I actually had the odd Hawaiian chasing me ...

I came back to Australia after the Makaha contest and the event had sort of caused a small ripple here, but it sort of ...grew... Australia was a very different .I country then ...[which] looked down on itself, but got pride out of any winning that any individuals or teams could achieve.
So it took a while for .., people to realise that an Australian had actually won something... and the newspapers made a small sensation out of it.
And ironically about that time the popularity of surfing as something other than a sport-surfing as a sub-culture or a lifestyle-took off.

The Californian experience [was] that once you had this formula of beach, .. waves, music, clothes, cars, language- you had an explosive sort of situation.
And the same thing occurred here .., it just took off.

Page 71

FROM SURF CLUBS TO SURFABOUT

SURF CLUBS WERE FAIRLY REGIMENTED in their beach sport. [Lifesavers] marched in a line, they carried reels in a line, they carried flags in a line, they'd pull a boat down the beach in a disciplined way- and surfers were the opposite.
They were nonconformists, and they surfed when the waves were good, and they were doing it as individuals, not as teams, and the surf clubs saw themselves threatened ...

They tried banning [surfboard riding] at beaches, they tried registering boards.
Surfers were branded as dangerous in and out of the water: 'louts, hooligans' ... trying to hit people with their boards... I think the most disgusting incident I saw was local councils registering surfboards in the belief that they could control them on behalf of the surf clubs and protect the public, when in actual fact it was a revenue-raising exercise which ultimately became self-defeating
People refused to register their surfboards... Today, surfers still prize the old registration stickers- just, you know, to show young people what the coundls and the surf clubs of the time had in mind ...and how people were actually so afraid of surfing ...

The sport at that time had sort of enjoyed a kind of a strong, relatively healthy image.
We had ...gone through the "surfer/rocker war" newspaper sensationalism period ...But it [was to change fairly dramatically.
Round about the time of Flower Power and LSD and the San Francisco experience, there was a ...major influence brought to bear ...by people who were attempting to establish themselves as gurus of the sport ... Anybody who doubts [this] should go and see The Fantastic Plastic Machine, because everything that ever went wrong with surfing is captured in that movie... at one stage it was said that ...

Page 72

... if you weren't into dope you didn't know what you were doing in the waves ... Anybody young in surfing was automatically pressured to get into dope as well ...The end results were relatively catastrophic, and the history of surfing is quite perverted through that period, and much of the material written about surfing during that period is quite nonsensical.

Meanwhile, in the background, surfing was still sort of clicking away as the ... natural sport it always was and always will be- a wave, a surfboard and a human and the world contests were still being run, and luckily the dope culture began to separate out [from it] ...

Much was made of the so-called birth of the modern style of surfing through 1966 onwards, but in reality it was a fabrication by a small group of individuals seeking to exert influence over... the sport at the time... All of the theories proposed ultimately fell by the wayside in competition ...

So, as surfing got into the seventies, a lot of the young guys who didn't like dope sub-culture lifestyle nonsense ...said, 'Well, this is not what we want.
We want surfing as the sport we've always loved ...and we want to turn it into a ...fairly honourable thing again, and we'd like to maybe make a living doing it.

And through the efforts of people like Mark Warren ...like Graham Cassidy and the people that helped him, surfers of that period wanted to recapture the feeling of the early '60s, when surfing was a sort of vibrant, exciting sport- healthy... a rewarding, just-to-be-in-it sort of thing.
And through the establishment of the Surfabout Contest... surfing was sort re-born in the public's image, and the professionalism that evolved ...has ... continued since that time.

Page 73

DESIGNING BOARDS
[DUKE KAHANAMOKU] used a heavy, solid wood board here all those years ago.
I've ...seen that board many times; it's not a board I'd like to ride.
The hollow racing-style surf club boards which could still wave ride were made very light, but basically only men were supposed to use them.
They were 14, 16, 18-feet [4.27-5.5 m] long ...

Balsa boards that are around 10-feet [3 m] were the breakthrough.
A girl could carry one of those-and that's when the possibilities of all people surfing really arose... By the time the urethane foam boards came along, the weight of a surfboard had been reduced, say, from the early days from ...100 pounds [45 kg] down to something like 15 pounds [seven kg]
and less.

And many people experimented with shape and construction-and not all of the changes that occurred can be credited to any single individual.
It was mostly a 'suck-and-see' approach all the way down the line ..

As surfboards supposedly progressed and got smaller and smaller, more fins were attached - basically... for mobility of the wave.
Like dancing, surfing changed.
It appeared to be simple at first and then it became complex and then it became specialised - 'til today the modem surfboard can only be ridden by a very light person or a very athletic person, and the surfboard manufacturing industry has actually painted itself into a comer which it is now desperately trying to get out of, because there aren't enough small, light, physically-aggressive people to buy them.

So we went from single fins, to twins, to tris, to quads to- I even have a five-fin that works nicely on bigger waves... It's actually the balance of the board on the wave that counts, ...

Page 74

... and single-fin balance doesn't compare with the twin-fin balance ...and a penta- fin doesn't compare.
It's all a balance that can be achieved by reducing the size of each fin and its position on the board, and it is the rider who sort of understands this best.

When the board is locked into a wave by one fin, it has that feeling of being locked in.
When a board is held onto the wave face by a variety of small fins, it' is only barely held onto the wave face, so the board is actually skating around ... a more fluid, spontaneous, creative style of surfing is achieved... quite delightful for the eye to watch ...

The good thing about the phase that surfing is going into now is that the variety of surfing equipment is so broad and so interesting ...everybody has a son or a daughter who surfs ...We are achieving a sort of physical fitness through the sport having arrived at its present stage, from those first visits by
the Duke ...it has ...fitted into everyday Australian life.

I THINK THAT ANY SURFING BREAK is ideal, provided that you can get what you want out of it.
I learnt to ride in bad waves, because I sharpened my reflexes in bad waves.
When I had to learn to ride big waves I had to go to Hawaii.
When I had to learn to ride long, easy, soft, gentle waves I went to Queensland.
But I don't have any preference - I think variety is the important thing.
Likewise ...with your surfing stock-you have to keep changing to stay interested ...

If I was going to teach somebody to surf, basically all I would say to them is:
'Well, there is the wave.
This is the board that suits that wave-and you, all you have to do, is get what you want out of that wave.
If you only want to ride it laying down, then do that ...If you want to become a high-performance, professional-style competitor, you've got to work hard at a great variety of manoeuvres and become a total athlete.'


Cliff, Paul (editor): 
A Sporting Nation - Celebrating Australia's Sporting Life.
Surfing World Magazine Pty Ltd (inc. NSW)National Library of Australia.
Canberra ACT 2600 Australia, 1999.
Soft cover, pages, extensive black and white and colour illustrations and photographs, Bibliography, Acknowledgements, Index.
Review
The article of interest is Boards, Sand, Togs and Flags, pages 68 to 77, with comments by Benard 'Midget' Farrelly recorded 30th October, 1984.

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