Winter Edition 2020
Greenroom magazine was created to inspire inform and celebrate the Noosa Surf comunity. Inspiring people by showcasing the amazing talent both in and out of the water, informing people by having articles that showcase another side to the locals lives, and celebrate the Noosa surf culture because why not when the beaches are full of history and amazing talent. All images included are sorced by local photographers and are of locale surfers.
Ellie Capurso
5 6 8 11 Jack in the Ba Jack in the y Water
Watching and Learning
smaller board faster bigger waves
Sunshine at it’s Best
@wensurfphotography @alexvkmedia @alexvkmedia @tonynoosa @woodygphoto @fennadeking @wensurfphotography
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Surfing the Antartic
Stepping Back...
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Covid and the Surfing Industry 3
Watching and Learning It’s often said that experience is the best teacher, but the experiences of other people may be even better. If you saw a friend get chased by a neighborhood dog, for instance, you would learn to stay away from the dog without having to undergo that experience yourself.
Same thing goes with surfing, if you see someone do something, over and over again, slowly you’ll catch on and in no time you too will be able to do the same thing. This is esspecially easy when your learning to surf at Noosa, because of its wave pool like repetiveness, and dozens of talented surfers its hard to not learn.
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Bringing the classroom to the shaping bay
Did you know that surfboard manufacturing is in the pilot stages of becoming a trade qualification?
Dylan, like many established crafts-
of shaping bays and glassing rooms—
been making boards for decades.
grommets get paid loose change to
that everyone will have to rush out and
places where training modules and
‘If people don’t want to do it they don’t
cussed alongside the merits of a good
the NSW Department of Industry, who
antics at the pub last Friday. But does
‘What we’re about is trying to set
industry of surfboard manufacturing
because one of the issues when we
regulations and a bunch of newbies
benchmark in the industry to support
men in the surfboard manufacturing industry, has heard of the trade but has little idea of what it entails, or,
more importantly, what it means for
That’s right, the once lawless provinces
people like himself who’ve already
where nude posters line the walls and
Thankfully, the widely-feared notion
sweep up foam—are about to become
get accredited is not a likely scenario.
competency assessments are dis-
have to,’ says Damon McCarthy from
single-to-double concave and Peanut’s
helped map out the pilot program.
this mean the previously ungoverned
some benchmarks and standards,
is about to be swamped by rules,
were looking into it was that there’s no
who on paper are more qualified
what people can and can’t do.’ At present, the pilot program consists of a Certificate III in Engineering Composites Trade, which basically equates to a standardised apprenticeship in glassing, with the potential for participants to move onto a Certificate IV, which covers the shaping it templates and transferring measurements, learning CAD 2D and CAD 3D designing, and programming CNC machines. Essentially, what the apprenticeship is designed to do is help those starting out in the surfboard manufacturing industry fast-track their learning in the workplace by giving them a standardised set of training modules, while also providing them with certification once their skillset has been assessed and approved.
than the dusty old bastards who’ve
been planing foam for forty years? Or is it more a case of equipping those starting out in the industry with the
skills and knowledge to help facilitate their learning?
‘I’m pretty interested to see what happens,’ says South Coast shaper Dylan
Perese of DP Surfboards, when asked what he thinks of shaping becoming an official trade. ‘I can imagine a lot
of your older, set-in-their-ways guys in the industry would be scratching their heads.’
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Why You Should he art of longboarding is timeless. You could easily say that longboard surfing is a state of mind. An idealized
stage of mindfulness. It’s the beginning and the end of wave riding.
If you look up the word in a surf dictionary, the result
is not as exciting as feels. Longboarding. A board that
is long, too long, or longer than a standard board. We
were taught that bigger isn’t necessarily better but, in this particular case, it might be.
Longboards are often called longboards only because
shortboards appeared to take over during the infamous 1960s revolution. When surf planks became smaller,
the original longboard era entered the pages of the surf history books.
However, there are more longboarders in the world
than you might think. Some of them are not full-time
loggers; they own a respectable quiver of two or more boards.
Try Longboarding Believe or not, there’s more to surfing than below sixfoot beauties.
The 1990s kicked off the nostalgia period, and the
classic longboard shapers started getting back to the
old designs, and to the pencil drawings. Longboarding
began its steady return into stardom, coolness, and style. Not to forget the savvy new uses in new kinds of ocean conditions.
And if you are one of those who like to get busy, chill out - there’s a lot to do in the long deck. Noseriding,
tipriding, helicopters, cross-stepping, trimming, turning maneuvers, tube riding. Is it enough to get you into longboarding?
The original riders used to say that the essence of longboarding is style. So, if you consider yourself a surfer,
give it a go. Enjoy a single-fin experience in waist-high summer seas. Get over 9’.
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Smaller Board Faster, Bigger Waves The definition of a short board will change depending on who your talking to. Generally they are classified as a high performance fibreglass board with a pointed nose and thin rails, but can vary in length. Usually they are set up with a thruster (three fin) design. Short boarding is a fast pace, highly competitive style of surfing. Due to the boards design and length it is more manoeuvrable. This makes is easier to gain speed and perform dynamic turns in the water. However, shortboarding is often highly associated with aggression in the water. Surfers who ride short boards tend to get into more paddle battles and pay less attention to other surfers around them. The boards themselves are also harder to paddle, as they have less foam. This also makes them harder
to balance and stand on, making them harder for beginners to learn on. If you love fast paced, adrenaline pumping sports; shortboarding is for you. Shortboarding will allow you to ride larger waves, ride faster, and perform bigger turns whilst surfing. On the other hand, if you love to relax and go with the flow; longboarding is the sport for you. Going out on smaller surf days with mates and cruising on your longboard is what its all about. If you still cant decide, do both! Surfing is all about mixing things up, many surfers will ride their short board in larger conditions, and their longboard in smaller glassy conditions, making the best of both worlds.
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@WenSurfphotography
On occasion Sunshine turns it on too and well lets just say the locals couldn’t paddle back out for a few days after this hit... Off shore winds that lasted all day, a ripper of a tow and some knarly 6-8 ft sets. Sunshine’s banks were memorable on that day.
Sunshine at it's Best
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@alexvkmedia 17
Stepping Back... Bob McTavish stands in front of an FJ Holden, and it’s not so much the old, thick skeg surfboard on the roof-racks that gives away the era but rather the empty Noosa Heads waves. John Witzig took the photograph in 1966 when Hastings Street was just a few shops with a caravan park at the end, the Noosa River teemed with fish that kindly threw themselves onto unbaited hooks and the few lucky enough to surf the Noosa bays thought it not dissimilar to having a “cup of tea with God”. McTavish and a few mates, including the surfing champion Nat Young and a free-thinking American, George Greenough, deserted Sydney for the surf points of the NSW Far North Coast and Queensland’s Sunshine Coast and, after much experimenting, chopped a metre off the length of their boards and thereby laid the basis for a new way of riding waves.
The publicity surrounding their exploits in the warm-water waves also opened the eyes of young baby boomers in the southern capitals to the delights of Noosa, Byron Bay and Lennox Head, and laid the foundation for sea-changers and the real estate boom that came with their flight north for warmth. As a young Sydney architecture student with a passion for writing and photography, Witzig chronicled the moment when surfing moved from the epitome of Californian cool and took on a particularly Australian ethos that endures still. An exhibition of his surfing photographs taken between 1966 and 1976 is on display at the Dickerson Gallery in Queen Street, Woollahra.
Classic
Style
Forever 19
nationals
@alexvkmedia
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TONY
R A PA C I O L I
ON NOOSA PHOTOGRAPHY
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“It’s not just about the art of riding a wave, it’s about the connection to nature, the ritualistic chats with your local crew, the appreciation of leaving your worries on the beach for a hard earned break.”
@tonynoosa
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thomas surfboards
U t i l i ty Mi d, pe rf e ct f or e very day
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@woodygphoto 29
Surfing the Antarctic
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On Top of the World follows Noosa local Johanna Brebner and Aiyana Powell, as they travel to the far north of the planet in search of waves and an arctic adventure. The two
trek through deep snow filled fjords in sub-zero temperatures to surf extremely cold but beautifully fun
waves. Filmed by Ishka Folkwell with an original score by Headland, On Top of the World is a celebration of
surfing and an appreciation of the natural world in all its might and beauty.
Surfboards: 7’6” channel twin, Morning of the
earth surfboards, 7’2” Single and 5’4” fish Maren Surfboards
needessentials
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@fenna.deking 35
Fenna De King Whether she’s out in the surf beaming at you when you catch a wave, or propped behind her big lens on the beach, thrilling at every good ride she captures to share with the crew on social media, Fenna De King is a Pacific princess, exuding goodwill every moment she spends in her happy place. Born in Fiji in 1968, to a British government lawyer stationed there and a Euro-Indian mother, Fenna and her sister Sarah developed a passion for the ocean from a very young age, but the constant moving, as her dad was posted to different outposts of the Commonwealth, played havoc with her childhood.She recalls: “It was really hard meeting people then saying goodbye, and being in schools where you’re not there long enough to fit in. We were in Fiji and Australia more than anywhere else, and we didn’t quite fit into either. I finished year 12 in Fiji (where dad was now a High Court judge), and when we got back to Brisbane where we had a house, I was 18 and I’d really had enough of moving.” But she’d won university entrance in New Zealand and was headed to Dunedin to do a science degree, so it was soon time to pack a bag again. She lasted a few weeks and came running back to the family in Brisbane. Next it was off to Townsville to study arts and marine biology at James Cook University, but despite the comfort of the warm Coral Sea, she was still homesick, and ended up at Brisbane’s Griffith. Eventually wanderlust trumped homesickness and Fenna dropped out to work in tourism in
the Whitsundays. She spent eight years in Airlie Beach, diving, snorkelling, windsurfing and working mainly as a charter boat hostess, where she met a deckie from Melbourne named Jason. Fenna says: “Hosties and deckies weren’t really supposed to mix, but we broke that rule a bit. We met in 1993 and lived together in Airlie for a few years, then moved down to Mackay. In Mackay our two sons James and William were born while I worked in newspapers selling real estate ads and Jason worked for the radio station, and it eventually got to the point where we had enough real estate to sell up and make a move to the Sunshine Coast about 17 years ago.” “James, the elder son, tried surfing but he’s more of a skater. Will persisted and at about 14 he started to become quite a good longboarder. I got into photography because I knew what my capabilities were as a surfer, and when it got beyond my comfort zone I’d just sit and watch, and it was so beautiful I wanted to capture it. And then Will got pretty good and looked very elegant on a longboard so I’d take a lot of pictures of him. It kind of evolved from there. Now, if I’m not in the surf I’m behind my camera.” “I’ve blissfully stepped back into time. Who would have even imagined that an insatiable passion for longboarding would uncover a slight talent for photography. Constantly learning, all I hope to do is to replicate what I can see in front of me .. the undeniable beauty of the ocean & all who are in it, radiant in all it’s colours and textures. This is my happy place. 37
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COVID and the Surfing Industry
Surfboard sales lept by 3000% during May 2020
Data collected suggests a lot of governmentstimulus payments was spent on surf equiptment
Australians are finding refuge from the virus in surfing
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@wensurfphotography 43
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ONLY