Bobs ABC radio interview

"Bobs ABC radio interview on the 'Conversations with Richard Fidler' program will be running again tomorrow (Friday 20th August) at 11am on ABC Radio National. Tune in for an hour of conversation and stories from Bobs past – really a great interview"

Damion Fuller crankin

We just received this classic Tom Servais shot from the Mentawis of Sydney surfer Damion Fuller crankin’ a serious off-the-lip on a juiced-up bowly left. What’s so interesting about the shot is the age and shape of the board - It’s a SKY twin-fin I shaped here in Byron back in 1978. It has a powerful but manageable tail, similar to what Mark Richards popularised in the late seventies, delivering strong on-rail arcs. The mass of those boards was forward, being just before Geoff McCoy introduce the No-nose templates.

To achieve such a radical bank off-the-lip as Damion’s, the surfer has to commit heaps of strength and great timing, so that the LIP does the work of re-directing that chunky weighty nose around in the SNAP that’s happening in the next split second. Fortunately, Damion LOVES that old board, and is familiar enough with it to pull off such a committed manoeuvre.

As the board’s shaper, I’m proud to see that design pushed to it’s limits, and have it deliver. A very satisfying feeling for any shaper… especially one who’s been on the planer for almost 50 years now!

Bob McTavish
16/6/10

Dear Bob,

I smile as I type this words, since I'm actually stoked to mail Bob McTavish.

I work for ELLE magazine, Greece, and I'm one of the few lucky guys amongst a women-dominated editorial team. For our May issue we did a shooting with models and surfboards, and this shot captured our editor's eye. She chose it to be out front cover, which is really a mythical cover to be into. Her actual words were: "it's the pink of this board I'm in love with!". ELLE btw is the biggest selling women's magazine in Greece for over a decade, with monthly sales exceeding 65.000 copies.

I wanted to personally let you know about this, since I'm a surfer myself and an admirer of your work.
It's great that it turned out like this, to have a surfboard from a mythical shaper on our front cover, instead of a crappy board that may looked nice but had no "pedigree".

Best regards,
Nikos

Skuff TV lobbed into my shaping room last week

Those outrageous grubs Johnny and David from Skuff TV lobbed into my shaping room last week armed with cameras. They were all pumped up about the movie Going Vertical that was screened in Byron the week before, and decided an interview with the oldest guy they’ll EVER get on their show was actually worthy!

So I quickly dug up 3 ancient boards I had lurking in dark corners of the factory, to illustrate the shortboard Revolution.

The first was a standard 9’8” that I glued-up, shaped, glassed, sanded, made the fin for, and gloss-coated in one night back in 1966, for a good friend Ian O’Brien who was off to Sydney next day. I made it in an old Iceworks at Mooloolaba.

The next was a “Country Soul” I shaped at an old farmhouse in the sugarcane near Yamba in 1969. Glassed by Chris Brock and Gary Keyes, good mates.

The third was a pretty standard Bluebird from the 70’s, which I shaped in a variety of locations, varying from my old garage at Lennox, to another old shed on the beach at Lennox, an old disused cow bales overlooking Lennox, to the first McTavish real factory in the industrial Estate in Byron in 1973.

The guys were super-fun to shoot with, as they were so casual, and encouraged expressiveness. Good FUN!

Link: http://www.skuff.tv/surf/video/exclusive_-_bob_mctavish_goes_vertical!

THE GSI NOOSA FESTIVAL WAS A BLAST!!!

Every year the stress is on. Will Noosa get swell? Well how about THIS year… the lead-up week saw the surf forecasters predicting the biggest swell in 30 years, as two cyclones lined up in tandem, generating a fetch of 2000 kilometres aimed directly at Noosa! Just perfect!

Sunday thru Wednesday saw very pleasant classy Noosa, with all points firing, and First Point having gained so much sand that it was delivering super-fast peeling barrels around shoulder high, (or in my case head-high!) It certainly was the MOST sand I’d seen at the points since I started surfing there in 1959. It was a real super-sucking challenge to get through the endless sections, if you did manage to snaffle a set wave.

Then on Thursday, the swell started to really hit. Mike Perry called it perfectly. “Bob, it’s gunna hit Thursday late…” I hit First Point with Malibu’s Denny Aaberg (script writer for Big Wednesday, and good old mate) as the heats wrapped up for the day, and the first set wave I pulled spun and wrenched across the mad sand bank, my Original just LOVING it! The extra rocker each end made the sucky face feel very manageable, while the powerful engine and tri-fin set-up delivered all the necessary speed to make it down the line and handle each super-fast section with comfort and control. I was so glad Mark Kelly (GSI chief) had selected the Original to be the GSI One-Design board this year.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday saw Noosa suffer from the closer cyclone heading too high and delivering easterly winds, which slopped the face a little. Also the swell jumped to beyond manageable for Noosa, with wild outside bommies and banks breaking. The sweep down the points was ridiculous. The crowd was NUTS! To escape those forces, I walked all the way to Granite, jumped off the front ledge, and drifted down to outside Ti-tree, where there was just a hardy bunch of shortboarders paddling their guts out to stay in position until they snaffled a bomb. My G2 made that a non-issue, and after pulling a serious bomb wipe-out, I caught 2 nice ones, then drifted onto a glassy big soft peak breaking in the middle of the bay, where I pulled 3 more.

The sun was well and truly gone, so I slow-paddled into the Boiling Pot to watch as insane barrel-riders on all sorts of equipment got LITERALLY washed up into the rocks after each unmake-able pit. I drifted all the way into Johnsons in the dark, unable to get a single wave from the hungry crowd until there, when I got two that finally dumped me on the sand in front of he sparkling jam-packed Surf Club.

I walked up the beach in the black, torn between two emotions… a wonderful after-surf glow and stoke, and a feeling I would NEVER chase another cyclone to Noosa. Too crowded, and really… despite endless barrels, just too rippy, and not that big. I realised then that Noosa is at it’s best in just 3 or 4 feet of nice east swell.

But once again it was the PEOPLE, as well as the waves, that made the Festival what it was. Guests included Sea Shepherd Captain Paul Watson, fresh from the Southern Ocean, and tennis ace Pat Rafter, as well as many old industry friends. The Shaper’s Forum had 14 heroes lined up on the stage, from Bill Wallace, Gordon Woods and Joe Larkin, to the Yanks like Bing Copeland and Mike Hynson. The young punks were Simon Anderson and Mark Richards. Dick Brewer left his seat empty despite Hynson and I and Mickey Munoz banging on his apartment door and trying to drag him around in his towel, straight out of the shower. He’d shaped all day and was thrashed! The only shaper in the Forum who’d actually shaped that week!

One guy missing that night was Sam Egan, surely Australia’s most prolific shaper, who I chatted with next day.

All-in all, this year’s Noosa Festival was a monstrous HIT, with everybody having fun, getting barrelled, and playing catch-up. Simply an amazing happening!

Going Vertical

“Last Monday afternoon, 15th March, I met up with Dick Brewer, the great Hawaiian/Californian shaper. We BOTH claim to have invented the shortboard back in 1967, and now a new movie titled "Going Vertical" is being launched this week which analyses the issue in very entertaining detail.

We put on the gloves to illustrate what a clash there has been over this issue from both sides of the Pacific.

The movie opens around Austarlia this Thursday and tickets are available via www.goingvertical.info “

Twin Hot-Curl Project

It’s obvious there’s a huge upsurge in interest in finless boards at the moment, mainly the slender wooden Alia kicked off by Tom Wegener at Noosa, and Derek Hynd’s various creations on Sydney’s Northern beaches. The mighty Rasta has injected his incredible ability, and the slide-sans-fins is pretty common around all our coasts at the moment.

I personally saw it as a sideshow, a game for guys with spare time and a bunch of ability, one that would never replace the power and control added by sticking fins on (Hey, all birds and fish have them, and they RIP!) But still, the possible speed from a low-drag planing surface was intriguing.

So I looked at Hawaiian history - Finless alias and pine planks (much longer and bigger than alias) all “slid-ass” when the beach boys at Honolulu tried to angle across waves. A few brave souls, namely John Kelly, George Downing, and Wally Froseith, started hacking into the tails, creating narrow deep-vee tails that created a suction force on the inside rail, which held the tail into the waveface, thus greatly easing the tail-slide problem. They dubbed their design the “Hotcurl”.

So. I thought “what if we made a board with TWIN hotcurls, one on each side of the tail. That way we get tail area, instead of a needly tail. Tail area supplies planing speed, get-up-and-go. That should hold in well, and yet be slippery, very low drag.” I realised that the Tom Morey invention, the body board, used the same principle… allow the water to flow off the bottom onto a steep inside face before it released, supplying a nice amount of suction when needed to hold the tail into the wave face.

I shaped this beast over a week, constantly thinking, tweaking, refining. When I was happy with it, I glassed it in old volan cloth. I couldn’t wait to get it glossed and finished, just launched sanded, and therefore “itchy” with raw glass.

First 2 waves I laid down to feel it’s worth. It went like a rocket in the small hollow beach break. Then I stood on one, and my Twin Hot curl actually carved a worthy TURN! Mate! We had something here! I pushed it harder the next wave, and it just blasted through a fast section, then as the wall went to close out, it finally slid sideways and I bounced my way to the beach. Hmmm. Not a bad result!

Next surf was at the Pass in random conditions. I tried every kind of wave, every kind of manoeuvre, and found it’s limitations. Almost “automatic” the manner in which it held the waves speed, adjusting to the rate of peel. Fast, holds well on the face, smooth, a unique groovy feel.

Then one night I woke up thinking of ice-yachts, sand-yachts, and the latest America’s cup winner, that beast of a trimaran. They all can generate speeds at least 3 times greater than the available wind speed, through a process of expediential building on the apparent wind, (the combination of available wind plus the false wind created by the sail’s forward movement). The lights went on that that’s the process by which a good surfer can develop phenomenal speed from a wave, while an average surfer will just chug along. Apparent water flow being utilised by a great computer (the surfers brain), through incredibly direct control elements (his feet and body) building and adding speed through the water over his fins.

I’m sorry, but fins, used well, are faster than finless. But what a neat trip finding that out!!!

Youngest McTavish rider?

Here's a shot of Ashleigh Adamson - age 3, riding her dad Michaels Fireball. She may be the youngest rider we've ever had!"

Posted 8th March 2010

‘Riding Mavericks on the G2 – Jason Miller’

I’ve been attracted to bigger waves ever since I can remember. The way guy’s faces would light up when they told me HOW BIG IT WAS that day just made me want to go big. It always seemed to make an already fun activity that much more of a rush. So the better I got at surfing the bigger I would try to go. Sure you can catch big waves on small boards. I was caught up in that short board mentality for years and I am guilty of missing more waves than catching. Living in Santa Cruz my whole life the waves get big every winter. In the late 90’s even BIGGER waves were discovered or let out of the bag. Mavericks 1.5 hour drive north was all the buzz in town. Now there was big and bigger. The length of a board seemed to need to be bigger up there and I started to experiment with a 9’6” Tuflite Brewer in Santa Cruz. I could get the biggest waves Santa Cruz had to offer and I was gearing up to give Mavericks a go on it when I met Bob McTavish in 2008.

Bob was visiting California for the first time since the 60’s. 65ish now he has more life in him than most kids. I had the honor of driving him through Big Sur to Morro Bay and up to San Francisco. The car ride was buzzing from his memories and the raw energy he was getting from the Central California Coast. We could not help but talk about how good the waves got here and there and how big others could hold. I shared with him my dream to ride Mavericks and instantly he offered to shape me a board specifically for the occasion, how could I pass?

I had just recently ridden the 7’6” Carver in roping double over head barrels so I no hesitation. With the Carver I could cruise in early, stall at the bottom and either get barreled or snap a turn. It was a very memorable session. On top of that I was also surfing those same waves with Bob. After seeing him get bigger waves than I did, I knew he wasn’t just a designer but a core participant. To this day Bob CHARGES. He is passionate about surfing and especially in big waves. His involvement with the early development of short boards is testimony to the approach Bob uses to his surfing and designs. He wants to surf any wave like he is on a shorter board no matter what he is riding. I do to.

After we discussed what I liked and didn’t like about my board I left all dimensions to Bob. I could tell he knew exactly what to do. When it showed up I almost crapped my pants. It was in my face, I had asked for it, now I had to go. I waited for the next big swell and took it to the biggest reef that was breaking in Santa Cruz. With no problems I paddled into at least 12 waves and made them all.

With as early entry as possible in mind, McTavish added more width and less rocker to the nose compared to the average Mavericks “Gun.” The board paddles like an open ocean 14’ Bark. It glides….fast. With this paddle speed I can chase down and match the wave’s speed easier than any board I own. On any size wave “take off” positioning is critical to the success of the ride. In bigger waves the consequences of poor positioning on the take off is the “big” difference. This board gives me the confidence to be in the right place at the right time in the paddle speed alone. After a few early entries and feeling how the board ran out the waves, I grew even more confident to take off later and steeper. It actually did just fine on late take offs too. The middle of the board and the tail is where the rocker shows itself. Once in motion the flatter nose lifts free of drag and the board takes off. The signature beveled rails allow the rails to release any surface tension created from the massive amounts of speed you get flying down these waves. The rails combined with the bottom contours make the board feel like I’m riding the 7’6” Carver in waves half this size.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned so far about bigger waves is to make sure I’m back on the tail! I usually ride boards 5’9” to 6’6” so I end up standing close to the tail no matter what. Remember this story. The first day I went out to Mavericks I sat in the channel and watched for almost two hours. As I was faced with a long paddle to the beach without catching a wave I thought, “I gotta get at least one..” I waited for a swinger away from the bowl crowd. When the peak came to me I turned to go for the first one and the crowd cleared. I pressed my chin to the deck and paddled as fast as I could. Once I caught the wave I instantly popped up where my body was, on the front 2/3 rds part of a 9’11” board. The front six feet! I made it to the bottom just fine but when I leaned to turn I fell over onto my face. I was going so fast I barley penetrated the water surface and my feet were forced over the back of my head like a scorpion.

Sharing this story with Peter Mel back home he could tell from my body language that I was too forward. I needed to step back. I was almost never going to go back but this tip gave me the confidence. I knew it wasn’t the board! I had tested it back in Santa Cruz where I was comfortable and I had collected dozens of big waves on it. So I kept in mind that tip and…..

These pictures are from my second go at Mavericks. I caught so many waves this day that I stopped counting. Actually one guy told me to calm down. I could catch them early or I could whip it and still make it around the bottom. By the end of my session all I could think about was back dooring it and pulling in. I was that comfortable with my board.. (haven’t yet off course but I was trying to figure out how.) I’m afraid I’m hooked and I have no intention of riding another board out there. It catches waves easy and at 9’11” I never had any thoughts of it being too big when I was rushing down these faces. Once you get in waves this big it just feels right. I have complete confidence that this board can handle anything I can throw at it. It’s a dream.

Jason Miller

Posted 4th March 2010

G2 TAKES ON MAVERICKS

Last December Jason Miller, the GSI rep for Northern California, fulfilled his dream of riding the much feared Mavericks, in Half Moon Bay, a little below San Francisco. Jason took me there a year ago, and told me about his dream, so I looked at his gun collection, and then commented that the G2 we make in Byron Bay is designed to lasso those big sea swells by utilising low nose rocker and abrupt tail-lift.

The lower entry rocker simply paddles in so much faster, and who needs a bag of nose-lift when the faces are so big? Any threat of nosediving is also relieved greatly by accelerating the tail-lift after the fins, allowing the surfer to ease the nose up.

Jason fell for my line and ordered a 10 foot G2 in a beautiful deep red tint. We shipped it to Santa Cruz, where Jason promptly ruined the pretty colour scheme with pressure-pak cans of paint!! What? Yeah, he said, there are a dozen red guns out there, and everyone wears a black wetsuit, so how are they gunna know it’s HIM on that wave! Hence the painted nose! Ahh well…....

The G2 means Second Generation Gun, and that’s because we’ve thought it all out and come up with a better rocker combo for big waves. Leaves all the others at G1!

Bob

Posted 4th March 2010

“Stoked! Takes out Surfing Hall of Fame ‘Surf Culture’ award!!

Last Saturday night Bob attended the Surfing Hall of Fame to collect the Surf Culture award. “It felt pretty radical taking out the award against the other short-listers: Surf World Gold Coast for their new museum at Currumbin, and the other was for Bruce McKee for his contribution to quad design. My book must have really hit a soft spot with the judges”

In his acceptance speech before the 300 strong crowd of invitees at the Coolangatta Hotel located gig, Bob said his book, in striking contrast to the rest of the nights vibe, contained only “half-a-page of contests, nothing about board-riding clubs, and sponsorship…. What’s that??”

He was also delighted that his good old friend Claw Warbrick joined him and 30 others as this year’s Inductee to the Surfer’s Hall of Fame. Claw owes him a beer, as the previous inductees do the voting on who’s to join each year”

Posted 4th March 2010

“The last 2 weeks has been a blast, travelling with the Global Surf Industries Designers Tour, as well as doing a whole bunch of book signings with my new book: "Bob McTavish.... STOKED!"

I kicked it off at the Kirra Surfstock event, with my 1st ever book signing at Kirra Surf. It was a blast, signing over 140 books, and then doing a great Q&A at the Kirra Surf club, run by the great Andrew McKinnon. Huge!

Next morning jumped a plane to the Manly Surf Festival, and jammed another 140-odd books on the Corso Centre Stage. A queue up the street is a scary sight! That new festival will fast become the Number One south of the Equator for sure! 5 or 6 thousand punters attended each day, in spite of scattered rain and sloppy surf. A real knock-out event with lots of stars and laughs. We were really stoked that Richie Lovett took out the SUP event on our new 9’0” board – he ripped! Matt Harbour from GSI also put in a big effort on the 9’6”. Great work guys.

Greg Webber, Thomas Myerhoffer, Steve Walden and GSI minder/surf nazi Dan Flynn then flew to Melbourne and Torquay, doing ABC John Faine Show, visiting retailers, hunting for waves, and then doing a huge night at Grant Forbes' Tigerfish Gallery. What a night, with all my old mates from that hub of surf industry lined up to get a book, I was anguished and frustrated at not being able to give each one the time they all deserved to catch up... Ah well.

Mike at Mordy surf is the same great guy we've dealt with for almost 30 years, and he and his crew turned on a great designers event with happy generous clientele who really appreciate our longevity and consistency of good design. Very encouraging to us surfboard makers... A quick interview with The Age Newspaper, and on another plane, west this time.

Perth too, was energetic, alive, and progressive. More ABC Radio. Wavewalkers boardriders club and Ross Rutherfords’ Longboards Scarborough store turned on a fantastic new event wherby all surfers ride 2 McTavish's, 2 Walden's, and 2 Meyerhoffer's. 5 minutes on 1st board grabbed in a Le Mans start, then swap on the hooter, then 5 minutes more another swap. Really cool fast action event, with a great presentation later. Oh Yeah. Did I mention Rotto? Nice waves..... And Little Creatures? Now THAT"S a pub!

A long day over the centre of big ol' dry OZ, and we hit Brisbane, Gold Coast, the Sunny Coast shops, with ABC Radio "Conversations, with Richard Fidler" jammed in there (go to http://www.abc.net.au/queensland/conversations/conversationspodcast.xml to download the podcast). So scary! Many shops were fun, with Phil Jarratt's Back Beach, Primitive in Brisbane, Al Hing's Beach Beat, and Board Culture all great events. Lots of friends and a constant buzz going on, and it doesn't look like letting up soon!

The book is ripping, with 90 retailers on board, and a reprint ordered this morning. What a blast it's been”

Finally! After 50 years of adventures, 15 years of scrawling, 3 edits, and huge help from my friends, my book “Bob McTavish.. Stoked!” has hit the deck. What a feeling! I thought t would never happen.

Originally I thought I’d cover the whole 50 years, but after 400 pages on just the sixties, it became obvious that decade deserved it’s own volume. As it is, I had to shed dozens of stories, ending up with 130 sequential anecdotes about what I saw and did and experienced as the surfing culture grew from the surf club dominated 50’s into the tear-away 60’s establishing a platform for the lifestyle so common today.

It all happens around the East Coast of Australia, with a couple of trips (legal and illegal) across the puddle to Hawaii, and eventual California, as I took the shortboard to the yanks.

There are many stories about Nat, George Greenough, and other 60’s icons, as we played along the empty coast, discovering surfspots, ways to survive, ways to get around, ways to avoid the cops, the rockers, and starvation.

I'll be doing a short opening tour to promote the book and do a few signings around the country, dates and locations shown below.

Pick the book up and read a story or two in a sitting, then take it to the beach with your beach umbrella and read a few more.. have a laugh, dream a little, get sunburnt …. it’s that kind of book.

Bob McTavish

Date	Location	Time
Friday 6th Nov	Kirra Surf, Kirra, QLD	4pm
Saturday 7th Nov	Billabong, Manly Corso, NSW	1pm
Wednesday 11th Nov	Tigerfish Gallery, Torquay, VIC	6pm
Sunday 15th Nov	Longboards Scarbourough, WA	12noon - 2pm
Tuesday 17th Nov	Dukes Longboards, Mermaid Beach, QLD	12noon - 1.30pm
	Board Culture, Mermaid Beach, QLD	3.30pm - 6pm
Wednesday 18th Nov	Goodtime, Woolloongabba, QLD	12noon - 2.30pm
	Primative Surf, Brisbane, QLD	5.30pm - 8pm
Thursday 19th Nov	Noosa Back Beach, Noosa Junction, QLD	1pm - 3pm
	Beachbeat Event - Maroochydore RSL Club	5.30pm - 8pm

Release of Stoked! - by Bob McTavish

In 1994 at the Crescent Head contest, I told Nat I was going to write my book, based on my adventures in the sixties. Nat thought that was a great idea, and he too, set to work writing. Since that date, he has published Nat’s Nat, and That’s That, Surf Rage, and an updated History of Surfing.

Well I finally finished my book, some 15 years later! Talk about slow! What I didn’t realise about writing is you’ve gotta get it some sort of form, write it all, get it professionally edited, source the photos, get it laid out, add a few more chapters to round it out properly, get them edited too, proof-read it, Hassle kind friends for a foreword or jacket notes, then try to get it published somehow. That all takes time. The past 3 years have been spent getting knocked back by publishers. All the big ones. “Not broad enough appeal”, say the sales departments. (I’d love to prove them wrong). Then I met Peter Henry, a guy who writes, publishes, and distributes high-quality Regional Beach Guides. He read my manuscript, liked it, and presto! Three months later we have a shipload heading over!

It’s pretty scary. Will it be liked? Will it sell? To help solve the second question, it seems best to get out there and show it off, set up a desk at selected locations, and meet the punters who might want to buy. So with help from Mark Kelly at Global Surf, I’m touring the capitals in November, doing book signings at Kirra Surf (6th), Manly Festival of Surfing (7th), at Tigerfish in Torquay(11th),Longboards Scarborough in Perth (14th), back to Onboard Glenelg, Adelaide (16th), then Goodtime Brisbane(17th), Beach Beat Caloundra (18th), and finally back to Dukes on the Goldy(19th). Whew!

Of course my book is available online as soon as it lands here. There are 1000 hardbacks arriving 1st November, and we’ve reserved those for personally autographing. The “limp-back” will also be available from then on too. A little lighter, a little cheaper, but more practical for tossing in your back-pack as you head to the beach.

The book, Bob McTavish… Stoked! is about the formation of the original Aussie surf culture in the sixties, the Cast-your-fate-to-the-winds lifestyle we adopted so we could chase surf everyday. The crazy antics like stowing away to Hawaii, eating spiders, and jumping off cliffs; the survival techniques like getting paid to get a mohawk, living on bread and bananas for weeks on end, the travel on the scunge, sleeping in old cars or where-ever. And all the time progressing as a surfboard shaper, culminating in the development of the shortboard.

It’s a good read with about 150 short episodes, so you can pick it up, read a few, and do the same day after day, while slobbing on the sand, or sucking a beer… A pretty fun read indeed”

Chloe Byron Memorial Event – Bondi.

Sunday the 18th October was a very moving day, as I was privileged to attend the Chloe Byron memorial event run by the incredible bunch of maniacs at the Bondi Longboarders. The annual event celebrates the life of young Chloe, who at just 16, died in the first Bali bombing at the Sari Club. Her dad Dave was the man of steel on Sunday just being there, but with a heart of melting marshmallow. The Bondi shorebreak was chunky as we all paddled out, and bodies and boards went everywhere. A minutes’ reflective silence sent us all into pondering our own lives, and what we were doing with them, as well as building great empathy for the loved-ones left behind who suffer from that great enemy, death.

On a positive side, I was fortunate to meet some great local characters, and catch up with a few old mates from the sixties; Bondi guys Dave Spencer (now running river tours in Vietnam), the well-known 80 year old surf junkie Magoo McGuigan, Dennis Lindsay (now surfing daily near Scott’s Head), and a few “quieter” ones.

It was great to be invited down, I thought. Then Dave and John Connolly draped me in a ‘Kitchen Bitch’ T-shirt to serve late breakfast for everyone! Cheap imported labour. But hanging on the grass back of Australia’s most famous beach, with a great bunch of surf lovers, for a worthy cause that benefited every one there…I call that a good day!”

McTavish chosen to build ‘Dream Quiver’ for FCS competition winner

What better way to start off the new financial year than checking your inbox to find the message ‘you’ve won’ in the subject header. Well that’s exactly what happened to one very lucky grommet all the way from Germany.

“At first, when I came back from surfing weeks ago and read my email I couldn't believe it” said Constantin who went on to say “You know, in Germany you often get emails with hey, you’ve won a 1000 bucks, but you have to fly all the way to America to pick it up. I still can’t believe it, to win the dream quiver contest is just amazing.”

The FCS Dream Quiver promotion was a web based competition requiring entrants to fill out a simple survey in the hopes of winning their very own ‘Dream Quiver’. The winner was entitled to three custom made surfboards from their shaper of choice, plus an FCS prize pack containing FCS fins, leashes, traction and a Dayrunner board bag for each board.

When we asked Constantin which boards he wanted to order he hastily replied “McTavish… they’re just always beautiful”. We put the order through for Constantin and four weeks later we received a few photo’s and the following comment from him “Maaan, I'm so stoked. I picked up the boards at the airport yesterday and they are perfect! The guys from McTavish did very nice work and all the equipment fits perfectly”.

Stay tuned for more FCS competitions and visit our website at surffcs.com for all there is to know about fins.

Posted 30th July 2009

Wooden Board

The first board my dad got my brother Pete (14) and I (12) surfing on was a dinged up 16 foot hollow plywood toothpick. I hated it and immediately made a 46 inch plywood bodyboard, which I rode for months at Currumbin. That was in 1956.

When balsa arrived the following year, and epoxy/styrene the year later, followed by polyurethane foam and polyester resin in 1960, the hollow ply construction has been relegated to history, until the recent resurgence in alternative surf equipment. Yet I was always curious that if now, in the era of modern fast loose designed longboards, could a plywood board actually achieve the same weights, and therefore performance, of foam and glass? The added advantage of a green renewable process was also attractive to me.

So my friend Mike Conner, a superior wood craftsman making ukeleles and now guitars in his excellently equipped rural workshop just west of Byron, made a couple of heavy plywoods a few years ago. We brainstormed on the project, and we selected our classy trimming model, the REDLINE, as the board to work on, as it usually weighs around 9 kilos in foam and glass, as it likes the momentum. Hence we only produce it as a three-stringer model, to add that extra weight.

So our target is to make a modern shaped hollow wood board that surfs like a regular board, weighing just 10 KG max. And our target date is August 9, at the Wooden Board gathering at Currumbin.

FOLLOW THE ACTION:

BOARD ONE.

Plywood ribs and stringer, and plywood deck and bottom. Foam rails. Glassed in 4 oz.

The spacing of the ribs was too great, necessitating heavier ply, so as not to buckle between the ribs. The weight of the unglassed board is 10 kilos!! Bummer! We also encountered great difficulty forming the bottom shape with concave running into bevels. Remember, we are copying an already successful design, our REDLINE. So all the shape ingredients have to be in there. No compromise.

I decided the art work should reflect the vintage, so Simon our artist painted it to be hunk of driftwood that had floated ashore from 1956! Cool and totally different.

BOARD TWO.

Mike has a few logs of Paulonia lying in his backyard, so we figured if plywood is 20% glue, straight paulonia would be lighter. It IS, by 30%. Next, we figured if we simply waterproofed the INSIDE of the thin Paulonia sheets, we would simply OIL the exterior, saving the weight of a glass-job! So today I just showed Mike how to apply epoxy as a waterproofing coat. Our frame and top and bottom decks weigh in at just 7 KILOS! By the time we add glues and rails and fin, we SHOULD be under our target weight of 9 KG.

Stay posted!!

Posted 8th July 2009

THE BOBSLED TEST

“Took the Bobsled out at The Wreck today, and was delighted at the instant familiarity. It swooped turns easily and found the pocket naturally, and delivered excellent speed in the fairly weak conditions. I must confess that I’d like a little more meat in the middle, as this one is only 2 3/4” thick. I thought by carrying the volume out to the rails, and being wide (22 1/2”) it would paddle me fine. But I’m now too accustomed to having rapid locating ability in any surf… being able to dash fifty feet to get into perfect position quickly.

So I want to make another one real fast, exactly the same only 3” thick. Bob”

Posted 30th June 2009

THE BOBSLED

After nearly a decade of FISH boards getting us long boarders back on shorter equipment, there is a new solution on the horizon… The BOBSLED!

Fishes are fine if you surf them flat, and are happy to move your back foot around between manouvres, so you can get power into those fins right out on the rail. But if you wanna jam more VERTICAL, the fish doesn’t really wanna go there. The BOBSLED solves this problem by pulling the tail width in, and closing up the fin-spread, allowing you to snap from rail-to-rail instantly without moving your foot to find a point to dominate your fins. In other words, the Bobsled surfs like a regular board, but with paddle power supplied by a wider mid and nose template, like a fish.

But how do you make a wider board roll fast onto it’s rail so it can go vertical? The answer there is the classic McTavish bottom shape: Concave down the centre for LIFT, then BEVELS along the underside  rails to soften it’s feel… instead of a cranky flat or full rail-to-rail concave, the bevels make the board feel NARROWER, and allow easy banking onto the rail into the turn.

The RAILS are boxy, carrying more paddling VOLUME out to the edges where thay can displace some water. No point in having a board measure 3.5 inches thick in the centre if the deck is heavily rolled, shedding all the volume and creating an uncomfortable rolled feel underfoot.

The fin set-up is pure QUAD, the fastest, best feeling combo on the planet! (But only if you get the fin-spread right, as we do. We’ve tested our quad spread on our team, from young short-board shredders all the way to us older vast experienced surf designers.)

LENGTHS are ranging from 5’5 (like the one I made for Slater) all the way up to the mid sevens. It’s that VERSATILE.

The BOBSLED… The new bankable, fast reactive high-speed shorter-board from the McTavish Team.

scored great Boulder

I scored great Boulder today, and I’m game to cal it eight to ten feet on the drops. Just Beau Young, a local guy Mark Moore, and I hit it around 9am, and I swear beau got shacked 8 times, mostly on a 9’1 longboard. On my 9’6 G2 gun I got some good drops, wipe-outs and walls, but no barrels. Bit scared to pull in, actually!!!

Posted 1st April 2009

South Oz
“Ben Harper (our McTavish Surf MD) jumped on a plane with me to South Oz two weeks ago, and we hit the Onboard stores in Glenelg and Port Noarlunga. We had a beer and a burnt a sausage, and I talked shapes for an hour or so at each store. It was great to see a bunch of faithful McTavish aficionados drop in for a chinwag, and a few laughs. I really dig making boards for the crew down there, despite their totally unfounded paranoia that they are at the end of the earth surfwise. That midcoast has really fine waves, especially if you’re a classic trim man, like in the early sixties California tradition. We dashed south with John from the Port shop, and scored some fun waves at Parsons. Water was warm, crowd was small and friendly. LOVED IT!...Bob”

Posted 1st April 2009

Noosa Festival
“Bob, Peter Townend (First ASP World Champ), and Doug Claw Warbrick (Rip Curl chief) at the Noosa Festival sponsor’s party, sampling the new Laguna Lager. Next day the surf was firing, and all three guys performed well, must be the lager!”

Posted 25th March 2009