THIS week I had the great pleasure of being joined by Torquay surfing royalty and Rip Curl historian Bob Smith. Spin it!
As a surf historian and long-time competitor, you’ve seen every iteration of the Rip Curl Pro. If you could transport the Bells lineup today back to a specific day in the 70s or 80s for just one session, when would it be? 1981 Big Saturday with a men’s and women’s separate expression session. We’d have jet skis for paddling assistance and tow-in speed take offs ensuring continuous action.
Throw down the challenge to surf the biggest beast from way outside Bells, through the button and down through the Winkipop valley. Everyone’s a winner!
Working with the Rip Curl archives, you’ve handled some of the most significant artefacts in Australian surfing. If the building was on fire and you could only grab one piece of memorabilia, what are you saving? 1979 Rip Curl tinkler tail shaped by Wayne Lynch with glassing and lay up coloured single fin by everyone’s great friend Russell Graham Tinkler tails are arguably the rarest and most difficult Australian surfboard to find. The concept is about incorporating flex into a board and based on George Greenough’s flexible spoons. Maurice Cole snapped several trial models out at Bells. The surfing public and manufacturers didn’t get behind them. A Wayne Lynch shaped one is rare, rare, rare.
You’re considered Torquay royalty, but you’ve always maintained that core team rider energy. After thousands of sessions and decades of competition, what is the one thing that still makes you feel like a grommet catching his first wave? Perfectly straight 3-5ft groundswell hitting the local reefs fanned by light offshore NW winds and a low to mid incoming tide. You’ve been a Strapper team rider for four decades. You’ve seen board design go from heavy single-fins to high-performance thrusters and back again. How did your association with Strapper start, and how has the industry changed? Dennis “Strapper” Day was a close personal friend and shaped boards for me at Fred Pyke’s and Klemm Bell’s before setting up Strapper Surfboards in 1976. Current owner Mike Di Sciascio has carried on the legacy. Both are wonderful shapers and friends who I’ve surfed with frequently through my long surfing journey. There is shaping and glassing onsite with subtle refinements, input and positive suggestions on a yearly board update basis. A small cottage industry with surfboards, a block of wax and minimal wetsuits and minor interstate travel has moved on to advanced surfboard and wetsuit technology, specialised accessories and clothing, fin research, online surf reports, public surfboard companies, environmental awareness and the individual search for international surf destinations. It’s changed plenty.
As a historian, you know the stories that didn’t make it into the magazines. What is the most legendary behind-the-scenes moment from the early days of the Rip Curl Pro that defines the true spirit of Torquay surfing? A thousand legendary, hilarious, sometimes outrageous shenanigans – but my lips are sealed! However, in the mid 90s during the Rip Curl Pro, a group of unknown 15-year-old musicians from Newcastle were signed up cheaply for the following Easter event. The single Tomorrow from their first EP became a smash hit followed up by their hugely successful LP Frogstomp just before Easter. That was Silverchair. I was bar manager at the time, and it was like Genghis Khan and his Mongol hordes charging across Bobby Johnson’s paddocks as well all accesses in and out. Hells Bells!
RAPID RIV: I’m coming over for dinner, what are you cooking? Baked fish in curry sauce. Favorite movie? Tombstone, Unforgiven, Pat Garrett and Billy The Kid – a triple dead heat. Favorite song, or album? Bob Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited from 1965. Best surf memory or trip? Hawaiian honeymoon with Noel in March 1998.
