Endorsement of the ECSR Proposal by Wayne Dale 

 

One of the first guys who got me going into what became my lifelong trade and surfing style was John Arnold, who was first associated with surf lifesavers such as Jimmy Miller [ of Chiton Rocks ],Bob Bruce [ of Port Elliot ], and Bruce Keelan. Bruce's daughter Mel became State Women's Champion. 

John caught up with Wayne Lynch just in January in Byron to talk about days old and new. 

Going back to the '60s some of the earliest riders on the Encounter Coast were the Nurrangawi Boardriders, and also some of the very first to surf Cactus. 

I started out at Middleton with my two brothers next in age. We lived at weekends at Aldinga Beach and would surf Gull Rock in the morning, and head to Middleton in the afternoon. 

The only others we knew regularly there were the Nurrangawi guys. they tried Waits but their longboards were not suited, and backed off after one member, "Arab", nearly lost his life there. 

While riding I was thinking about the way the board inter acted with the wave, and how it performed on the sections. My first decent board was a McDonough McDooley with thinner, higher-density rails. 

That influenced my riding and thinking approach to surfing, especially on on the Encounter Coast with its range of breaks. 

To pursue my approach I joined John Arnold as a shaper when invited by Malcolm Lock who had seen a board I had built for my brother. 

I worked with Kym Thomson, a member of the original Seaview Road Boardriders who rode Middleton and Day Street, and now is chief builder with Cobra in Thailand. 

Apart from my own thoughts, the big influence on me in shaping boards generally and in particular for the EC was WAYNE LYNCH.

I went to Lorne and worked with Wayne in his father's shed there, along with George Greenough, who could make sections on his kneeboard that we could not on the surfboards of the time 

So we brought the size right down to 5'6", giving superior speed and control. i drove Wayne back to Adelaide to meet JA, and they arranged his sponsorship from there, and began their association. 

I brought with me templates of the designs that we had produced,and adapted my own designs from there. 

At George's urging,and following his example at Winkibob, we three put out designs for the shorter, steeper breaks of the Ocean and Encounter Coasts, where it was necessary for the board [thru its design] to generate optimum speed on critical wave sections, AND provide control at those points. For Greenmount and the Gold Coast, the design must control the speed that the wave has already given you. 

Wayne was fanatical about fins----the foils, the shape, the size, the position. I learned from Wayne that 

these gave the more important element of control to the better riders, to allow them to adapt the new boards of that era, and ever since, to the bigger swells such as Waits and Parsons, and the winter swells of Middleton and Day Street, along with Bells etc. in Vic, and the bigger Pacific swells of North Narabeen, Curl Curl,and such. 

In 1967 Wayne Lynch came to this coast and said he did not want to poke about at Middleton, he wanted the challenge of Waits. I started going there regularly with him and my brother Barry, which led to Waits and then Parsons being re-jigged as "go to" spots for experienced local and visitor riders. I have read his statement in support and think that it springs in part from the  response of  the EC to Wayne's desire for challenge here. 

I set my workshop as a board maker at Port Elliot on the EC in 1973., and worked for many years until retirement some years back. I now work with timber rather than fibreglass. I live just above Waits in the open country. I still surf Middleton, Surfers and Day Street and am happy to endorse the bid of the ECSR Steering C'tee. There is a vibrant surf culture here, exemplified by the iconic Gerry Wedd in physicality and culture. 

This Coast offers a wonderful range of breaks, from Parsons, Waits and King's Head in the West, Shark Alley and The Pines [ rarely ] in the centre, and Eastward from The Dump thru Chiton Rocks, Boomer [ Bullies ],Knights, Chicken Run, Frenchmans, Middleton Point, Middleton, and so on past Day Streets, Surfers to Goolwa Beach and even beyond to  The Mouth. 

These breaks are surfed regularly by dedicated local surfers and visitors in the know, and are worthy of comparison to Daly Heads and Cactus [ Point Sinclair ], and the Victorian breaks on the Ocean Coast. 

 

Wayne Dale