Col Smith, off the lip. Photo: McLeod-Aitionn.
Crockett asserts the evolution of surf culture aligned with currents of social awareness and politics.
“In the background was the whole psychedelic flower-power movement that was sweeping through student politics and youth consciousness. Kids were questioning the Government and were fearful of being drafted to Vietnam.”
“There was a whole different attitude sweeping through surf culture, which in part was being driven by a different type of surfing…there was this new ethic of wanting to push the cultural boundaries. There was a very staunchly anti-contest, anti-commerce thread running through surf culture at the time.”
“The ’70s started to produce some really hot surfers and some really good designers. Ted Spencer was designing a surfboard for Shane Stedman called the White Kite and interestingly it was a pop out, a mass produced board. Shane Stedman, the industrial engineer with an eye for factory line production, flooded the market with the Shane Standard which was despised by everyone, but obviously incredibly popular and a lot of the younger surfers that blossomed in the late ’70s started out on a Shane Standards, like Tom Carroll.”
“1974 was the turning point, it was the end of this hippie drug foiled era and the arrival of big money in a big surfing contest in Sydney, the Coke Surfabout. It seemed to signal the end of a reclusive period in surfing.”
“The Northern Beaches were a huge test pilot area for board makers…which in turn seemed to ignite a new interest in the surfing press. Surfing World had a re-invigoration under Hugh McCleod and Bruce Channon from 1973-74 and Tracks was taken over by Phil Jarratt, who took the politics and spiritualism out of Tracks and focused it back on surfing. Anyone surfing throughout the late ’70s would definitely see Surfing World and Tracks as the megaphones of surf culture.”
“It was no surprise that in the last few years of the decade the boards were getting faster, more radical, more interesting. Simon Anderson’s Thruster appeared in 1980, he formed up his three finned fat bottomed surfboard and rode it to victory in three big contests in 1981; Bells, Surfabout and Pipe Masters.”
How do you perceive the resurgence of retro surf culture?
“People are remembering a time when surfing had an innocence. I think they’re remembering those ideas of rebellion, adventure and that kind of tribal nature of surfing in the ’60s and ’70s. Mainstream society didn’t really ‘get’ surf culture until after the ’80s.”
“Its also a bit of a reaction to the huge commercial clutter that surrounds surfing today, I think people are harking back to a time when surfing was much more about the experience of surfing. When surfing was not about performance, it was about being in the water and enjoying that interaction…I guess they are kind of honouring the spirit of the late ’60s and early ’70s when surfers were detaching themselves from society and really exploring what’s going on in your mind when you surf and why you surf, not how you surf.”
“The present resurgence in soul surfing is very much about finding out what it is about surfing that makes it so special, so unique.”
Read more from Bridget Reedman at Coastalwatch.
