Red Dog Surfboards
I celebrated my first birthday at South Avalon, or so my mum tells me. I can’t remember it. What I can remember is joining North Av Boardriders at the other end of the beach when I was 15. I’d bought my first fibreglass board - a secondhand Lee Riley single fin - shaped for team rider Adam Smith – the year before. I don’t know why I took so long to get serious about surfing. I’d grown up hanging around my Uncle Greg’s Surf Dive ‘n Ski shop, back in the 70’s when surf shops were places where you hung, not necessarily to bend the plastic.
I left school at 17 and started working in ‘85 at the Energy factory, the birthplace of the thruster. The factory had burnt down a couple of years earlier, so the company moved into a new shed in Manly Vale. The place wasn’t as cool as the old Brookvale factory, but was still making quality performance boards.
After a couple of years of fin and filling and polishing, I was keen to get a planer in my hands. One day Simon Anderson popped in to drop off some blanks. I bummed a ride with him back to Avalon. A long friendship began. Simon started to teach me how to shape in the Summer of 85-86. Although they need a bit of refinement, I liked my boards, but didn’t feel confident around Simon. His generation didn’t like cocky kids much. I was still competing then – in the Pro Junior, the APSA and ASP trial events. I left Energy when an opportunity to get more regular work arose at Insight, with Greg Webber, who was the fastest growing shaper in the country at the time. Shane Herring was showing the world that Greg’s heavily rockered boards ripped in the pocket. Production went from 40 a week to 100 in a short time.
Luke Short joined us. Then we got the Channel Island licence. Simon joined us. So did Maurice Cole. I was more of a production manager at the time, selling five of the best shapers in the world. Magic times! At that stage I was surrounded by the best board designers in the world.
I eventually hit out on my own in 1998. I felt the time was right. Everything was about competitive performance boards and I wanted to get a formula of my own.
I’ve been constantly working towards improving and refining the product ever since.
Contact: Red Dog
Website: www.reddogsurfboards.com.au
Address:
1270 Pittwater Rd
Narrabeen, NSW, 2101, Australia
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