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bob mctavish :
honolua bay sessions, dec 1967
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Maui ...reeking of "the real islands". Green, high mountains, green deep valleys, pineapples, slow, rainy, hot, sunny.
Lahaina's the town.
Old whaling port, and it really
says so.
Docks, harbour, reefs, shanties,
bars, dens, pits, plenty of slow smiles.
A few tourists - mainly nights.
Beee-ootiful town calls beautiful
people - young people from U.S. east and west coasts are
making
changes there, making their peace
there, making their love there.
Spiritual centre.
Christ centre.
Lahaina-mother Maui's third eye.
Everyone surfs - or knows what
surfing's doing.
Several small board shops -
Thurston's, Buddy Boy's and Brewer's.
Maybe Willie's.
Strawberry Fields kind of.
Boards are great.
Small shops have the freedom to be
great.
They can change fast.
These shops are one place where
its really happening.
R. B, Richard Brewer.
The wheel of U.S. board design -
pintail man.
Does his thing once or twice or
thrice a week at Buddy Boy's.
R. B. Dick is feeling things now -
Vees, tuned fins, lack of length.
Why?
Herein lies a story.
Up the coast a bit is Honolua
Bay.
Wow!!
It's just a little cool-green of
course, thick, trees very trippy.
Buddy Boy's Bay.
Slow bouncy drive, cruise to a
halt.
Silence till a set comes through.
Mmm.
Wall's good.
Its come up a few feet!
Aaaagh!
Did you see that curl?
That's a tube right there.
Lets get into those Mothers!
Paddle off the ramp through brown
rainwater for 100 yards, moving past the inside dribblies now.
Looking up - another set hitting
outside - Wow.
That's bigger than it looked in
there - must be six feet.
Faster paddling.
Move past the bowl.
Aaaagh!!
That's a cathedral!
Six feet high - moving fast,
throwing hard and perfect - out - arching curving down. ..
keerrack!! whoomfff.
Water's so clear!
Green flat rock.
Glassy bay.
This take- off looks tight.
Deep water onto a ledge - in front
of a cliff with a just cave.
Just cave?
Bring good karma with you ...no
pukas, bad karma?
...Well ...Honolua breaks boards
as well as perfectly.
Set.
Visible a half-mile out, swinging
on those outside reefs.
Runs wide. .. then in!
Wow.
This thing is stacking up!
Might just move out a little more!
Take the second one I guess.
First one looks mighty good!
About 6 feet.
Aah ... let it go.
Ulp!
That's got to be eight feet!!
Wooo!!
Bowling slightly even here on the
take-off!
Now. ..easy. .. two paddles.
..lift-off!
Deerop!! ... down into that curve.
..bring it up on edge.
..GET IT ON!!
Thhrrust!
Move it out!
Up.
Under.
Curl.
Coming over!
Right over! (that noise)
Inside! (that feel)
A GIANT GREEN CATHEDRAL AND I AM
THERE.
Positive-Negative Pow!! Infinity.
Curl just going further ahead of
me, but it's right!
This situation is flawless.
Now only water visible sky
gone - can't see out but who needs to because time is gone.
Seconds?
Minutes?
A lifetime.
Crystals.
Soundsmells.
Tastefeels.
Forever.
Now.
The door is open.
The wave laughs, board breathes,
sun smiles, Cruise out into ... peace ...
Good Honolua is a tube from take
off to calm centre.
This day Nat and I had our deep
Vees going.
Ted S. had his 8'9" pintail in one
piece till it was two pieces.
Buddy Boy was visiting Him on most
rides - in spite of his overlong machine.
George did It quite often. ..
Paule made It.
Six hours at six to eight feet.
Only a few there.
Coupla cameras, coupla
shapers--one was R. B. Dick was digging the whole thing.
Those Vees - pulling turns in the
most tight spots, gaining speed in those turns, thrusting out
of them.
Making waves, making them tighter.
Pintails were beautiful - in
the fall line.
Magical Mystery Tours.
But the U.S. - going round, up,
thru- thrusting!!
YOU got the speed.
YOU went where you wanted - when
you wanted.
Said R. B. when asked - "They
work."
Dick Brewer went to his groovy tin shed and made a beautiful pintail - 'V' bottom.
Just a basic change of design -
no "yippee-we did it first" because who is "we"?
We are all brothers 'V' is one
change - many many more coming up from many many people - so
names don't matter.
Minimum drag and high rise tails,
flex tails, interchangeable flex tails, false bottoms, keels
rather than skegs, bat ray bottoms - it's all happen\ing.
So dig it, brother.
2. The
boards taken to Hawaii in the winter of 1967 by Bob McTavish,
Nat Young, Ted Spencer, Peter Drouyn and other Australian
surfers were in fact 'Gunned' versions of the designs
developed for Australian surf.
Between
February and November 1967 intensive competition between
Sydney manufacturers and their stable of surfer/shapers
(primarily Midget Farrelly (Surfboards), Palm Beach and Bob
McTavish at Keyo Surfboards, Brookvale) saw length reduce from
9 ft to 7ft.
3. The little
wide-back machines (Vee
Bottom Stubby) were only a brief stage of design
development.
The gunned versions tested by
McTavish and Nat Young in Hawaii in December 1967 met with mixed
results.
McTavish took Nat Young's invitation
to the 1967 Duke Kahanamoku Contest at Sunset Beach.
His performance earned the title from
one observer as "The Spin Out King" - see below.
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Bob McTavish and Little Red, Honolua Bay, Maui, December 1967. Surf International, Volume 1 Number 12, 1969. Photograph: John Witzig.  |
5. By the time this issue hit
the news stands, Bob McTavish had quickly revised his design
concepts and was developing a heavily forward foiled Tracker
model.
In Australia, by mid 1968 the wide
Vee Bottom had been largely replaced by three designs -
Forward foiled Pin tails or small square tailed Trackers and Egg-type Double-ender round tails.
6. The only noted Australian
surfer who continued to use the wide tail concept during 1968
was Nat Young, who was preparing material for Eric Blum's The Fantastic Plastic
Machine.
The film would promote the Vee Bottom
design to American audiences, for Australian designers it was
past history.
US manufacturers would contine to
produce the model to1969.
7. Wide tailed templates would not re-emerge till 1978 with the No-Nose, typified by Cheyne Horan/Geoff McCoy's Lazer Zap.
8. Vee became a standard feature in bottom design, but has never been as deep as in these designs.
9. The accompanying image was
a tight crop of Bob McTavish at Honolua Bay by John Witzig,
Large version above fromJarratt: Jeff Hakman,
(1999?), page 62.
10. The article does not
have a formal title - the first line is quoted.
Errata
The board
details were previously described on this page as:
Ted
Spencer's 'Little Red', 8ft 9" x 22" stringerless
rounded pintail. Possibly Shane Surfboards.
and noted...
The board
itself, however, broke in two at the Honolua Bay sessions.
These details were taken from multiple viewings of Paul
Witzig's Hot Generation and Bob
McTavish's account of the Honolua Bay sessions,
"A
plastic
drinking straw...." Surf
International
Volume 1 Number 3, February-March 1968, page 11.
In November 2003 Ted Spencer
emailed...
For what it's worth, so called
Little Red board was 8'4" in length single stringer 23" wide
and was shaped by Bob McTavish and I at Keyo Surfboards in
Brookvale Australia.
It didn't break badly in Hawaii
and I took it back to OZ.
Regards, Ted.
Many thanks to Ted Spencer for this invaluable contribution.
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