Peter Ashley, Torquay’s master glasser retires

Surfboard shapers have always been regarded by their customers as alchemists, wizards who can produce the perfect board to allow them to surf the perfect wave. Master shaper Peter Ashely with his son Stephen in the shaping room. Image by Alison Aprhys.

One such master shaper and glasser, Peter Ashley, has decided to retire so he can spend more time catching waves.

Based in the Australian surf capital of Torquay, Peter has been crafting boards for over half a century. Now hundreds of beautiful surf boards later, he has decided to spend more time catching waves.

Peter started out shaping plywood hollow boards when he was 14. A few years later he was respected as a world-class glasser at Fred Pyke Surfboards, which was then Torquay's first surf factory.

Considered a highly talented and gutsy surfer in the 1960s, Peter can recall paddling into big Bells Beach waves all winter, long before leg ropes and wetsuits were the go. Evidence in the form of a famous Barrie Sutherland image of Peter surfing a leviathan wave at Bells has been on display at Peter’s shop for over 40 years. A modest man, Peter lets his boards do the talking. The result is that many of his customers kept coming back for more. His son Stephen, also a respected surfer who has been shaping with him for many years, will continue to work as a freelancer.

Now an era is coming to a close. For many years, longboards, mals and shortboards bearing Peter’s distinctive yellow hibiscus logo, have been a a popular choice along the Victorian surf coast. And for locals, there will no doubt be a rush to pick up an Ashley surfboard before the end of the month.

We will miss his shaping and glassing, but will look forward to seeing him enjoy more wave time.

Disclaimer - Alison Aprhys bought her very first surfboard, a gorgeous 8’4” mal, from Peter Ashley over 13 years ago.

Keeping the momentum over winter

This post is for those of us needing a bit of inspiration! In Torquay the waves are darned cold at the moment and when the winds blow, you can tell that snow is falling somewhere! Winter can mean you settle into a comfort zone. Whether it's 3 ft a-frames or always surfing your mal on 5 ft point breaks and nothing else, you can find yourself surfing the same beaches and the same waves all the time - and then you wonder why your surfing doesn't improve or maybe even begins to slip a bit.

Once you discover your passion for surfing, it can be a weird mixture of fun and frustration, excitement and exasperation as you struggle to master your surfboard. One friend decided to abandon learnign from mates and take classes. She said that it was heaps more fun than falling off on her own. “Group lessons offered a safety buffer, we would all laugh and choke on water together and it made the surf seem less intimidating”, she recalls. Another decided to make a committment to meet a friend every morning for a surf check as an antidote to staying in bed.
“Having someone to encourage you really helps you persevere, especially through the times when you want to improve and you’d just get too frustrated on your own”.

Another solution is finding a coach to help you improve and have fun out there. Selecting one with the right personality is as important as choosing your surfboard – get the wrong type and you’ll be floundering and miserable. Find one whom you gell with and lessons can become a highlight of your week. Coaches are also good to return to on a regular basis to ensure you don’t lose your momentum.

Alsion's Winter Rules
Surf at least 3-4 times a week - arthritus allowing!
Yoga helps flexibility
Weight training and push-ups assist strength
Watch surfing videos & DVDs for motivation / inspiration
Read 'The Surfer’s Mind' by Richard Bennett
Remember, it's all about having fun!

Vale Karen Van Der Sluis, beloved sursista, 10 June 2009

A wonderful, generous, intelligent, gorgeous woman and surfing gal-pal, Karen was a founding member of the South Steyne Surf Sistas (SSSS), an informal group of female surfers who lived in Manly and whom weather permitting, could be found most days laughing as we caught – and wiped out from - a few waves somewhere along Manly beach.

Karen lived down the road and we met in 2001 while descending the stairs at south Manly one dawn, surfed together and from then saw each other in the water and out, several times a week.

A keen surfer, Karen was devastated when diagnosed with breast cancer.
Do to ongoing treatment she was unable to surf, so the SSSS - Sophie, Laura, Alison, Belinda and Eilidh - decided that every time we went out surfing alone or together, we’d ‘catch a wave for Karen’.
Unfortunately, after her initial diagnosis she was rarely well enough to get back on her beloved surfboard, but was always keen to hear about the waves that the rest of the sistas had been riding.
A 'glass-half-full’ person, Karen was a gifted teacher and was as much an inspiration on the waves as she was in the classroom. A loving mother to Josh and Sarah, who caught the surfing bug from her and her former husband Tony, Karen loved nothing better than taking them to the beach and watching the joy on their faces as they slid doen the face of little waves.

A few years ago, Karen met and married Martin, for whom she said made the sun come out again in her life.

Family and friends are invitedto attend a Celebration of Karen's life to be held in its entirety at St Matthew's Anglican Church, The Corso, Manly, on Monday (June 15, 2009) at 2 p.m.
Prior to the service, a viewing of Karen will be held from1.20 to 1.50 p.m.Karen has requested that, instead of flowers, a collection be taken on the day to support her sponsored child in Indonesia.Karen has also requested no black to be worn at this celebration of her life.

Karen was just 48; a wonderful friend who was much loved by so many and she will be sadly missed wherever and whenever the sistas surf.

Baby, it’s cold outside

Hi my name is Alison and I'm an ice-queen.

Winter has descended onto Torquay.
Not with a roaring, stormy, squally rush, but with a gentle glacial chill.
Despite the lack of wind, the drizzle and plummeting temperature mean that if you haven’t already dusted off your 4/3 steamer, booties, hood and hot-water bottle, it’s only matter of days.
Recently I was getting into my wetsuit (should have suited up before I left the house) at the point car park one wintry Sunday dawn, I overheard a rugged-up-to-the-max dog-walker say to another as they glanced over at me, 'what makes these people go there when it's so bloody cold?'I wanted to call out, “passion, my friend, passion”.
But as I struggled with the back zip and inserted my earplugs, I had to admit that it’s more a heady mixture of passion and sheer bloody determination to down the last of your coffee from the insulated mug, kick off your woolly slippers, shed a toasty polar fleece jumper hastily donned over your PJs to drag on an often still-damp wetsuit, run across sand so cold it burns your feet despite booties and relish the warm (by comparison) ocean.
Although, when an offshore westerly signals snow dumps to cheer the hearts of skiers even as it penetrates your wetsuit, snap-freezes your spine and the waves refuse to break, you do occasionally wonder what in hell’s name you are doing out there.
Sometimes it can be bleak out there in the water with the other desperados, while everyone else appears to be at home reading the weekend papers and enjoying another slice of hot buttered raisin toast. But when the swell arrives, be it at Possos, Juc or places further south, when you paddle those numb hands and catch that icy wave and tear down its glassy face, you wouldn't change your place with kings.
It takes a special kind of person to surf through winter.
OK, I’d like to think that as someone who willingly wakes before five o’clock in the morning twelve months of the year, leaps into their swimmers without even checking the surf report and
despite modern conveniences such as surfcams and online weather reports, bundles her boards, wax, a towel and a yawning husband into the car (not in that order) before driving off to the local beach with supreme confidence that today it will be pumping despite howling winds or hail; I’d like to think that this kind of person is, well, someone cool.
But I suspect it really boils down to being obsessed and as stubborn as all get out.
Sure, it’s easy to rise before dawn during Torquay’s seemingly endless summers and spend the day alternating between the glassy waves and the shade from the wind-twisted trees at Point Danger.
But come that first autumnal hint, then the non-committed turn away from the ocean and take up squash, skiing or footy until November.
Thank goodness.
Like those who purport to follow Richmond, but in reality only cheer them when they are winning, these fickle folk don’t realize what they are missing as winter surf is exhilarating time! Not only are the waves less crowded, they are heaps more fun to ride.
Fewer surfers mean less competition and a far mellower vibe.
Any foolish rivalry, either real or imagined between the tribes shortboarders, longboarders, mal riders, waveskiers, kneeboarders, standup paddlers and bodyboarders, for the most part disappears as we all sit there, hands tucked under armpits, teeth chattering together.
As you bob up and down with your fellow desperados, you feel scorn for those who non-believers who pull into the carpark, shake their heads and return home, warm , dry and without a wave to their name.
Some of the more mature longboarders even don neoprene rubber caps, looking strangely like medieval butchers or extras from ‘Monty Python and the Holy Grail’ as they swiftly paddle past. Perhaps it’s because I learned to surf here in Victoria where the water might be just 10 degrees whilst the wind chill factor you’d swear under oath is no more than 11, that I shake my head at the bleats from my friends in Sydney some 1000 km north, when they complain about winter.
Still, you know how cold it is by the time it takes for your feet to numb up - when you can’t feel your toes; it’s definitely time to paddle in.
Emerging, the wind whips through you as you pelt up the sand.
In the car park you thaw your frozen feet and hands by pouring the remains of the thermos flask contents over them or a specially prepared hot water bottle; the rick is to wrap it in a towel, then plastic bag and place it under your car.
This enables you can defrost your hands to get your keys hanging on a lanyard around your neck and insert it into the car lock without help from strangers passing by), and hurriedly place said towel on the seat so you can drive home rubber-clad. On the days when my husband has the car and I cycle to the beach, I wear gloves so I can maintain grip on the handlebars and coming back, I peddle as hard as I can to get the blood going.
Dashing inside, you jump in the shower, turn the water on hot, hot, hot and are revived in the heat rush.
Later, rugged up and sipping miso soup or tea, then gobbling porridge, crumpets or poached eggs (some days you feel so starved you’d consume it all) by the fire, you relive every wave and email or text your girlfriends about the amazing rides you caught, wiped out on and the Harvey wallbanger sunrise you were privileged to witness.
Who cares about mortgages, the falling economy, your idiot boss or newspaper headlines?
Its winter waves ahoy.
The surf is up and so are my spirits.

Not The Dream Tour…taking the rose-tinted glasses off pro surfing

Surfing for a living…ah.
I can feel the sun disappear as I glide into long Bells barrel.
As I emerge after what seems an age, the loudspeaker booms congratulations as the judges award me a 9.2, Gilmore looks furious and Layne gives ma thumbs-up from the beach. Walking up the sands through the cheering crowds, execs from leviathan companies rush up, all eager to sign me on to amazing sponsorship deals and Santa Claus royalties.
A life of endless summers awaits…
That crash you just heard was me hitting a reality check.
Writing this from my office in Jan Juc, any view of the ocean today obliterated by autumnal fog and more than my newspaper deadlines, (alas money and talent lead the list) prohibit me from packing up my boards, buying a ticket, leaving my husband a note reminding him to feed the cat and chickens and heading off to surfing fame and fortune.
And after reading Tunnel Vision: the true story of my probably insane quest to become a professional surfer by Margaret River local Sullivan McLeod, I’m not sure it’s the dream life so many of us think.
After a surfing mate at Reuters (thanks Jim) put me onto this book, (which opens opens with the line “I decided to become a professional surfer a few years ago in a sauna in Norway”) I've been thinking long and hard about what it takes to make the WQS, let alone the hallowed waves of the WCT.
And despite reporting on all kinds of surfing topics, events and profiles for over decade, I really had no idea that it was so easy…well, not easy but let’s say uncomplicated, to go on the WQS.
You pays your money to register, you commit to competing, you attend the events and surf and you get rated.
Yep, that’s how it works.
Of course there’s a million more factors, mostly things that an go wrong, such as being jailed, living out of suitcases, lost luggage, missing flights, losing boards, stolen wallets, hangovers, weird competitors, you name it.
Not to mention actually surfing.
By the end of 2006, McLeod was rated 567th on the WQS – he’d actually put his money where his mouth was and had a crack at something most of us only admit to after our 3rd wine or 8th beer.
Tunnel Vision is a fly-on-the-wall look at the surfing events and athletes that don’t make the covers of Tracks or Surfer magazines; who aren’t up on the podium holding up the trophy while bookmarked by bikini-babes; who live on rice and veggies while sharing dodgy hotel rooms, loan and borrow gear and strive and suffer to get points, keep form and overcome all the head-games that the lower levels of pro-surfing demands. It’s certainly not the flash life that so many dream of as they paddle out at Kirra, Yalls, Winki or Narra.
So the next time you fantacise about throwing in your IT job or plumbing apprenticeship and having a go at the good life as enjoyed by Steph and Mick, grab a copy of Tunnel Vision first. And if do decide to chase the dream, it's a good look at what could be ahead.
It’s a fun and sometimes sobering tale and should be compulsive reading for anyone contemplating the WQS - or looking for an excuse not to.
http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.aspx?page=94&book=9781741757132

Every surf day is mother’s day – surfing mums

On Sunday 10 May 2009 - Mother’s Day in Australia – many surfers will follow their usual ritual; come back from their dawn patrol, drink some coffee, enjoy some poached eggs on spinach toast and then ring their mums.
But even so, a few surfers won’t call until closer til lunchtime, and not because their mums are sleeping in.
Or that they can’t be bothered.
Far from it.
For quite a few of them will be ripping at beach near you.
And many of them will belong to http://www.surfingmums.com/
So here's the low down on this quiet revolution...
According to the Surfing Mums website, it’s “not only the dream but the need to surf that is like needing the air we breath or the water we drink. As a surfer before children, we were only limited by our work, or by other commitments, but there was always some time during the day when you could make it down to the surf. Then we had children and suddenly we had a 24 hour 7 day a week commitment, children didn’t give us time off for an early or late surf, they sure didn’t care when the surf was good and we would have been happy with just a 20 minute paddle. No these little bundles of joy did not give any leave way for a surfing mum. Sure we got the occasional paddle on weekends when a partner or friends would look after our little ones, but was that really enough? It was not enough for two women living in a town blessed with endless waves and one of the most perfect right handers in Australia”.

Now a national movement, Surfing Mums began when Vanessa and Julia who live in Byron Bay on the East Coast of Australia decided that motherhood while a privilege, was no going to mean that wave riding passed them by. So the two friends set up a partnership where one mum would watch the two children on the beach while the other one got in a 30 minute surf, and vice versa. This saw them go from the occasional desperate surf to surfing everyday.
Of course word soon got around town so Surfing Mums was formed.

According to SM, parents often "how will I know if my child is safe while I am in the water?". Sm's advise that geitgn involved is the best way to judge.
"The only way to do this is to form the relationships with the other mums before you start 'beach sitting'. Meet up a few times on the beach before you leave your child with your new surfing mum friend, then maybe start with a few short sessions, as your confidence builds you'll soon be surfing for up to an hour before its your turn to swap and let the other mum go out for a surf.", they advise.
The SM website allows you to meet other mums in the Forum section, or check out if anyone in your area has similar profiles to yours in the profile section. Catch up on surfing news that relates to women or kids in the articles, or surf reports for your area.
Surfing Mums Inc is a not for profit association that supports a network of mums that surf and who meet at the beach to alternate childcare duties enabling mums to enjoy some time in the surf.
Surfing Mums Inc groups are situated where ever mothers surf and involve mothers of varying surfing abilities and different surf crafts (longboards, shortboards, bodyboards, kneeboards, stand up paddle boards bodysurfing etc), and mothers of children of different ages (from 1 day old-18 years).
Surfing Mums encourage fathers and other careers to belong to the groups. The association is valid in Australia and New Zealand only.
http://www.surfingmums.com

Born to be Wilde

Sean Wilde handshaped boards are putting the soul back into surfing

“I’m not a ‘cowabunga’ surfer”, states Sean Wilde as he slowly smoothes down a rail on a custom longboard. Glancing up, he smiles and explains that he’s more low-key. Indeed, Sean is well known on the Sydney northern beaches and increasingly beyond, as a creator of beautiful, high quality longboards that he lovingly shapes by hand. While many surfboard manufacturers, from the leviathan to the backyard, have taken to using DSD (digital surfboard design computer software), Sean continues to put soul into his surfboards, choosing to restrict his output in order to maintain his high standards of quality.
“I consider a board a work of art not just a sporting item”, he says.
At 5.30 am on a summer weekday at north Avalon and the usual dawn patrol crew are pulling up to check the waves. Michael Meadows leans against his car and quickly scans the ocean to assess the swell. Satisfied that all is as it should be, he unties his surfboard from the roof rack and deftly starts waxing up a Wilde longboard.
“We share the same philosophy in board design”, he says.
“Sean’s boards are crafted not mass produced, they are individual to the rider and have an amazing quality”, he says.
Michael, who has been surfing some 32 years, met Sean through the Palm Beach Longboarders, a chilled-out group of surfers known for their friendly attitude and cool wave riding style.
“I’ve a couple of Sean’s boards in my quiver and have been his boards for a few years”. When he decides on new board, he and Sean sit down and debate what features are required such as if it to a board for maneuvers such as nose-riding in a competition or is for free (non-competitive) surfing.
“It’s a joint effort, a discussion where we talk about what I’d like and what he thinks works best”, explains Michael.
Watching him paddle out with his mate David Mitchell who also surfs a Wilde, it’s obvious that the boards fir their style like a glove. They swoop energetically down the wave face, now hanging five, now turning down the undulating green swell.
At just 36, Sean’s longboards are highly coveted by surfers all over Australia and he is as highly regarded as many who have been shaping some 20 years longer. His boards are ridden by several surfers including northern beaches surfers Leesa and Lars Laug. Leesa, who competes on the Australian women’s pro-am longboard circuit, is at 5’1”, dwarfed by her board on the beach, but once she catches a wave, her petite figure easily guides it through many spectacular waves and maneuvers.
“I started looking at surfing magazines when I was about 12 in Sydney”, he recalls. “My uncle who surfed in the 1960s took me down to Cronulla beach and from the first wave I caught, I thought it was all pretty cool”.
His first surfboard was a 6’1” twin fin. “It was a backyard board (so called as it was made by an amateur) with no logo, so even then I was not into mainstream board riding”, he says. However he admits he was becoming obsessed with surfing and would spend hours looking at boards and wondering at their construction.
Undeterred when he dinged it, Sean went out a bought a book on surfboard repair and so unwittingly started off on the journey that would make his career.
“When I was 16, my dad got a transfer to the US and we ended up living at Huntington Beach in California”, says Sean. At first he did not want to go because he loved Australia and surfing with his mates but he soon changed his mind when on arrival, his new school had surfing on the curriculum as sport. “The school surf team was number one in the state the as soon as the surfing coach heard my Aussie accent, he assumed I must be really good”, recalls Sean with amusement.
“He sent me out to surf with the top six surfers in this massive eight foot swell and we had the paddle out through the pier pylons”, he says shaking his head. Sean may not have made the team, but his solid expertise in ding repairs quickly gained him serious cred with his new school mates.
“One my teachers introduced me to a friend who needed someone to help out with surfboard repairs”, says Sean. “This guy did all the local surf shops and I ended up doing 100 ding repairs a week after school”, he says. Sean credits the intense part-time work with exposing him to an enormous variety of board shapes and designs. “It was great being able to see how different designs came together, different constructions and manufacture and what made a good or a bad board.
An ephifany occured when Sean made his first board after deciding it was just the gift for his girlfriend Renee’s 19th birthday.
“It came out quite well for a first effort”, he says modestly.
It must been a ripper because she later married him.
“I thought well, maybe I can make a career out of this”.
This led to Sean then shaping a board for himself. When a mate borrowed it after snapping his own during a contest then went on to win, it gave Sean tremendous confidence. A short while later, another friend who was opening a surf store in Equator asked Sean to supply his business.
“It was perfect timing and a great experience”, he says.
After making around 1,000 boards, Sean felt it was time to move on. A couple of shaping jobs later, a neighbour needing assistance with his work at the Robert August surfboard factory recommended Sean.
“At the time, Endless Summer 2 had just come out and they were flat chat”, says Sean. He couldn’t believe his luck in working for one of the longboard icons. “You can’t turn that kind of opportunity down!” he says.
However, it was a baptism of fire when Sean found that he was expected to shape 15 four-stringer boards. (A stringer is the wooden strip that lies in the centre of the surfboard and gives it both strength and flexibility). Most boards have a single stringer, so four stringer boards are a real test of a craftman's workmanship and ability.
“I worked really late all week thinking I can’t let them down and I have to prove myself”, he says. “l could see the opportunity of working with Robert August through this intense apprenticeship as his factory produced every kind of surfboard from shortboards all the way through to big longboards”, he says. “They also made many different pro-surfer models under license for brands such as Corky Carroll and Mike Doyle”.
In the afternoons after work, Sean and his colleagues would have a beer and he loved hearing all the stories of surfing Hawaii and California in the old days before surfing became the mega-million business it is now.
It was an exhilarating time and Sean who was just 22, was stoked to be chosen to make boards for surfing icon Paul Strauch Jr. “Straugh invented the bottom hand turn! And Robert ‘Wingnut’ Weaver, (Robert August’s exuberant co-star in Endless Summer 2) was a good guy because although well-known, he was young and I could relate to him on a different level” says Sean with enthusiasm.
However, by 1996, Sean and his wife Renee decided to move to Australia.
“We would come back for holidays and think this is a lot better; there’s less people, better surf and less crowded waves, so we decided to move back”.
Sean moved over first and he stayed with his folks while looking for someone they could live, work and surf.
“I wanted to find a place that I loved, close to a surfing hub”, he says.
At that stage Sydney’s Brookvale and Mona Vale on the northern beaches were the two main areas where surfing businesses had congregated since the late 1950s. His brother drove him to Avalon and as soon as they pulled into the car park, Sean knew this was it.
“I approached Robert and said I want to move back to Oz, how about I do the RA boards there; they had someone in Japan and Europe and he said that would be great”.
While Renee sorted out their move, Sean flew over to Sydney with Robert to a barrage of publicity.
“It was the first time Robert had been back since the original Endless Summer in 1963 so we got a lot of media coverage”, he says. The due also went around to the main surfing stores and received a deluge of orders. But two years on, making boards under license fulltime and shaping his own brand part-time made Sean realize that his dream was to simply make his own boards. “I realized that I also disliked wholesaling to surf shops due to the small margins and many shops wanting boards done their way, so at some point I appreciated that I’m not happy unless I make boards my way”, he says.
“Reaching a nexus where I had all this knowledge and experience, I didn’t need to keep doing other people’s boards, I could do own thing”.
What defines a Sean Wilde board?
Walking around his shaping studio in Mona Vale, Sean explains that he does not like the marketing be a major feature, for example he’s not into massive logos on boards, preferring the shape, pigments and tints to tell the story. They have a classic, yet refined looks; imagine a cool 60’s board with a modern twist.
Sean admits that for him, the worst part of the job is when a potential client wants a board that does not fit in with his philosophy. “If a customers wants a custom board that I know is against all my principles, then I’d prefer not to make it”, he gently explains. “I admit that as I get older I get more set in my ways and if someone does not like my ideas, then they don’t have to buy them you can buy another board – I don’t force anyone to buy mine”. However, he agrees that most of his customers come to him because they are in agreement with his board designs which range from retro to neo.
“Luckily the majority of people who come to me leave the final outcome it up to me”, he says. “They might suggest colours they might suggest colours
“Before shaping I like to watch them surf”, he adds. Sean also asks them key questions about type of surfer they are and want to be, their current surfboard and what they like and dislike about it.
“My output is currently two boards a week and now I have found an excellent glasser whom I really trust, I want to boost that up to five”, he says.
And when the call of the ocean lures Sean away from his work, he can do so with a clear conscience.
“If we bludge work to go surfing, then it’s definitely customer research and development”, he says with a grin. “I don’t know how many times I have gone off work for a surf and have met someone who wants a board like the one I have out there”, he explains. “My dream would be that one day to have a house overlooking a point break with a shaping shack out the back”, he says.

Sean Wilde Surfboards 0405 254 497

This article first appeared in Australian Sea Change