Just spent a few days learning how to use Windows Movie Maker.
It's simple but not so simple. Like using a left handed oyster shucker to cut down an acre of bitou bush.....
Consequently the editing is a bit jumpy and I ended up with slow motion parts that I didn't want.
C'est la vie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDhsxsRbMGU
About the video.
The first part is a few shots of one of our Maroubra Kneeboard Contests circa 1978.
Parkes and Terry Day only have one wave I'm afraid. The rest were of me so I cut most of them out. On the beach is a small crew. Glen Perry
on megaphone (of course). Bottom left you'll see a young John O'Neil sitting on the sand. One of the dark haired guys on the right could be
Chris Eliftherious who went on to be a well known surf photographer in the early eighties. Terry Day is standing on the beach in the last group shot clutching his "Gull" surfboard.
Maybe someone out there can tell me who the other guys are.
The board I'm riding is my second Hot Buttered, custom shaped by Steve Artis. Double flyer rounded pin with a huge centre fin. Vee to double
concave (?) to tail vee. Great seventies Terry Fitz Hot Buttered rails, very down railed at the front and wonderfully thick under the chest to get that nice seventies foil. The board went well at eight to ten foot Indjinup Carpark but was a little too gunny for small Maroubra Beachbreak.
One of the interesting things about these few waves is that they show the difference in riding styles at the time. The Hot Buttered being driven from the tail and down the line, with Parkes and Day having wider boards, the former being predominantly ridden from the centre.Terry is looking for that lip. As a down the line surfer I'm looking for the end of the wave.
The next part of the video is one of my heats in the 1979 Sitmar Cruises. Here I'm riding a home made steptailed twin fin fish that weighed a
tonne (two layers eight ounce top and bottom plus a knee layer) with plywood fins (not keels) in boxes. I made two of these boards as a
batch, one slightly wider than the other, just before my 21st birthday. I got to ride them at Noosa for two weeks of prefection as their breaking in period.
. The board appears to be reasonably fast, but turns very flat. (Sorry about the slow motion sections in this - was an accident)
The Sitmar Contest was held at North Maroubra, in front of the Stormwater Drain just south of what we used to call the Colliseum. (Every inch of Maroubra had a name - toilet bowl, stormwater drain, collesum, summersheds, south maroubra, the reef, the left into the rip at the reef
etc) The Colleseum was this strange concrete pillared shelter about twenty feet high and about eighty feet long that was built jutting out from what once must have been a cliff face. The place was infested with rats and other vermin. The picture of Albert was taken by Chris Elfes standing on the the top of the Colliseum. The picture is particularly haunting because Albert (as were a whole bunch of kneelos) was a fixture in this place when we were kids and car-less.. You can see the silhouette of the stormwater drain over Albert's shoulder.
As far as the contest itself memory tells me that there were 30 invitees to this contest and there were just under a hundred guys in the surfout. I've got a lousy memory though. The format was man on man for all or some of the contest.
The last Section is of myself (sorry) riding the same board at the North Maroubra Toilet Bowl. The tide is a bit high but you can the guess how the wave breaks. Suprisingly in 1979 there was already agro agro in the water. From the video you can tell it is every man for himself as far as drop ins. Ironically the other kneelo in the water runs over a guy who tried to drop in on me.
The "Toilet Bowl" break is at the very north of Maroubra beach and ia right hander that breaks into the rip that runs along the side of the
rocks. Maroubra myth tells of the beachie who, on crowded summer Sundays, used to grab himself a very long sturdy piece of bamboo and tie a noose on the end. He would sit on the rocks and pluck the swimmers out of the water as they were caught in the rip and taken out to sea.
Apocraphyl? Don't ask me.
This part of the beach was often surrounded by rocks. We used to surf here in the days before legropes and get the waves to ourselves. As the
crowds built up in the next few years we took to night surfing. The place was a natural ampitheatre where the streetlights on two sides would
make it possible to almost see your mate in the water so you wouldn't run him over. You could tell when the sets were coming because suddenly
the ships on the horizon would all dissapear, and you'd be left staring at the green phopspherescence on the ocean floor wondering wether it was going to be a right, a left or a straighthander.
Or there was always the alternative at the bottom of the page:
For this seequence and the Sitmar one I had no idea my father was there, let alone filming me surf.
The film is very grainy because of being posted on the net but it will give you a glimpse into how guys were riding in the late 70s and, you never know, you might even see yourself.
I hope you enjoy it.
cheers
HW
it's cool to see you, terry day and parkes surfing back then! The footage at the begining of your movie, the color of the water and sky and clouds is great.
running a surf shop up on the gold coast.
Those cold winter mornings 
Ddidn't see it at Burwood this morning. Then again, I was the only one out .....