1950s Toothpick Surfboards

During the early 1950s, surfers in WA rode wooden Toothpick boards on metropolitan and southwest surf beaches. These finless boards, ranging from 14 to 16 feet in length, featured a timber frame covered with varnished marine plywood sheets, which were adhered together creating a hollow structure for buoyancy. Handrails, made from timber battens, were sometimes installed on the deck. These boards were either crafted by local boat builders in WA (eg Cordingley Bros Mosman Park) or purchased from Bill Wallace in Brookvale, New South Wales.

Visiting American/Hawaiian surfers introduced balsa Malibu surfboards to Australia in 1956. These shorter, lighter and more manoeuvrable Malibu boards (and the Malibu shaped plywood Okanui boards) replaced the cumbersome Toothpicks.

Surf Skis

Surf Skis look similar to Toothpicks but are a Surf Lifesaving competition paddle board with foot straps, built to withstand the rigors of the surf zone, as well as to meet the unique specifications of Surf Lifesaving competition.

Jim Keenan (WA surfing pioneer). “Surf skis were wider than the toothpick boards, they were fun and less tiring than the toothpicks to paddle to long surf breaks such as the Rottnest Transit reef break and Salmon Bay bombora. Ut was a great day when the Malibu’s came into vogue 1956 and replaced the cumbersome 16 ft bondwood boards and skis!

Tony Harbison used to paddle a single surf ski when he was a clubbie with City of Perth SLSC. I had a double ski built by Bill Wallace in Sydney and used to paddle with Graeme Killen in the SLSC club.

We often paddled to Triggs early with Tony and Dave Williams to surf and then paddle back to City Beach on the first whiff of the sea breeze or otherwise it was a long hard slog.”

Thanks for sharing your memories Jim Keenan.

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