Jeff, Cronulla Point 1966
Jeff, First Reef Cronulla Point
Jeff was one of many surfers who started riding a paipo board at Cronulla in the 1960s. He latter rode a kneeboard and now rides a longboard. Jeff's photos capture a point in time when paipo surfing was popular and just as many surfers made a transition to riding kneeboards.
Gday Jeff. You said to give you a call.
I got the photos done. Some of the guys were at the Point before we were there. So I've got these photos of guys I know nothing about.
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Jeff, Cronulla Point 1966 |
Jeff, First Reef Cronulla Point |
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There's a really good photo around of this guy riding a paipo at the Point. It's taken from the water. The guys just lying on it, he's not hanging on to the paipo, his arms are out front of him and he's just arching his back, flying along this section.
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Lewis Cawsey and Greg Vaughn. Cronulla Point.  Surfabout - Vol 3(1) 1964. Jack Eden photo courtesy of Al Hunt. |
I know the photo.
None of us know who the guy was. It was a really good photo. The photos I've got, I've only got the first names and those guys I don't know anything about.
All these photos I've got, were taken with Steve Cohen's camera. His brother is in Cronulla, he's got a surf shop, his name is Arnold.
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Jeff, Cronulla Point |
Jeff, Cronulla Point lefts |
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Another thing, I'm going up to see Mark in November. His brother has an original paipo. I'm going to take some paper with me and trace the outline. I'm going to make one when I come back.
I was going to ask if you still had your old board?
Dad probably threw them out in the garbage.
We were always making them. I remember we used to go to the caravan place at Kogarah and buy the marine ply, we'd have the pattern with us and the guy would cut it out on his bandsaw. We'd go home and shape it properly, shape the rails a bit. I think we used to varnish them. All the ones we had, they flexed. We could flex them. The way you rode them, you rode them with your elbows tucked under your chest, not lying flat with your chin on the board.
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Jeff, Inside Reef floater - 1967. |
Jeff, Cronulla Point "Bum stand" |
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They were so short.
They were probably 4'10 or something like that. They had to be under a certain length or otherwise you had to get them registered. We used to line up down Cronulla surf club. I remember the first paipo. It was shaped like a god dam tombstone. I bought it from a sports store in Cronulla. It was made out of proper wood, it was probably 1/2 to 3/4" thick, maybe 5/8. It was just a slab of wood all glued together. It wouldn't flex. It was a beautiful piece of wood. I don't know what happened to it.
It came from a sports store. That's interesting.
Frazier's sports store in Cronulla. They sold a kit. There was another guy, Lenny Hedges, he used to sell a kit. I worked for him actually. All the surf bums would work for him, on and off. He was making yachts. I did a bit of sanding, he was making these ferro cement hulls out of concrete. There would be a whole batch of us holding the rubber on the inside of the hull while he sprayed the concrete on to it. At Kurnell. It was a bastard of a job. I used to draw for him because I was draughting at tech. So I was doing the draughting of the yachts for him. Then I working on his barges, he had all sorts of funny jobs going on. He was a lot older than us. He used to make barges and I used to wire the reinforcing, all sorts of jobs going. He always wanted someone to do something.
How long did you ride the paipo board?
I started riding them up the beach and my gear got knocked off. I got the shits cos all I had was my boardshorts. Lucky there was a guy on the beach I knew. He gave me a lift home. That's why I started riding around the Pont then, because your gear didn't get stolen. I wasn't driving, I was catching the train, it must have been mid 60s, I suppose. I had a license in the late 60s.
Mark said he started in 1966.
It was probably roughly about that. It would have been, we all had them.
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Jeff, Second Reef the Wall, 1967. |
Jeff, First Reef - wearing the biggest flippers available: "Giants" |
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Did you move on to other types of surfing?
Eventually I got a guy to make me a kneeboard out there, a guy called Keogh, Cog, his nickname was, he lived at Hurstville. He was making boards. That's how I got into the resin, because I used to have to stick the fins back on the paipo. That's how I got the hang of glassing, glassing fins and things. I got him to make a board . I remember it came off the car one time and broke the fin, so I fixed it myself. That's how I got started glassing boards. I went into kneeboards then, then on small days I started standing up on my kneeboard. Then I was riding 7'4, 7'2 boards and I've got a long board now. I've gotten into longboards. I never shaped any. I probably shaped a cut down long board but I can only remember doing that to one board. I sold it, it's funny. I didn't think the thing would go and somebody bought it. I always had someone shaping for me. A guy called Spider used to shape my boards for me. I had Floyd Smith shape me a kneeboard once. I just didn't like the board so I sold it, sold it to one of the guys at the Point. This guy used to buy my old kneeboards off me. We always had somebody shaping something, glassing a board somewhere.
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Jeff at Cronulla Point 1976 |
Jeff Cronulla Point |
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Surfing World (22#5 February 1976, pages 20-21 and 24#2, page 33) photos by Peter Simon and Peter Solness, courtesy Wayne Priestly | ||
There was a lot of experimenting going on.
Yeah. When I went to surfboards, I ended up getting a second hand San Juan, it was one of those side slipper boards. Full nose, low rails, with a bit of vee in the back. You stood on the front and you could side slip it out of the tube. Me and Mark were up Lennox one time and these Hawaiians were there in their cars and that's when we first saw it actually happen. These guys were side slipping in bloody 6' tubes, I said "Look at these guys Mark", it was something. I think Mark might have been on a Greenough then. I'm pretty sure I would have been riding a kneeboard too. We used to do a lot of trips together, me and Mark.
I used to do this sticker of a guy sitting on a tractor, it was a bit of a laugh, it was the 70s. Everyone was getting stoned and having the greatest fuckin time, I stuck stickers on his Greenoughs and blow me down, he showed me photos the other week, sent them to me, or Bear did, I couldn't remember the boards but there was the sticker on it. I used to stick the same sticker on my surfboards, I still do now. I've had a few blanks shaped by Farrelly, you finish them off up here, I stick the sticker on the boards. I couldn't believe it. But there was another guy out of Cronulla who used to make Greenoughs, a guy called Rob McLaggan. He actually patented a fin system. He used to make them out of Jackos. He used to make them out of kevlar. He's still got some of his spoons.
Rob and I used to go down the coast a hell of a lot. Jacko used to rave about his boards, he was such a clever bloke. He actually made me a board that I've still got and he worked at Peter Clarkes under the Baron sticker. At Jackos they were Customline. I found one of his kneeboards up here and bought it. Blow me down. Fixed it up and put it in the roof.
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Rob McLaggan, Customline. |
Rob with spoon, December 2021 |
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Tracks, June 1977, page 22 and courtesy of Jeff Day | ||
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From left: Gary Rice, Jeff and Rob, with some of Rob's boards |
Rob and John Waterworth, with spoon, |
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Photos courtesy of Jeff Day | ||
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Jeff's tractor logo 
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There's a few kneeboarders on the Central Coast.
There is, Bob, Kneeboard Bob we call him. He knows a lot of guys from the Point. There are a couple of other guys at Blue Bay.
I have another photo I'll send you. It's with the other ones. It's a picture of three guys, in my old Vanguard, one of the guys is Daryl Sykes, he used to manage Ken Adler Surfboards up there in Byron. He used to make all the kneeboards for McGrigor, in the middle is Mark with his spoon. The other photo is John with his kneeboard, that was a San Juan. Its quite a good shot. It was at this farm we stayed at out the back of Broken Head. They were the best times. We used to have a ball.
There was a lot of experimenting going on.
There's another guy who had a Greenough, a guy at Noosa called Captain, Paul Donnelly. He used to ride kneeboards a bit.
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Paul Donnelly spoon 
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Daryl Sykes Note 1, Mark Munro and John Waterworth Note 2, with his San Juan kneeboard. He built kneeboards for Gordon and Smith with Bear Note 3. "We stayed with some Yanks and Chris Young out on the farm at Back Broken Head". 
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You went to a longboard, I went the other direction to a bellyboard. You get more tubes.
You can take off more critical. You can let go of your paipo and it doesn't matter, it will float to the surface as long as it doesn't hit you in the head.
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Don, Second Reef Cronulla Point |
Daryl Sykes going left at First Reef |
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Kev, Cronulla Point |
Kev, Cronulla Point lefts |
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Ron Note 3. |
Steve Watson, Garie? |
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Dave Croft, the guy who invented the shape we all copied |
Dave Croft at Garie Beach |
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Jeff at Cronulla Point, photo by Bob Griffiths, courtesy Cronulla Surf Museum Facebook page 22 November 2023. 
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Note 1: Daryl Sykes: On December 8, 2024 Daryl advised: " I co-managed the Dee Why Surf Shop in Cronulla with Ray Ryan. I worked for Ken Adler at San Juan surfboards in Byron Bay. San Juan was sold to Ken 's family and I managed the factory whilst the transition was being completed. Travelled to south Island of NZ in 1970 to shape, glass for Quane Surfboards in Sumner. Moved to North island in 1971. Made boards for FatCat...glassed for Titcombe. Went back to Brookvale for three months when Ken Beaven started McGrigor Surfboards in Brookvale. Shaped a lot of knee boards there plus a few stand-ups Back to NZ at the end of that contract. Did some boards under my own Good Clean Fun label but by 1972 I was working full time as a professional fisherman. It's been a great life in and around the ocean".
Note 3: John Waterworth (December 9, 20240; "I first started with G&S, in 1976 as a sponsored rider, Terry Bishop shaped my Superslab model, I started shaping maybe 2 years later until about 1988. Bear did his own thing at G&S shaping his own customer boards sometime during that era, before he went to Emerald.
Note 3: Paul "Bear" Burridge advised (December 8, 2024) advised that the first time he went to Hawaii, he took three boards that he shaped in a shed. PT saw him there and recommended him to G & S, who sponsored him on his second trip. On that trip he took 3 boards that he shaped and glassed at G & S, where he was shaping kneeboards. Bear and Steve Griffiths left G&S, and Steve set up Emerald Surfboards where Bear shaped for 7/8 years. He then moved to the North Coast where he shaped at WILDERNESS for 5 years.
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Paul at Waimea |
Spoon shaped for Mark Munro |
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Photos courtesy of Bear. Waimea photo taken by Peter White. | ||
Note 4: On 7 November 2024, Peter Mcdougall identified this photo as himself: "Me at the point top left". Paipo & Bellyboard Riders Facebook post Peter added that he surfed with "Steve McNally and Norm Stacey and Ray Mundi", and that he maried Steve's cousin.