After completing the pre-entry course we began our 4 year degree and it couldn't have begun any better. Cameron and i met up on our first day and it was somewhere in the first couple of weeks (i think) that he told me that he found a couple of old boards when he was out fitting truck tyres. He had asked about them and the guys gave them to him. He described one as a longboard with a big sharktooth-type fin and the other as a nice board that was missing the fin. Cameron told me that he was keeping them for me til i could come out to his place to pick them up (he travelled by train for an hour to get to Newcastle Uni).
From what i can remember it took a little while for me to get there for a great dinner of Apricot Chicken made by his lovely wife and when i laid eyes on the boards in the shed i was stoked. The longer board i'll talk about in a future post apart from saying that they were both used as signs once. The big blue early 60's longboard had "Pipeline Bistro" spraypainted on the bottom and the other board (the subject of this post) had "Kahuna" spraypainted on the deck with black spray paint.
The shorter board turned out to be 7'8" in a classic '68-'69 style. My brother and i had already developed a great interest in transition boards and this was a cracker. It was missing the glassed-on fin but apart from that it was in amazing condition with a beautiful yellow colour to the deck and a bright orangey-red bottom and rails. The label is Grove from Brookvale in Sydney and it had a great roll in the bottom with a full nose outline drawing back to a nice pin.
I wound up deciding on having a box put in a month or so later and i still remember some of the early surfs on it for me. I had a great session on it in small Crescent Head during that winter with only a few of us out.
Just recently, new year's eve i think, had a great session on it at Nobbys Reef when we had a solid S swell which surprised everyone in the water i think. I hadn't realised how much swell there was until already out there and i had started thinking i should have ridden a different board when i lost it on my first steeper take-off and had to swim halfway in for it. By the end of the second wave i caught i had no regrets on board selection. It flows so smoothly and was so easy to draw great lines on. i had such a good time riding this board.
Grove holds a special place in our heart here and every time i ride it or think about it i remember Cameron and how grateful i am for a gift that was much more than he probably realised.
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| After having this board for over 10 years, i only recently bothered to remove all of the "Kahuna paint". |
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| After riding it last week. |
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| This board is really flat and paddles very well. Nice roll in the bottom too. |
