Geoff McCoy

All quotes below are taken from Phil Abraham's profile of Avalon-based shaper Geoff McCoy, which ran ran in the July 1980 issue of Tracks magazine.

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THE SURF PRESS
I think Tracks and all the surfing media are ignorant to the real power they’ve got because they don’t realize how devastating or stimulating they can be. They can build people up or tear them down. I used to enjoy the idea of not giving in to the media. I think I won the battle, in fact, but it was really negative. I eventually became aware that I was so paranoid that I couldn’t talk to people. I was holding back a lot of information and ideas.

In Tracks' review of the 1970s, I didn’t get one mention. Like, I'm human. I know what I’ve done and what I haven’t done and I thought McCoy and McCoy Surfboards played a pretty important role in surfing in the '70s. We introduced so many hot surfers to the sport, but apart from that I developed a number of designs. The twin-fin design arrived here from California [in 1971] and we made them in Australia. I was considered the twin-fin king in the early days. But when they came around a second time [with Mark Richards] there was no mention of our original contribution. So I got really bummed out at that. So I thought, because of that, I'll own the eighties.

NARRABEEN IN THE EARLY '70s
They were a very aggro bunch of guys. But [local surfer] Russ King used to get such discipline. And if anyone came into the contest area and started dropping in, they would just go out there and punch them out, piss them right off. The place is legendary now.

NAT YOUNG
[It was] 1968, 1969, when I had my involvement with Nat Young. Nat is influencing my design to this day, in terms of what he does with bottom curve. Years ago he said, "You don't need to go down the line, you need to maneuver; you need to get in the pocket." Nat’s really into what Cheyne [Horan] is doing. Nat was always a pocket surfer, and so is Cheyne; he’s always in the pocket or the tube.

FIRST VISIT TO HAWAII, 1970
I scoffed. That first time, I was not very open-minded. The only guy who impressed me was Jeff Hakman. But when I got back home, I started to realize something was happening over there. Six months later I would be shaping a board and a thought would come into my head and it would be a concept that I had seen in Hawaii.

JEFF HAKMAN
Talking to Jeff over two or three years, I realized he had more to offer than anyone else in Hawaii at the time. We've worked a lot on big boards, the tail section in particular. He knows more about design function than anyone I’ve ever spoken to. He can’t shape, but he’s got an uncanny feel for the balance of a board and he knows what works and what doesn't. It was through knowing Hakman that I came to know how good Brewer really was. Hakman was the common denominator through a lot of design progressions. He started riding Pat Curren’s boards and progressed through him to George Downing, and after a while he started to get boards from Brewer. Jeff at that time still just a hot young kid, and when boards came down in size [in 1968] he was ready. He was just so far ahead of his time it wasn't funny.

DICK BREWER
He was an innovator, and there aren't many of them. In fact, I can't think of anyone in Brewer's league. He was light years ahead in design. But he hasn't been active for five or six years. I’m not an innovator. I'm a refiner. But I made a conscious study of Brewer through the people he knew and associated with. I know where his design theories ended because I know mine are ahead of his now. I've discovered his formula and I’m taking it further.

HAWAII IN 1980
A problem with design over here [in Australia] is that nearly anything will work to a certain extent. In Hawaii, designs have to be spot on, sometimes your life depends on it, so everyone is much more aware of design. When I'm in Hawaii I get $I00 to shape a blank, and that's because they appreciate the expertise and knowledge that goes into a good big board.

MCCOY TEAM RIDERS
Bruce [Raymond] is the same type of person as Cheyne [Horan] but not the same type of personality. They've both got wild creative ideas and they sort of go unharnessed; because they're so far out, most people think they're stupid.

BRUCE RAYMOND
Bruce is a lazy surfer, he’s a lazy person. But I honestly think that he’s one of the most naturally talented surfers I've ever come across. He's known and respected around the world for his style. Because he’s stylish he's always got to be in control and he doesn't want to over-exert himself. So he needs a board that will have as many possible ingredients built into it to compliment that effortless style. A direct contrast at the time would have been Ronnie Ford. He used to ride for me, and he was just a big, powerful animal. Both were brilliant surfers, but with totally different approaches. [Bruce's] boards had accelerators and release points built into the curves. He used to be able to ride a fairly low thick rail because he used to get a good resistance off the thickness. He didn't want to bury the rail too deep, he'd rather get a slicing effect. Do you understand? With the volume and hardness in the rails it would allow him to apply a medium amount of pressure, yet get the same result that someone on a regular board like Ronnie Ford would be grunting and putting twice the amount of effort into.

A BEAUTIFUL MIND
[Design factors] just keep multiplying. Every time you learn something about one aspect of it, you multiply things instantly because there are so many variables for that single factor. It's endless, it's boggling my mind. Some people say I'm eccentric. I probably am. But I like it. I get off on it.

CHEYNE COMES ABOARD
Cheyne was with the Bronzed Aussies when I was in California [setting up the American branch of McCoy Surfboards]. I was pretty good friends with him. I was actually one of the driving forces behind him joining the Bronzed Aussies. I thought it was good for him and it was. They took him out of Bondi and put him on the circuit. Anyway, he came up to me and said, "Listen, would you help? I’m in a really tight situation. I can’t get good boards and I'd like you to make some for me." So I made him one that he took to Hawaii and rode in small waves, and then he told me that he was going to leave the Bronzed Aussies and wanted to ride for me. I was stoked because I knew how much potential he had.

THE INNER SANCTUM
Cheyne used to say that, when he got in the tube, he couldn't hold the board up in the wall. I said, that can't be right, I've been making this sort of board for five years, it works. And I'd convince him, and he'd go back in the water, come back, and insist he still couldn't get the rail to grip back in there. Well, here's what it was. Cheyne doesn't ride the tube like a normal surfer. He surfs 20' further back, and I'm sure if you talked to Shaun Tomson about tuberiding he would have experienced a similar thing when he was trying to get a board to work way back in there. You see? I hadn't been there—my experience was limited to a different part of the tube, so the board I was making was perfect for my awareness, but Cheyne was riding so much further back, where the wave was much steeper, much more critical; there are different turbulence reactions, it's a whole new scene. He was surfing where I'd never been and so I couldn't relate. Now I can. Within two boards, I had it. You ask him how his boards go in the tube now and he'll say "Unreal." The board will stay high or low; he can sit it on the wall. It was just a matter of putting in the right ingredients so he could do the sort of maneuvers he wanted to do.

LARRY BLAIR, TWO-TIME PIPELINE MASTER
Larry said to me, "Look, I'm going over there to win the Pipe Masters. I just want to surf Pipeline so I want boards that are shaped specifically for that break." So we went for it and it came off. There were about six different things that we worked on. I changed the water flow on the rails. We tightened the nose and tail and we had to improve the hold, and that was done with edges and planshape. This is why design and shaping is so fascinating. I've got to a level where I can make a specific board for a specific function.

TWIN-FINS
I reckon twin are valid small-wave design. I've been thinking about them lately. I’ve been consciously trying to create a design that would work better than a twin-fin in small waves, because I think the way the twins are now, they're too limited. Now, that’s a hard thing to say when you think about Mark Richards. But in general, they’re a difficult board to get a lot of performance out of. They're restricted in their overall design, limited by wave size, so I can’t see the point at the moment in putting a lot of energy into them. Right now, they’re not the answer. I reckon the new boards we’re making will flog the twin-fins. I know it.

THE NO-NOSE
I pulled the nose in. Cheyne had always wanted to do it, and it was been happening slowly, because I'm more conservative than he is. Then all of a sudden he said "No! Pull it in, just do it!" So I drew this board out and it looked wild, it had a full-gun nose, it was 20" wide, 5'10" long, with this giant tail, and Cheyne said, "That's it! Cut it out!" So I did. A lot of people are getting off on the idea straight away, it's something that had to be done. There are benefits in just taking the nose off; the board will run through the water better. But I've also changed the bottom curve, the tail shape, the whole things different. Cheyne got some really radical versions, and they fired for him. He was obviously surfing better. He’s doing outrageous maneuvers and now l‘m trying to make boards that won't restrict his thinking. But we sort of went berserk and went too far too fast at first. The boards work for the good surfer, the job now is to get them to work for the average surfer's benefit. There's not much point in people driving around in a turbocharged Porsche when they’re only capable of driving a Volkswagen. These days l'm pretty confident that anyone could get on one of these boards and ride it. But Cheyne and Bruce Turner are the only two who are currently making use of the most radical version's full potential.

CONTEST FAIL
Cheyne took the new boards to Japan [and won], all he said when I spoke to him on the phone was that he doubled Dane Kealoha's score in the final. I was hoping he'd do the same thing here in Australia. I was expecting him to win all three contests because there was no obvious reason why he shouldn't, he was surfing brilliantly. But he was getting bad results. So that was frustrating. He'll have to win a couple more [to] back up the idea that the board is gong to work. If you can win a pro contest on one, they're working. I did start to get the wobbles at one stage, during the world tour season here, when I began to think, "Oh no, they’re not doing any good in competition." I started to doubt the design. But Cheyne kept going 'No, they ride unreal."

LUXURY BRAND
If you want to be the best, you've got to associate with the best, and that’s why we’ve got so many good surfers around. It’s no good relying on one local guy on the beach or my own observations. I’ve got three of the best surfers in the world on the payroll. I constantly travel around the world, and it’s not cheap to fund that. People ask why my boards are more expensive; that’s why. [The money is going into] research and development. I’ve got to pay all those people around me, but that’s the only way I’m going to get new knowledge and reliable feedback.

"STIMULATING SURFERS"
You’ve got to be surrounded by stimulating surfers. I’ve got guys on my team who are 10 years old and they're hot. Kids like Todd Ingham and Damien Hardman. Right now they’re just standing around with their mouths open, but pretty soon they’ll be telling me what they want and that’ll take me into the next era. I’m covering myself that way, by maintaining contact with the top-rated surfers of tomorrow.

[Photos: Art Brewer, Peter Crawford, Larry Pierce]