First Surf Trip Adventure

In December 1966, four friends and myself made our first of many trips to mystical J.Bay and Cape St. Francis. Arriving late in the afternoon, we found a dusty little Dorp with a dead flat ocean, not exactly what we had been anticipating on the 12 hour journey. Getting directions from a local, we travelled back out of town to a rusty fence with an open gate, with a small sign “CAMPING 50c/DAE”. There was nobody there and nothing there except a desolute area of sandy land which today is multi millions in real estate value.

The next morning we awoke to a sight to behold, a continuous supply of 3 foot waves peeling their way from far point to the point right in front of our campsite. There were a couple of guys in the water already and we wasted no time in hitting the water, this is what we dreamed of. The next day we moved on to the even more remote Seal Point at Cape St. Francis where we had accommodation arranged with the Lighthouse Keeper. What a pleasure, home cooked meals, a bed and a surfbreak we shared with two P.E. surfers. Although we never had "write home about" waves on that trip, it was a spine chilling experience just being at that magical spot. The settlement consisted of about 15 fisherman cottages, a lighthouse and rudimentary camp site, otherwise it was ‘as nature intended’.

After two weeks of paradise, with heavy hearts we headed home, in the middle of the Transkei, we took the Bashee River Mouth turnoff, a fifty km dirt road to ‘The Haven’, a guest farm that my uncle owned. Twenty km down the road the car gave problems so we ended up pushing the car up hills and freewheeling down hills for about 10km when we arrived at a Trading Store come Garage in the middle of the Bundu. The owner looked at the car, fitted a secondhand coil and we were on our way again. Arriving at the Haven a few days before Christmas, the resort was busting at the seams with guests, my uncle, an eccentric man, came close to saying “nice to see you, now piss off, as we are full” but relented, cleared out a storeroom, put in some mattresses and said “Dinner at seven”. Most of the guests had never heard of surfing, so we were inundated with questions on every aspect of the sport and equipment, the fisherman said we were crazy as the area is reknowned for ‘Big Shark Fishing’ and we wanted to go surfing. We found a small rocky point break with 3 foot playful waves peeling for about 50 metres. Just as we were about to paddle out, this large dark grey fin came lazily down the channel towards us, so that was that, the fishermen win.

Back home, we all had stories to tell for the next 3 months and memories to last a lifetime.

Sadly Peter has passed on... RIP Peter 17.02.1948-01.01.2010.... His Legacy Lives On'

Growing up in Amanzimtoti on the KZN Coast, the sea was always an intrugal part of our lives. My friends and I started riding waves in the mid 50’s, first on Plywood Surfboards, then Lilo’s which we could surf and paddle on our knees.

In 1962 at 14 years old, I bought a Wooden Hollow Board from Reece Neilson, which he made the year before at 13 years old. Reece and I were good buddies and it was a sad loss when a month or so later, he was attacked by a shark and died from his injuries. Learning to surf on that board, repairing it and looking after it, inspired me to build my first board in 1963, an Eight Foot Polystyrene Single Fin. It was’nt the masterpiece I hoped for but it surfed o.k. and was less than half the weight of the wooden board. From then on I was hooked on surfing and creating and designing Boards.

By the mid sixties, the surfing craze was going ballistic on a world wide scale, with Polyurethane Foam available, Imported Boards coming in from Australia and USA and a host of emerging Board Builders starting up from Durban to Cape Town.

At that time Board Building was almost a Sacred Art, as there were no manuals around to tell you how to do it. Everybody learnt by ‘trial and error’, imported boards were scrutinized to pick up Design and Manufacturing Tips. Wetteland, Safari and Whitmore were at the forefront of established board building businesses in S.A.

The Boards were more or less standard 9’ to 9’6” Single Fins, with Wide Noses, Square Tails. Bottom Turns and Nose Riding, were the main moves. There were no Leashes so swimming was a big part of surfing.

With the boom in surfing, underground surfing lifestyle industries mushroomed, with mothers, girlfriends sewing up Baggies, Printed T-Shirts and the making of other clothing aligned to surfing, surf music, surf movies, skateboards, beach parties, VW Kombi’s were the vehicle to own, board racks were a necessity, Knobies on your knees or a Wax Rash were things to be proud of and Bleached Hair part of the look.
Overseas Surf Magazines were treated like Gold and studied more intently than school books.

The final years of the Sixties and early Seventies saw the ‘Short Board Revolution’ in full swing. Boards got Shorter, Lighter and more Streamlined, Nose riding took a back seat to ‘Top to Bottom’ Turns, Re-Entries, Floaters, Tube Riding and Cover-Ups became easier with the more responsive boards. Single Fins were still the most popular with a few early Twins, Bonzers and Fish Tail Twins being experimented with.

Throughout this period, I was building four or five boards a month on my parent’s back verandah in my spare time as well as doing many ‘Ding Repairs’. It was a hectic schedule, attending school and later working, surfing most afternoons and all weekend, working on boards and trying to squeeze in ‘girlfriend time’ and parties.

Wedge Surfboards became a ‘Legalized Entity’ in September 1972 when I opened a small 3 roomed workshop in Amazimtoti with the pricey rent of R25,00/month.