As I get older the yearn to put good equipment under good feet never dissipates. It’s what I have been doing for almost 4 decades now, but in reality the top top guys now days expect the world and tend to gravitate to shapers their own age, or those that already have pros on their boards which seems to be the stamp that they too, can surf as good with the same boards. Anyway, they cost you a fortune and  to date have been one of the big reasons why surfboard makers will always remain cottage! The margins cannot sustain too many free boards.

Nevertheless there are many good surfers that I have had the pleasure to shape for over the years, and there are still a few that have evolved with my shapes and still blowing minds. They have their life in order and surfing is a giant part of their plan. Their maturity has only enhanced the quality of communication and the results have proven this. They now know what they do like and don’t like, which makes it soooo much easier to nail them a newy that’s going to work. I hear many of the top shapers in the world are so confused with gen i they just throw huge numbers of boards at them hoping they will find one they like- simply because the kids have trouble communicating with what is happening under their feet. Not so with these boys! In this blog I want to concentrate on just three guys that have been with me forever and still turn heads when they hit the water.

First up is Tony Ray who spent as long as he possibly could on the tour and then morphed into a real job (if you could call it that) driving around the Victorian seaside selling wet suits in and around the tides and the winds  The two time runner up of the Eddie has never slowed or shied away from some of the biggest waves the Victorian coastline can throw at him and is like Kelly: getting fitter by age.

Tony has never been a board slut and once he has the board he learns to ride it. He just recently snapped a 6.6 Channel swallow that I made for him 9 years ago and wants the same again. Many say he is still the “man” down south. Tony was a great exponent for my 6 channel swallow tails that suited his style to a tee. His deep powerful driving bottom turns and his affinity with the tube make him a standout anywhere where there is power. I do not make a lot of channels these days because they are a little temperamental in anything other than clean long walled waves but when it comes to Indo they are back on the menu.

Another veteran stand out in Victoria is Nathan Edwards who lives a busy surfing lifestyle managing Billabong in Vicco, and in the same time feeding his insatiable diet for waves all around the world. I have been making Napalms boards for decades and pretty well understand what makes him tick He likes to keep it simple.

Both Tony and Napalm also ride my tow boards and their feedback is immeasurable …since I do not ride them myself! Vicco has the waves for experimentation with tow design and also big wave paddling guns that have of late come back in vogue. Most of Nathan’s boards are pretty standard high performance single double rounded squares with no extremes.

He has been pivotal in restraining my rockers for Vicco waves. Coming from QLD and shaping boards for quick hollow little waves and spending much of my time up indo on R+D trips, it is good to have someone of that calibre bringing my bottom rockers back to earth.

And up in QLD I have another perennial in Russell Specht- over on North Stradbroke. Speccy as he is commonly known is still fit as a trout and is approaching his mid-fifties. Try and take a wave off him behind south rock at Main and you will find out that there is still a lot of competitor buried deep in his subconscious. Speccy has an instinct for barrels and will find them and thread them at will. He has a bunch of Balinese mates from his annual sojourn to Uluwatu who give him respect and afford him some space.

Russ has taught me the value of swallow tails in juice and has been carving dedicated roundhouses and disappearing deeper than most on them for decades. Through the nature of his deep clawing and fully dedicated bottom turns I have learnt over the years that the projection you can get off the bottom with a pulled in swallow is equal to none. It seems the double pins act like a 3rd fin when the pressure is really on, one can lay the board over as hard as possible and they will not slide: Speccy is a full testament to this.

From a marketing point of view I think there is a perception especially amongst the more mature ranks that endorsement is all about buying the services of, and that this link does not necessarily prove that the product will work for the rest of us. But when you see guys like these three Peter pans surfing as well as they do on the same label for what seems like a lifetime, there can only be one logical assumption.

Muzz