surfresearch.com.au     history : greenough

---

george greenough, 1966 - 1969

---

Surfing World Volume 7 Number 4 February 1966 David Milnes- Central Coast Interlude Top Twenty Australian Surfers Poll White's Beach Interview by Rick Elliot- John Lewis John Pennings- Golf Course Reef John Bevans- Sue Cullen Why, Why, Why. Photos from the Readers, includes Bobbie Brown and John Moonie Advertisements Midget Farrelly Surf Skate Mgf Co. Greg McGillivray- The Performers. Gordon Woods Surfboards- big wave guns. Ron Surfboards. The Dee Why Surf Shop- America's Top Maker Gordon and Smith now available in Australia. Ron Taylor: Shark Fighters (skin diving) plus Surf Scene. Hayden Kenny Surfboards- custom by Bob McTavish for 3 pounds more. Bower Boy Surf Wax. Ampol Surfboard Wax . BMC- Mini Deluxe.

Surfabout Volume 3 Number 3 1966 . Cover: Tandem surfing. Jack Eden: Sandon Point, with Gary Birdsall and Bobby Brown Barry Sutherland: Winky Pop Rodney Sumpter's European Travelogue, includes Cribben (England) and Guethany (France) Surfabout Personality: Rodney Sumpter Nipper Williams: Wake surfing, with Wayne Burton and Kevin Platt. N.S.W. Championships, with Nat Young, Bobby Brown and Robert Conneeley. Barrie Sutherland: Victorian Championships, Rod Brooks 1st, Juniors- Wayne Lynch Bob Pike: Surfari to Peru South Avoca Jack Eden: Sydney's Malibu? (Oak Park Sandshoes)  with Frank Latta Centre fold: John Coleman Advertising: Surf Posters: Rusty Miller at Sunset , John Peck at Pipeline and 6 others. Keyo Surfboards: new moulded fin Gordon and Smith Surfboards, Carringbah (since 1959 in California) Peter Clarke Surfboards . O'Neill Wetsuits Quane Surfboards, New Zealand . Scott Dillion Surfboards, with Dave Passenger ex- Dale Surfboards.

1966 World Contest: Corky Carroll, Nat Young, Jock Sutherland. Accompanying an article on surfers-knots or board-bumps. International Surfing Volume 5 Number 1 page 47.  February-March 1969.

Surfer January 1967 Volume 7 Number 6 page 43. World Contest Finalists Nat Young, Australia. Jock Sutherland, Hawaii 3. Corky Carroll, USA West 4. Steve Bigler, USA West 5. Rodney Sumpter, Great Britain 6. Midget Farrelly, Australia

Surfing World Volume 8 Number 4 [November-December] 1966 World Championships Edition, California (held in October), pages 8-9. John Witzig: World Contest Story (San Deigo) Malcom Lock: Boomer Beach, South Australia John Arnold: Myaponga, South Australia Fold Out: Nat Young at the Kick, Collaroy. George Greenough: his house , his 100 MPH go kart and a story of the writer catching sharks on his surfboard along with George. Advertising Gordon and Smith Surfboards: The Stretch, a US noserider model with a square tail and square nose, nose concave, +9ft(?) Scott Dillon Surfboards: Junior racing car Gordon Woods Surfboards: Congratulates Nat Young Shane Surfboards: The Russell Hughes Excellor Model Kustom Surfboards by Allen Kirton, Main Beach, Queensland., page 38. Dunlop: Bumpers [sandshoes-sneakers] featuring Nat Young Dale Davis: Inside Out, featuring Mike Doyle, Mickey Dora, and Corky Carroll, plus the largest wave ever filmed ridden by Pat Edwards and the War at Malibu. (Dora versus Johnny Fain) Bob Evans: High on a Cool Wave George Rice Surfboards: A Big Wave Board? - asymmetrical outline and concave hull. BMC: Mini Delux

Surfing Seminar LP record, 1966. The Adelaide surf scene / distributed by Geoff's Surf Shop. 1966, Illustrated edition http://trove.nla.gov.au/version/43759413 [24] p. : ill., port. ; 22 cm. Adelaide : Geoff's Surf Shop, [1966]

Surfing World Volume 9 Number 1, April-May 1967 . Cover: Nat Young. Bells as tolled by Ross Kelly, photographs by Alby Falzon, 1967 Australian Titles,1st Nat Young NSW titles Andrew P. Llewem: Don't say it, spray it! (spray on surf wax.) Advertisements Bob Evans: High On A Cool Wave. Paul Witzig: The Hot Generation (movie poster available for 40c) White Stag Wetsuits: Wave Rave. Slip Check, spray on surf wax. Keyo Surfboards, McTavish Tailor Mades- McTavish shapes and skegs each board. Quarter inch redwood strip and Greenough stage III skeg with hot foil and flex standard gear. Dunlop: Bumpers, sandshoes as worn by Nat Young SW Subscription plus a Citizen watch BMC: Mini

From context, the implication is that in mid-1967 Brewer was committed to this significant reduction in length: "For some reason, all of this innovation led to Brewer being relieved of his command at Bing.
Gary Chapman had purchased a reject blank and carried it over to Bing's factory where Brewer shaped it into an 8-foot 6-inch mini-gun.
"Bing fired me the next day," Brewer told Kampion."
- Marcus: Surfboard (2007) page 160.

It would appear that Brewer's dismissal was in fact at least twelve months later.
Initially employed in May 1967, Bing Surfboards were still promoting Dick Brewer's Pipeliner model in July 1968.
- Bing Surfboards Advertisement, Surfer Magazine July 1968.
Reproduced in Holmes: Bing Surfboards (2008) page 97.

Tom at the Classic Bing Surfboards web site post several images of a Bing Pipeliner and notes:

Chuck Linnen's original California Pipeliner Gun.
Dick Brewer shaped three Pipeliner Guns when he visited the Hermosa shop in the summer of 1967, for team riders David Nuuhiwa and Chuck Linnen and Grant Reynolds (Bing's glasser).
Unlike the other Pipeliner Guns, which were made in Hawaii by Brewer in 1966-67, these three were made for riding big surf in California.
This one is 10'7"!

The images include a "a photo right out of Bings order book" that indicates that Linnen's board ("#7986") was ordered and/or shaped on  "8-3-67", that is 3rd August 1967.
- Classic Bing Surfboards
http://www.classicbingsurfboards.com/mid60sbings.html

Even accounting for the board being "made for riding big surf in California", the extreme length hardly illustrates Brewer's recollection, above, that "the mini-gun was happening in the spring of '67".

Gerry Lopez supports that story with his own recollection: "I think it was in late
'67," he told Drew Kampion.
"Brewer had just moved over to Maui from the North Shore and was shaping in Lahaina.
Reno Abellira and I each took a blank over  there to get our boards made by him.
Reno got his shaped first, but before he could shape mine, Nat and Greenough and McTavish and Ted Spencer and a couple of other Aussies showed up with those wide-tailed, vee-bottom boards.
They wanted to go ride em at Honolua Bay, but there wasn't any surf there.
John P Thurston had a surf shop at the Cannery in Lahaina where all the boards were glassed, and they came there, and we met em, and Brewer and McTavish kind of bullshitted for a long time.
So the next day we go back to do my board - I think wanted like a 9 foot 8-inch, which was considered a shorter board then - and Bewer just takes the saw and cuts a foot of the blank, and it's 8 feet 6 inches, and he tells me, 'That's how big a board you're getting. "
Holmes: Bing Surfboards (2008) page 164, quoting  Drew Kampion in The Surfer's Journal, unspecified.

McTavish is a charismatic character when you get him going.
As I drank in what he was saying, I felt the life coming back, I wanted to shape one of these little machines and go surfing. Bob explained how the vee bottom in the tail sat the back of the board in the water, allowing it to roll up onto one side and carve an arc. My first thought was that these boards would have all the action in the rear end; they were really only turners and I wasn't sure that was such a good thing because it struck me that nose-riding had been thrown completely out the window. I thought the concave noses were a feeble attempt to get the boards to nose-ride but they just wouldn't do it like the old boards did. For the first time in my surfing career lightness had become a factor; everyone was building their boards out of stringerless blanks to keep the weight down.

I asked Denny Keyo if I could use Bob's shaping bay and, for the first time in six months, I shaped a new board. It was 8 feet long by 23 inches wide and like McTavish's had a 12-inch pod across the tail with a 4-inch vee.
The stringerless blank was really hard to hold while shaping and I had to use a brick to keep it in one place.
The thickness of those Plastic Machines also made them appear strange, as they held the thickness of the centre right through to the tail.
And I soon found that glassing them was a nightmare.
The idea was to get the board as light as possible, so a thin skin had to be put on the bottom to hold the curve, then a couple, of layers on the deck to give it some strength and rigidity.
I took the new board out in a 3-footer inside Narrabeen "Alley" to test it and thought I'd never get used to the feel, it was so weird.
After an hour of practise, and a few long swims to the beach, I began to get the feel of the vee and found how interesting the pocket-riding type of surfing could be."
-Young: Nat's Nat (1998) page 162.

Surfabout Volume 3 Number 7 1966. Cover: Nat Young early 1963 photo of Nat Young, and the previous edition was a painting of a photo taken by John Arnold of Malcolm Lock oat Moana. Centre Fold: Kevin Platt . Barrie Sutherland: Lorne Point, featuring Wayne Lynch Surfabout Surfer: Russell Hughes Trevor Burslam: Surf Riders Winter Championship, Western Australia Hawaii Ian "Fritz" Smith: Dog Gone it Man ! Let's Surf the North- The Pass , Greenmount, Noosa, Currumbin, Lennox Head, Seal Rocks and Port Macquarie. David W. Roberts: Tasmania John Thorton: Elands Bay, South Africa Coalcliff, NSW Interview: Gail Couper Cross word puzzle Advertising Gordon Woods Surfboards Keyo Surfboards: leading shaper Kevin Platt Dunlop Surfboards: removable plastic fin Shane Surfboards: Excellor Model with Kevin Brennan Duke Kahanomoku Sneakers in Aloha Print canvas Scott Dillion Surfboards Gordon and Smith Surfboards: Hot Dog shape a little shorter, a little wider and a hell of a lot thinner with a Pivot George Greenough fin.

1968 Butterfly fin by Scott Dillon: " Happiest surfboarder anywhere is Dr. Bob Spence.  The 'Doc' has a board which he swears is the complete answer. 'Nat' has ridden it ...'Kenno' has ridden it, many others have too, and everyone agrees there is something really different and interesting about this board.  Scott Dillon designed and built it and this is a pretty radical unit.  Top plan shape is modified 'stubby,' though not quite so wide in the tail, bottom rear is convex, vee rails are straight though swept up at front end, but, the real punch line is the fins ... yes, I said fins (plural).  Both skegs are joined at the base and then project out-ward and upward, gull wing style.  The whole unit is very gracefully constructed and, according to 'Doc,' gives unbelievable stability and ease of manoeuvrability. ..the unit is just over 8 feet long." Surfing World  Volume 10 Number 4,  March-April 1968, page 43.

Keith Paull, Billy Hamilton and Mark Martinson, France, 1968. Photograph : MacGillivay-Freeman Surfing Magazine March 1984  Volume 20 Number 3 page 99. Note that the two American surfers have variations of the Australian wide tail Vee bottom, whereas Keith Paull had moved onto a round tail design.

Surfing, June 1968 Revolutionary  V-bottom and Mini Boards, The Australians- Nat Young,Ted Spencer, Bob McTavish, Peter Drouyn, and Midget Farrelly. Maui Puerto Rico What happened to Phil Edwards? Ron Haworth: Duke Kahanamoku- the last days. Is there any surf in Tahiti? Innovative moves in surfing, including a small air cylinder pack for big wave wipeouts. Advertising Greg Noll Surfboards- the Bug. Gordie Surfboards O'Neills Wetsuits, with a long haired Bob Cooper.

Chis Brock, George Greenough, Dog, Garry Keyes and Bob McTavish. Wilderness factory,  Angourie - Byron Bay ?, 1969. Surfing World Magazine,  Volume 12, Number 5, 1969.

surfresearch.com.au

---

BOOKS
1972 The Best of Tracks   (Vol. I) Editors : Falzon, Albert; Stewart, John; Grissim, John. :
Tracks Publishing Co Pty Ltd. P.O. Box 178 Avalon, NSW.
'Bob McTavish’s Personal History of Surfboard Design – Pods for Primates Parts 1' (pages 120 – 122).

1992 Stell, Marion K. :  Pam Burridge
Collins Angus & Robertson Publishers (Australia) Pty. Limited
A division of Harper Collins Publishers (Australia) Pty. Limited
25 Ryde Road, Pymble NSW 2073, Australia

1997 Warshaw, Matt : Surfriders – In Search of the Perfect Wave
Tehabi Books, Inc. Collins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022

1978 Warwick, Wayne A Guide to Surfriding in New Zealand Second Edition
Viking Sevenseas Ltd Wellington, New Zealand

1979 Young, Nat ; Photographs by McCausland, Bill: Nat Young’s Book of Surfing
A.H. & A.W. Reed Pty. Ltd. 53 Myroora Rd, Terry Hills, Sydney.

1983 Young, Nat with McGregor, Craig : The History 0f Surfing
Palm Beach Press,40 Palm Beach Road, Palm Beach NSW 2108 

1972  Surfing World. Volume 16 #4.  Bob Evans : 'remember the time when...' pages  30 to 35. 

surfresearch.com.au

---