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Bernard
'Midget' Farrelly
13
September 1945 -
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.
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| The
Australian Womens' WeeklyWednesday 22 August 1962,
Teenagers' Weekly (Supplement) cover Cover image contributed by John Witzig, with many thanks, May 2011. Our cover boys are some of the surfboard riders who competed at Narrabeen, one of Sydney's northern beaches, during the rally organised by the South Pacific Surf Riders Club last season. ( -page 41). Cover story:
John noted that Midget
Farrelly is kneeling in the centre of the photograph.
Note that most of
the boards, probably early foam, are coloured and decals are impossible
to identify.
While most wear long
legged boardshorts, several are in nylon briefs.
See Source Documents:
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Midget Farrelly and Makaha Trophy,
January 1962.
Photograph : Ron Church Reprinted in Australian Longboard Magazine June 2004 Page |
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1962
Makaha International Championship-1st,
1 January 1963, Makaha Beach, Hawaii 6 foot surf Image Left :
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| 1962-1963
Shaper for Keyo Surfboards Surfabout Volume 1 Number 5 1963, cover right. 1964 Australian
Championship
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| circa
1965
Started Farrelly Surfboards, PO Box Palm Beach 919 4409 Frank Gonslave's Boat Shed, Palm Beach Employee: Warren Cornish. Decal image left, with thanks, Pete Williams |
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| 1966 Stringerless Model for Gordon
and Smith Surfboards, USA.
Image contributed by Brandon McKenney, October 2005. |
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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. Board above and decal image right:Farrelly,
Stringerless 9 ft 0", 1967.
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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 Midget Farrelly
: Twelve Days in
Hawaii, Winter 1967.
Surfing World
Vol.
10. No. 3 March 1968 Pages 35-37.
1968 Midget Farrelly
: Hawaii, Winter 1967.
Surf International
Vol.
1. No. 4 March 1968 Page 9.
| 1968 Bobby Brown
Memorial Contest 1st place.
10-11th January 1968, Cronulla Australia. See: Lester
Brien : Bobby
Brown Memorial Contest.
Image right: Cronulla, 10-11th January 1968. Midget demonstrating
one of his "lousy cutbacks ... during which
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1968 Midget Farrelly
: The Art of the Pintail
Surf International
Vol.
1. No. 5 April-May 1968 Pages 12 to 15.
| Right: Farrelly
Surfboards Advertisement Graphic, 1968.
Accompanying text:
Uncomplicated
lines guarantee versatility.
Surfing World Volume 10 Number 4, March-April 1968, page 22. |
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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
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. 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 9 foot. Also note advaned fin placement on Ted Spencer's board. Also see Kim McKenzie's Hayden Surfboard shaped by Bob McTavish, 1968. |
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| 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 |
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Midget Farrelly
and Rounded Pin,
Huntington Beach probably after 1968 World Contest. Further models for Gordon and Smith, California. Photograph : Leroy Grannis
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Farrelly Surfboards, 230 Harbord Road, Brookvale 2018 Phone : 939-1724.
Design article by
Midget Farrelly, Source Documents Menu:
1971 Farrelly
Surfboards :
Surfboard Design(advertisement).
Tracks Magazine,
December 1971, page ?.
The Whiska
in Single, Twin and Tri Fin models. plus the Belly Rider.
| 1972
Extremely narrow speed guns by Midget, probably as narrow as boards went in this period, with triple stringers and finboxes. See Source Documents:
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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).
| 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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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
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Midget Farrelly and other competitors, Australian Championships or World Contest, Manly, 1964. |
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.'
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