Close To Perfection - High On A Cool Wave (1968)

[@chris-bd1wg]

The golden age of Australian surfing. So cool 😎

[@surffilmarchive]

Thanks. Please subscribe. We have plenty more coming!

[@alexerrington6420]

Lest we forget Peter Troy!!!

[@petersheely7246]

Morning of the earth number one 👍😎

[@squirewinter7186]

🤙1974..I found Padang by swimming after my board from Uluwatu...no legie..rip carried it all the way...2 yanks were minding it..

[@Aidan.17]

For the keen eyed this video contains something extraordinarily rare. Wow thanks for sharing.

[@surffilmarchive]

Subscribe for more nuggets from the birth of Aussie Surfing.

[@davidyabsley2629]

Blast from the past. My best friend was friends with Bob McTavish's sister when they were both at Teachers' College, Kedron or Kelvin Grove, Brisbane in 1966 or 67. I surfed with Geroge Greenough in Port Vila Vanuatu (the New Hebrides) around 1974 (I think) even thought I had no idea how famous George was.

[@surffilmarchive]

Classic memories. Thanks for sharing. Please subscribe to help the channel. We have some cool clips on the way.

[@Bikerman2022]

Lynne McTavish. She's still alive and living in Sydney when not travelling OS.

[@davidyabsley2629]

@@Bikerman2022 Yes Lynne, thank you. My friend was Paul O'Neil who was killed in 1974.

[@saltydog3099]

My uncle Bonza Conneely talks a lot about these days..... thanks nice footage.... I was 1st there 7 years after this, stayed in the surf club on the beach....

[@surffilmarchive]

You lived it. How lucky. Still plenty of adventures for the young ones to have. Just gotta go looking!! 😀

[@saltydog3099]

@@surffilmarchive for sure mate, I have now lived in a remote village for 20 years, not a surfer for 100 miles, and are still enjoying the ocean...... life's short, make it worth it! Thanks for the video, epic brudda!

[@Paul-g9c6m]

Grew up in the sixties Golden age. What happened 😬

[@saltydog3099]

@@Paul-g9c6m CIA assassinated Harold Holt and started their stranglehold on Canberra, Globalization and Whitlam signed the Lima agreement thinking it as a good thing, maybe in theory.... CIA got rid of him when he wanted to keep big company profits in Oz, Blackrock formed in the 80's, monopolized the world with the banking cartels and there you have it, exactly what happened 🤣

[@WillyCLARKE-g8c]

Classic. I'm from Santa Barbara.

[@anthonystratton4941]

Me too. Surfed with these guys at Rincon and La Conchita. Film maker had no idea of who George was obviously.

[@paulschofield2630]

Thanks 😊 we love this 😀 ❤ 😊

[@surffilmarchive]

Thanks so much. Please share. We need as many people as possible to subscribe so we can build the channel. Heaps more to come!

[@tommyboyce]

Magical

[@surffilmarchive]

Absolutely!

[@philliplaplante8086]

I’m a Yank from Newport Beach, California. I surfed Noosa in 2004. It’s a super cool little beach town next to a beautiful natural preserve with a perfect set up. A point that breaks in to a cove. I highly recommend it!

[@surffilmarchive]

haha. Phil Jarrett says don't come! But it's true a stunning place and beautiful wave.

[@philliplaplante8086]

@@surffilmarchive sorry I exposed the secret spot! 🤫🤦🏻‍♂️🇳🇿

[@t-dog8528]

I met Bob a few times through my old boss who's a friend of Bob's, genuinely nice guy soft spoken always had a cheeky smile nice bloke.

[@surffilmarchive]

Bob is a true legend, gentleman and inspiration!

[@briseboy]

He was hilarious, inventive, and sucked into the whirlpool of jehovah's Witnesses for a time. My brother ran into him in Qland much later, while heading north to new Caledonia & Vanuatu, and told me he seemed alright (again. He influenced my brother Ed in design, on the North Shore). Humans CAN bounce back from the most debilitating things!

[@Simon.the.Likeable]

Rashaan Roland Kirk's Serenade to a Cuckoo, very cool.

[@MrMysto]

Its like the pass with skill added

[@MrTimeXTime]

First it’s George kneeboarding and in the Process Revolutionizing surfboard design. Hull/Rail/length/radical carving/deeper than anyone dreamed and so much more. He changed surfing more than anyone else. Period.

[@surffilmarchive]

Interestingly this is before the spoon right!

[@briseboy]

@@surffilmarchive His flexible boards absent foam so that the board itself would bend at the rear rail, sent both McTavish and others off to experiment with fin flexes. That also occurred in wavesailing much later. The original, so far as I know, Bob Simmons use of twin fins in the early 1950s, much later affected the use, even when boards were still as large as those pictured. I won't waste time going into the separate developers, although their influence exists in very modern boards. But the flexible rear rails, not lending flotation, were influential in the efforts of some skilled surfers in working stylistically toward turning that did not involve deceleration.

[@mozdickson]

Rather than the obsession with the nose ride 😅 👍

[@boboharradine2673]

Lot of Portas in that area now, sadly its a area in Australia you see this, like the waves, and believe me there's a lot of them

[@alpacifico2176]

Big gum tree in the first part of the film is still there,nat rides noosa just as good as harry

[@surffilmarchive]

Love that. We'll say hello to it on the weekend when we're there for the screening on Saturday :)

[@davidtettleton2732]

My memory of there was giant sandwich munching lizards and lots of guys on surf skis...79

[@Joe-pc1ju]

just 1 wave at noosa and i am stoked

[@surffilmarchive]

Us too :)

[@DougCreager]

I always thought George Greenough was so cool.

[@surffilmarchive]

We all do!!!

[@jarnosaarinen4583]

these days George is an Aussie!

[@surffilmarchive]

We think so!

[@SidewaysSurfDrinksHQ]

No wetties in the middle of a Qld “winter” 😂

[@surffilmarchive]

Who needs 'em! 😂

[@rosco1pug]

and no leg ropes, anywhere around the country. More chance for a share of the waves back in the day

[@anthonystratton4941]

Snazzy haircut George. Can I ask why we are only shown Nat on a kneeboard? And for the young ones, explain why these two, listening to George, changed surfing forever.

[@surffilmarchive]

We think this footage nearly captures the exact moment!!

[@Bikerman2022]

He is the real father of the short board. Don't forget his down rails, rocker and revolutionary fin designs

[@mozdickson]

Nat is the first surfer featured on a long board mate

[@briseboy]

George cut his own hair, just as he continued developing his own designs at least through century's end. His hard rails hidden under the thin rounded rails seemingly pioneered by Midget or in his ingroup, remain a revelation. (I never did understand why he didn't just stand up. Perhaps it was the tiny waves of Fernald's and commonly small Sandspit and other breaks, until ) George designed his glass bubble nosed boats and frequented admittedly commonly small Ranch up to Vandenburg, and Channel Islands. He was ordinarily spending 6 months in Australia in any case, for years to decades making new discoveries in West Oz - even as McCabe was telling about Bali, and the sailors were finding Indo, Fiji, etc. THe French, when they weren't doing crazy drugs, probably first got to Mauritius and Reunion, though itwas Ozzies who first reported Mauritius.

[@pubgutt2076]

I first surfed A Bay Noosa in 1979, still surfing Noosa when I can, over the years, back in the day, during the weeks I've surfed Granite, Tea tree, Boiling Pot, National's, Johnson's over head, on my own off shore pumping no hustling back then 🏄‍♂️ Now the only problem is, the "younger want to be wave riders," need to learn & earn respect for their elders & them selves.

[@surffilmarchive]

That's an epic memory. Thanks for sharing. Please subscribe. Plenty more clips coming.

[@clacclackerson3678]

Jazz flute

[@andrewstapley7581]

Roland kirk

[@robinbanks610]

68’ I was a 10 yo grom😂

[@surffilmarchive]

Amazing. Must have been epic!! Or are we looking through Rose coloured glasses! Thanks for you support 😊

[@briseboy]

It was interesting to claim the Australians were not obsessed with nose riding when in fact almost all the footage shows opposite. As a product of reefs and some larger, but not huge, waves, I found nose riding boring by age 16, and the ridiculous boards, as seen in this video, with their huge broad blunt noses not at all functional. I note that it was Midget Farrelly who first sought light weight. George certainly emphasized maneuverability in finding the insides of barrels. One tires of false presentations of ANY period not present. The problem appears to be the common worship of names, rather than learning to surf well and with actual control and style.

[@Tyt55]

No respect for Nat, aggressive drop in merchant!