Introduction

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Page 3

BOB, now 22, won the championship last March in competition with the best from Hawaii, Cali­fornia. France, and Peru, and he made such a hit with the people of Lima that they asked him to come back next March — all ex­penses paid.

An old boy of the King's School, Sydney, Bob's home is at Manly, just north of Sydney.
The first Australian to win a surf championship overseas he was a member of the 20-strong Australian team which competed in the International Surfing Championships at Makaha beach, Hawaii, last summer.
Because he injured a leg had to drop out before the finals.
Several members of the team qualified, but had to re-turn home before the finals, deJaved by lack of a suitable surf, were held.

Bob, however, got a lucky break soon after the Hawaiian rharopionships were over.

John Severson, a champion Californian rider who was visiting Hawaii for the Surrfing titles, offered Bob a trip to Peru.
The editor of the American magazine 'The Surfer' John won all the board-riding events in last years Peruvian chanmpionship and, before he left, lthe organisers  asked hirn to arrange for Australian. Hawai­ian, and Caltfomian riders to compete in their 1962 championships.

John choose Bob and a Sydney friend, Mike Kickey, of Bilgola (another northern Sydney Beach), to repreent Australia.
It was a great suprise to Bob.
"I didn't even know they surfed in Peru, but what a way to find out," he said.
So off he went to California where he joined two other boys heading for Peru, and the all drove down to Mexico with their surfboards tied to the roof of the car.

Sevants employed by the Waikiki. Surf Club took charge of their surfboards, rubbed them down with paraffin wax, carried them to the water's edge, and even waited to carry them back after Bob and the other boys had finishing riding.
The servants handed them towels after they showered in the surf club, and even rubbed suntan lotion on their noses before they went out in the sun again.

After leaving school at 15, Bob did a two-year course at Sydney Technical College to become a qualified woolclasser.
He worked in shearing sheds an N.S.W. and Queensland to save the £600 for the trip to Hawaii.

During that time he visited every surf beach in the eastern States.

"Fairy Bower, about a mile off Manly Beach, is THE spot in Australia when the waves are on," he said.

"The surf in Hawaii, how­ever. is even better- just like I'd always imagined.
But it is very different from ours.
"Waikiki Beach is similar to many Australian beaches- and not so good.
But for the keen rider other Hawaii beaches have the perfect waves.
These beaches  - Makaha, Sunset, Alamoana, and rhe Banzi Pipe­line - have the best surf m tte world.

"The waves, building up to heights of 15 to 25ft, and then dumping on the shore, are very exciting to ride. "And the greatest thrill of all is the Banzai Pipeline 'This is an area where the waves, often reaching 25ft,  curl over at the top to form a a'pipe' before dumping on a rocky shelf of jagged coral. "And this was the place that put me out of the Hawaiian championships.  "I lost my board going down the Pipeline, but got out of it with a few scratches and an injured leg. My board, however, was wrecked. All the front was bashed in and the fin was snapped off." [Below,] holding the bronze seagull trophy he won in the Peruvian International Championship while john Severson is presented with his cup for second place.

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Australian Women's Weekly Teenagers Weekly 22 August 1962, page3. 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 Rider's Club last season.

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