Twenty Years That Changed Everything: The Shapers of Cronulla, 1963–1983

Stand on the Point today and watch the lineup. Nearly every board out there, whether it's a thruster, a twin or a mid-length, owes something to a twenty-year stretch when surfboard design changed faster than at any time before or since. Between 1963 and 1983, the modern surfboard went from a heavy nine-and-a-half-foot plank you walked up and down to a light, three-finned shortboard built to turn. A lot of that experimenting happened in small factories and backyard sheds, including plenty right here in the Shire.

Our new Cronulla Surf Design Shapers Tee is a tribute to that era. The front traces fourteen board designs in sequence, and the back links each one to a Cronulla shaper and label. Those shapers, together with labels like Jackson, Gordon and Smith, Peter Clarke, Graham King, Emerald, Southern Comfort, Colour of Thought and Force 9, played a big role in developing local talent, building the surf industry and pushing the limits in the water on our world-class local waves. Some of them are still around today, living the lifestyle they love.

Dylan and Laurie Cronulla Reefs Photo: Brad Whittaker

For Cronulla, a key turning point was in late 1956, when a team of American lifeguards in Australia for the Melbourne Olympics brought their light balsa Malibu boards to our beaches. A young Wanda clubbie named Brian "Jacko" Jackson watched Greg Noll and the crew riding across the waves off Cronulla Point, then went home and glued together balsa offcuts, shaped them with a tomahawk and made Bobby Brown a board. It was so heavy Bobby and his brothers couldn't carry it home. From those backyard beginnings, Jacko moved into a factory at Taren Point, and Jackson Surfboards became Cronulla's longest-running label. The 1963 Malibu at number one on our tee kicks off the move to foam which made the surfboard lighter and more responsive compared to the heavy timber and balsa boards. Jacko passed away in 2021 aged 85 but the brand continues to this day. 

Jacko at his Crescent Head surf pad Photo: John Veage

Jacko wasn't alone. Graham Ferris opened the first surfboard factory in Taren Point, and in 1966 Floyd Smith, co-founder of San Diego's Gordon and Smith, arrived and started making boards locally, teaching a new generation of shapers along the way. Brookvale might get the headlines, but the Taren Point and Caringbah industrial strip became the south side's own surfboard alley. It's where much of the shortboard revolution played out for Shire surfers, from vee bottoms and side slippers in the late '60s onward.

By the early '70s, the shortboard revolution had become a free-for-all of ideas, and the Shire's factories were right in it. Laurie "Froggy" Byrne's Frogman Shaker for Jackson, Frank Latta's twin fins for Graham King, Billy York's wing pintails for Southern Comfort and Terry Bishop's stingers for Gordon and Smith were all trying to answer the same question: how do you make a short board go fast and still turn hard?

Few people pushed that question further than Peter Townend. The young Coolangatta surfer moved to the Cronulla area around 1973 to shape and do promotional work for Gordon and Smith at Taren Point, which by the mid-'70s was the name brand on the south side. He brought the Bonzer with him. Developed by the Campbell brothers in California, the Bonzer paired a centre fin with two small side keels and deep double concaves through the tail, one of the first serious experiments with three fins. PT had shaped his first one in Coolangatta using specs from his friend Mike Eaton, then kept refining the design at G&S. Out in the water, he soon had the Point wired, and his tube riding inspired a generation of local surfers. In 1976, at 23, PT became professional surfing's first world champion, taking the title through consistency rather than contest wins, and shaping for G&S between events. He then teamed up with Ian Cairns to form the Bronzed Aussies, helping turn surfing into a profession. For a time, the world champion was riding boards made in the Shire.

Peter Townend at Cronulla Point, mid-'70s. Photo: Steve Core.

The tee ends where the modern era begins. Jim Lucas founded Force 9 at Taren Point in 1981, just as Simon Anderson's three-fin thruster was taking over the world. Its boards were soon under the feet of local pros like Gary Green, who took his surfing onto the world tour. The Square Back Attack at number fourteen, shaped by Wayne Roach, captures that early-'80s moment: a squared-off tail giving three fins a wide, stable platform to drive from. More than four decades later, Jim is still running Force 9, and boards are still being shaped by hand in the Shire.

Today, technology and innovation have modernised the manufacturing process, and the skill of shaping an entire board by hand may one day become a lost art. The back-breaking hours of planing and sanding in a hot, dusty factory so others can enjoy their saltwater fix can be a thankless pursuit. Yet there is something special and beautiful about turning a raw, thick chunk of foam into a sleek, handcrafted surfboard.

That's why we made this tee: to put those names back where they belong, next to the design changes they were part of, so the next generation surfing the Point, the Alley, the Wall or Greenhills knows the lineage.

We know there were many more shapers and labels from this era, but we've had to narrow it down to some of the household names who shaped through this period. If you rode one of these boards, shaped in one of these factories, or have an old photo or story from the era, we'd love to hear from you. Drop us a line or tag us. This history belongs to the whole Cronulla surf community.

The limited edition Cronulla Surf Design Shapers Tee is available now in white and washed grey exclusively from our online store, while stocks last.