Southwest surfing pioneer Barry ‘Joe’ King was multi-skilled. His mates asked if he was ‘jo-king’ and the nickname stuck😊
in the fifties Joe was a pilot and flew an Austen monoplane to Rottnest Island to get his hours up for a commercial licence. His surfing mates often kicked in for the trip and did winter flights to Rotto with Joe. The boys were sometimes allowed to take-over the controls over the ocean.
He surfed a homemade 9ft triple stringer polystyrene (Coolite) surfboard glassed with epoxy resin down south in the late 50s.
And in 1962 Joe and his partner Brian ‘Coley’ Cole started King and Cole Surfboards in Wembley. They purchased blanks from Bennett Surfboards and were the first to produce foam surfboards in WA. Then the boys got the travel bug and headed overseas chasing waves in 1963. They sold a lot of their surfboard building equipment to another surf industry pioneer Len Dibben.
1958 Barry ‘Joe’ King with his homemade 9ft triple stringer polystyrene (Coolite) surfboard at Yallingup. Photo John Budge.1958 Barry ‘Joe’ King’s Morris Minor ute (with custom curved cover) at Yallingup camp site. Photo Brian Cole.1958 Don Roper & pilot Barry ‘Joe’ King with an Austen monoplane at Rotto airport. Photo Brian Cole.
1962 King & Cole Surfboards (Wembley) sign by signwriter Ray Geary. Photo Brian Cole.
Southwest surfing pioneer Barry ‘Joe’ King was multi-skilled. His mates asked if he was ‘jo-king’ and the nickname stuck😊
in the fifties Joe was a pilot and flew an Austen monoplane to Rottnest Island to get his hours up for a commercial licence. His surfing mates often kicked in for the trip and did winter flights to Rotto with Joe. The boys were sometimes allowed to take-over the controls over the ocean.
He surfed a homemade 9ft triple stringer polystyrene (Coolite) surfboard glassed with epoxy resin down south in the late 50s.
And in 1962 Joe and his partner Brian ‘Coley’ Cole started King and Cole Surfboards in Wembley. They purchased blanks from Bennett Surfboards and were the first to produce foam surfboards in WA. Then the boys got the travel bug and headed overseas chasing waves in 1963. They sold a lot of their surfboard building equipment to another surf industry pioneer Len Dibben.
Barry and Brian have since passed away (RIP).
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