"Surfing and Swipes in Cornwall," by Nicholas Evans, ran in the August 5, 1967, issue of the Sydney Morning Herald. Evans was on location, reporting in from what he described as the Cornish Championships. This version has been slightly edited.

"Showing here today, fantastic surf spectacular, 

, featuring British and European Champion Rodney Sumpter,” booms the PA system mounted on the roof of the tiny village hall at Porthtowan, Cornwall.

Young surfboard-riding aficionados queue to see the film. A full house is guaranteed, since here, on the first day of the Cornish championships, the sea is flat and blue, surfless and useless. Sumpter himself, fifth in the world ratings and easily the best surfer in Europe, is said to be in the vicinity but keeps well out of sight.

Among those not queuing for the Sumpter film is the Windansea surf team from Australia. They’re mostly pro lifeguards and boardriders from Queensland and South Australia, over here for our summer, their winter.

‘They get really bummed out when there’s no surf," says Johnny Macallroy, Windansea captain. He is anxious lest his teammates give the wrong impression. At the moment, their huge, brown bodies litter the garden of the Commodore Inn pub, together with a considerable number of empty lager bottles.

A Queenslander hurls an empty glass at a South Australian. It is a hint that it's time he bought a round. The South Australian goes into the heaving pub and returns with a shipping order of larger and bitter. The Australian's have plenty of space around them in the garden, and you can see why when a black bikini passes by and receives a precisely detailed, unprintable invitation.

"Everybody used to be so friendly," says an Aussie in a hurt tone. He is not talking about the terrified flight of the bikini-wearing teenybopper, but the way surfing was in Australia. In England, he says, "the better surfers don't associate so much, the top guys go away by themselves. You go in the water, nobody talks, it’s all too serious. The Australian guys over here like to have a rage, you know. Sex, surf, and swipes." Swipes is Aussie slang for beer.

The Australians made up one of the three categories of boardriders at Porthtowan last week.

The second category was comprised the domestic talent, boys from Cornwall, Devon and West Wales, the areas where the best British surf is found. Most of them are young, under twenty, and they’ve counted their pennies to get here. They sleep in cars or in tents on the dune. They sit in the beachside cafe making their coffee last a long time and talk about the shape of the waves. Not many will reach the round of 36.

The third category consisted of Rodney Sumpter, an aloof, self-possessed twenty-year-old who was a clear favorite to win the open title. But he was the favorite only in that limited meaning of the word.

Nobody, it appeared, loved the champion, and his popularity slumped still further on the second morning when he featured on the front page of a newspaper in a curious story about his substituting for a girl model in an advertising surf sequence. The opinion of many was that it did the sport no good—the inference being that if they had been asked, they would have refused. With Sumpter available, of course, it was unlikely that they would be asked.

Sumpter's real crime is that he always wins, and tends to stay apart from the others; that he keeps away from the beach when he isn't involved in a heat; that he doesn't get bombed at the Commodore, or ostentatiously wax his hoard in front of the teenyboppers.

Sumpter was born in Watford in 1947, but when he was six months old his parents emigrated to Australia. “We lived about a hundred yards from a beach called Avalon. It was all longboard surfing there, with 16-footers, but one day I went to a beach carnival where they were using the nine-foot Malibu boards. I became really aware of the sea then, and my brother made a 9-footer and I used to borrow it."

In 1962, at age fifteen, Sumpter won the Australian junior title, then repeated his success the following year. In the last four years, he has cleaned up all the titles in Europe, but most importantly placed fifth in the 1966 World Championships, in San Diego, California. He has been some years out of Australia now, holds a British passport, and is fast losing his Aussie accent.

Surfing as a sport tends to suffer somewhat from a rather gooey mystique that is all tied up with the sun and the waves and freedom. Sumpter is singularly free from this. What he calls "functional" surfing appeals to him most, riding as long a wave as possible, in the fastest, most critical position. “If it’s a pleasant, sunny day, and the waves are small and weak, then it’s just an enjoyable thing to do. But on some days it’s big and vicious and mean, and you have to go out and beat the waves."

The surf, when it did come up on day two of the championships, was not big— just a fun surf. This meant Sumpter had to use a style that he really doesn’t favor, making the most of the small waves with what he calls frilly-dilly tricks—walking the board, twirling round on it to demonstrate balance as it skims along, as that was the only way to score points.

The nearest parallel to the scoring system in surfboard riding is that of ballroom dancing or ice-skating. The number of waves you ride in a given time counts, as does the duration of the ride, but judges also award points for style.

"Tricks aren’t functional," says Sumpter. "They’re rubbish." But through the preliminaries and the quarterfinals and semis, he skims and twirls better than anyone else and wins an easy way to the finals. His nearest rival is John Brown, an Australian with a typical aggressive style.

As we wait for the finals, Sumpter talks about the accusation commonly leveled against him that he is somehow too professional. In a pure money sense, he stresses that, in Europe at least, no great fortunes are to be made from of the sport—by the performer, that is. Sumpter gives demonstrations and shows films, but has to work shaping boards to make a living. Most big-name surfers in this country get free T-shirts and surfboards and a few expenses-paid trips around the country, but little else.

Even so, Sumpter is undeniably professional in his attitude to the sport. He is single-minded. He wants to win and he does win. This does not always play well with the sex-surf-swipes philosophy, but as a rule, on any given weekend, it is Sumpter who goes up to collect first prize.

As he does on this occasion. There are six finalists, but it is clear after a few minutes that only Brown and Sumpter are seriously fighting it out. Brown begins surfing in the confident, aggressive Aussie style, throwing his board about fiercely. But the soft surf is not right for it. Sumpter is very casual and cool, taking everything there is out of the wave, riding gracefully and fluently. Brown changes his style late in the head, and gets within six points of the champion, but it is too late.

With the result established, Sumpter disappears again. For most surfers, there is the weary thought of a long night-time drive home. But the Aussies realize with glee that the Commodore is open again. “It’s hell in that cold water," they say, moving purposefully up the beach.

"SUMPTER'S REAL CRIME IS THAT HE ALWAYS WINS," SYDNEY MORNING-HERALD (1968)

Subscribe or Login

Subscribe or Login

Encyclopedia of Surfing

Interviews

Features

The Sunday Joint

Videos

Contests