East Coast Surfboards through the years
Some of the fine designs through the years. You can find more at the Peninsula Surf Centre on the Nepean Highway in Mornington which has an extensive collection of old surfboards. These boards are roughly listed in order of their creation.
John Jolly shaped this 'Shady Hollow' twin-fin from the 70s sometime. A good quality Shady Hollow surfboard with original mural is now a prized piece. John still glasses surfboards for Trigger Brothers in Point Leo [Photo: Warrick]
Ian Cochrane design Swallowtail Twin Fin - 1980. Ian was an excellent surfer whose behind the rock takeoffs redefined the possibilities at big Peak Rock This board went very well. [Picture: Warrick]
Trigger Brothers swallowtail thruster with double flyer tail. Circa 1983. This little punk rocket was 5'10" by 19". [Picture: Warrick]
Warrick with the ubiquitous 8' Mal from Trigger Brothers. This is the board that many a semi-retired surfer back into the fold. Circa 1998. [Photo: Phoebe]
Mark Howey with his favourite old battered Garry Taylor special. Howey was freaked out to discover when he measured this board that it was actually just over 7' long; he thought he'd been riding a short board all the time. Like his favourite old jacket, he never wanted to get rid of it. [Photo: Warrick]
Mick Tregaskis with his Garry Taylor shaped rounded square-tail. Circa 1999.[Photo: Warrick]
Warrick with 7'6" 'cheat-stick' or as he preferred to call it, 'Fun Board' Shaped by Garry Taylor, glassed by Trigger Brothers. Circa 1999. Photo: Duffy I think.
These are Geoff Vockler's Trigger Brothers boards for his Indo trip in September 1999. While others were pulling out, Geoff was planning to pull in. Geoff's stuck with the swallow tails for a while and has been riding Trigger Brothers board for twenty years or more. [Photo: Warrick]
No problems with street-cred with this Garry Taylor shape of Harry Harrisons. Harry is another Peninsula surfer who has refused to succumb to the lure of the malibu. This board is a zippy 6' 10" Circa 1999 [Photo: Warrick]
JC shows the rocker details from his 7'6" Garry Taylor shaped thruster with a rounded square tail. Circa 1999. [Photo: Warrick]
Gavin Duffy with little pocket rocket potato peeler shaped by Garry Taylor. Circa 1999. [Photo: Warrick]
Sometime in the late 1990s the mini-mal reached a kind of evolutionary perfection. Easy to paddle, manoeuvrable and fun to ride, they're also a bit like Chinese food in that while you enjoy them, you're still hungry afterwards. These two 8 footers photographed at Pines around 2000 were John Collins and Warrick's. [Photo: Warrick]
While some guys were going longer Gavin Duffy stuck to his roots. You'll find more foam in a McDonalds chip than in this carrot-coloured creation from Garry Taylor. This photo circa 2001. [Photo: Warrick]
Warrick 'Quiver' 2001. Though he hasn't surfed the board on the left for ten years. The middle board is a 7'6' cheat-stick shaped by Simon Forward. The 9' malibu on the right (and again below) is one of the three 'magic-boards shaped by Trigger Brothers in 2001, and the only one surviving after Mark McCabe destroyed the first two. . Perhaps, like the rings in that movie, their power will one day combine again. [Photo: Warrick and below Photo by Phoebe]
Trigger Brothers 'Blaster' or 'Stubby' based loosely on the McCoy 'Nugget' promised to be the next big thing for guys who are sick of malibus and mini-mals. Learn more at the Trigger Brothers web site. These shots from their website 2002 and 2003. Triggers write about the STUBBY:
Since February 2001 we started experimenting with our STUBBY’S. We have made boards from 6'2" to 9" long and from 2 ½". to 3 ¾" thick. After 18 months we feel we’ve got something really special. The rails are slimmer and the boards are a lot sleeker. Because of the extra volume in the tail compared to a normal board they paddle as good as a board 6" to 1' longer and are looser and faster through the turns because of the twin concaves through the tail. I have ridden them in 6ft right and left handers and 1 – 2 ft slop. The more aggressively you surf them the better they go. You just have to make sure your back foot is on top of the fins. All our Team Riders and Staff have all swapped their Mini Mals for the STUBBY.
For the summer of 2002 Gavin Duffy had this radical thing designed. He wrote in an email to the hoax coast forum on Nov 2, 2002.
Yes the new GT/GD Summer blaster has arrived and after its maiden voyage at 2-4’ Rye yesterday, shows great promise. Conceived after several minutes of intense discussion, several VB’s and riding Micko’s Islantis 5’10” 80’s model last summer.
Wanting more of that loooooosness, easier paddling and actually bring able to enjoying a small gutless surf without resorting to a big clumsy mal, the seed was planted.
This 6’2” x 20” fatboy is set to knock the socks off the sleep hollow that is the hoaxcoast.
This is Warrick's 2003 STUBBY from Triggers. 7'6" is at the outside edge for length for these boards, but it paddled super well and unlike the mini-mal, it actually feels like a short board when you're on the wave. And you can duck-dive these boards coz the foam is mostly up the back. These boards can spin out a bit on super hollow waves over 6', but if you're riding the Station that big you don't need a STUBBY.
Andrew Wynne with his 7'6" Stubby. Built in 2004, this board goes really well and Andrew got heaps of waves on a left at Portsea this day.
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