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lynch : france, 1968

Wayne Lynch : European Chamionships, France, 1968.

Wayne Lynch : Lynch.
Surf International
Volume 1 Number 11 pages 11 to 13.
December 1968 - January 1969?

Introduction.
Following the 1968 Australian Championships, Nat Young, Wayne Lynch and Ted Spencer flew to Rome in company with Paul Witzig to shoot footage for his next film.
They then travelled by car to France, arriving in Biarritz in August 1968 and competed in the European Championships at La Barre and built new boards at Michael Barland Surfboards.
Following the contest they travelled to Morocco with Rodney Sumpter, ex-Avalon, now resident in England, before flying to Puerto Rico to prepare for the World Contest.

Their exploits would be documented in Paul Witzig's Evolution, released in 1970.
- Young: Nat's Nat (1998), pages 174 to 180.

Merely titled Lynch, pages 10 and 12 describe the preparations, the flight to Rome and crossing Europe by car, the relevant surfing content is on page 13, below.
The article is headed by a Lynch portrait, page 11 is a full page surfing photograph, and another heads page 12.

Concurrently Billy Hamilton and Mark Martinson and travelled to Europe with film-makers, MacGillivray-Freeman where they joined up with current Australian champion Keith Paull.
While the American surfers ride boards based on the wide tailed vee bottom designs developed in Australia the previous year, Keith Paull (like the other visiting Australians) has a round tail design.
The footage would be included in Waves Of Change, released in 1969, subsequently repackaged as The Sunshine Sea in 1970.

While the visiting surfers competed in the European Championship, apparently due to contractual conflicts, neither Witzig or MacGillivray-Freeman filmed the contest that had excellent surf.

"Paul says no surfing kiddies 'cause the other group will shoot home movies.
I boil, I yell an' scream I tell him I'm surfing!!
Two parties meet an' fire agreements."

The same issue featured an article by Nat Young on his adventures in Morocco and an article on Eric Blum's recently released Fantastic Plastic Machine along with several stills from the film.
There is also a full page advertisement for the Wayne Lynch Invovlment (sic) model for South Australia's John Arnold Surfboards.
See below.

Page 10

I fly from Victoria, goodbye an' sadness!
I land in Sydney, more sadness!
I'm sick with disease, disease an' I surf together, we don't have fun.
My board didn't work, depression, insanity an' anything else.
Today is bye bye - the plane resembles a cattle truck, yet the service of Qantas is superb.
We are interested in the coast from Perth on.
That dies, then it's boredom, amusements an' then it's chicks.
We swap seats an' settle for the twenty hour darky that's gonna happen.
We stop at Malaysia, air is hot an' humid, heat rising from the ground has smell of soil an' things worse.
Next was Ceylon, never saw it, this kid an' three million were unconscious.
Arabia was reminiscent of Malaysia, people feel it worse or fight it less.

People in these countries look underfed or underdeveloped, want money for movement.
Maybe they will start a campaign.
MONEY FOR MOVEMENT!!
Now it's coast of Greece, mountains an' rivers an' things better.
Excitement!
The sun appears, it comes in colours.
Yeh!!
Clouds are thick, blanket, they are indescribable prophets, so still an' kinda mystic. Eerie is better.
Golden red crystal ball helps.
Life's existence.
It's really impossible to put your feelings an' thoughts outa your mind so I don't.
I go ask Alice if we want to visit this kiddie car steering room.
We do.It's fun.
Now we are suspended, no noise, no nothing.

Page 11

Page 12

Photograph:
"Glass, pure glass, pure sun an' pure mountains of water, land on my head all together."

I want to sit for a million worlds on those clouds, I'm bigger here than you are there.
I'd love to sit an' play wise men.
We finally touch four being an' goodbye to Alice an' our little wonderland.
Sadness mingled with excitement.
To customs, what an experience, alla people think we are crazy, I think we agree.
We try t' explain our machines.
We win.
Now it's Hertz.
A woodie, without wings.
Ha!

Seven boards, more bags, four captive animals an' a pushbike search for the Coliseum.
We find it, we like its truth, we don't like its tourist trodden paths, closed gates, new pieces an' signs.
We drive after home movies, I look an' see Doric, Corinthian an' Ionic arches on the outside wall.
I think but I do not speak.
People are wonderful, it takes a visit to know it.
Friendly, plump, maybe distorted, they breeze by digging their paths.
We whiz past digging ours.
It's hot, humid an' so wonderful.
Expression is hard to hold.
So I let it fly.
When the day is old they sit on the footpaths, under umbrellas an' shades outside pubs an' talk.
It's old, old an' wise enough for thirty worlds an' thirty existences.
Probably more.
I regain faith for human nature - I lost it back home somewhere in the middle of surfing politics.
I snap home stills from the woodie.
Every five kilometres there is an old 14th century farmhouse.
Beautiful!
Mountains an' forests in the distance on our right.
Castles still as stillness on mountain tops from days of character.
Too much thought to express.
Occasionally I think of Alice an' wonderland, but then I'm happy I'm here.
An' you're there!
We are high up in mountains, something Donovan could work into poetry.
Mist hangs as still as the mountains, we are near the Mediterranean, you know it an' love it.
Rain forests for almost eternity hang over the winding, never-ending maze of roads.
Dampness an' beauty.
RAINFORESTS OF REALITY!
Next morning an' it's the coast of the Mediterranean, we drive through narrow streets an' buy an' bargain with little fruit shop owners.
We eat an' watch.
Coastline better than coastline, people better than human, it's hard to imagine.
The surf is two foot an' choppy, many points, perfect set ups, we want to surf the Mediterranean but we don't.
Instead we leave the coast an' power through the heart of our destination.
France, its people an' its climate are too great to try an' tell you.
So of course I don't.
Pyrenees show us our way.
Never have I seen such splendour!
There is bad.
Americans are few but prevalent, their influence doesn't suit.
You appreciate the fact that it's all human an' the good becomes better.

Page 13

Fiats are the only cars, wonderful, zippy.
People's faces carry enough expression to last us all.
Even Alice.
Nat an' Paul push the woodie, it's stoked too, an' finally blows its gasket.
Twelve miles from La Barre.
Growls an' scowls.
Put it to a town.
Disgust.
But then a bartender, an' English speaking local an' a surfer help us, we could never thank them enough, it's great to know there are people like these.

Next morning at La Barre three foot onshore, disgusted.
But that night about 7 p.m. the sun sets on the water, wind offshore, waves 6 foot an' we surf.
The lips become crystalized, you recognize their artillery by the spray.
Beauty more than the word.
Golden red again, fills the sky, I have never seen anything, an' I mean anything, not till I see this.
The moon rises to watch us from the land, we laugh an' wave an' share the same.

Next day an' it's big.
The French International is on.
We forget it and drive to Guethary, a peak reminiscent of Sunset.
Glass, pure glass, pure sun an' pure mountains of water land on my head all together.
We surf for hours, an' finally the tide is too low, we leave with sea eggs in our feet.
To La Barre, it's big an' even better

I'm stunned, never have I seen waves like these.
The French say they have been waiting for two hours,
MacGilivray an' Freeman an' Keith Paull an' Mark Martinson an' Bill Hamilton also.
Paul says no surfing kiddies 'cause the other group will shoot home movies.
I boil, I yell an' scream I tell him I'm surfing!!
Two parties meet an' fire agreements.
Happiness!
We are all in the same heat.
Nat, Ted, Paul, Keith, Mark, Bill an' this kid.
The others compete, Paul an' I dig every wonderful pipe.
I cannot on paper or by mouth ever explain some of those waves.
Huge, clean, evern cleaner than clean waves.
To pop your fin at the bottom an' feel the down rails hold, an' drive into the biggest slot of my life is something beyond my powers of description.
Maybe anybody's.
We leave the water, Hamilton says he is going to punch my face.
I believe him.
So I let him have the next wave an' it's forgotten.
(I dropped in before.)
I won the heat, it sinks in ten minutes later.
I don't care.
Anyone who cares is a fool on a day like this.
Remember what happens to a fool an' his mind?
The final we surf it again, we love it again.
I win, Nat second, Keith third.
I still don't care.
The tide fills, the wind changes.
And so my story ended, an' I think you know it all so well!

John Arnold Surfboards: Wayne Lynch Involvment

Nat Young, page 15.

Bob McTavish, Maui, 1967.
Still from
Fantastic Plastic Machine (1969).

George Greenough, 1967.
Still from
Fantastic Plastic Machine (1969)

Surf International
Volume 1 Number 11 page 13,
November 1968.?

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Geoff Cater (2011-2019) : Wayne Lynch : France, 1968.
http://www.surfresearch.com.au/1969_Lynch_ France _1968_Surf_Int_v1n11.html