THE FANTASTIC PLASTIC MACHINE

[Music] skip must have learned this one from Houdini [Music] [Applause] [Music] every time I looked Allan burn was ripping the place apart pety Johnson made his last ride in New Zealand his [Music] best as we headed for the airport Bound for Sydney I knew that everyone was thinking about Nat Young and the rest of the Australians they were just names to most of us but soon they'd be faces as well would they be as hostile as they sounded in their articles and more important just how good were they the only thing I was sure of was that our guys were ready after getting settled in Sydney we boarded the bus which would take us to the contest just as the bus was about to leave we spotted a guy whose face we'd seen in the magazines a guy many people felt was as good as Nat young hey McTavish come on hurry up he was really friendly and we hit it off right from the start but when we wanted to talk about the contest he dodged and insisted on giving us the tourist treatment hello hello Yankee servers welcome to glassy well-shaped Sydney population 2,600,000 principal exports race horses and tennis players we are now entering the section known as King's cross if you become lonely while in Australia this is the place to purchase companionship quickly and inexpensively the contest Mac and this is Sydney's gift to its residents the harbor tollbridge built for $23 million it's already cost us lucky motor is about 100 million to cross it the contest man on your left the fabulous Sydney Opera House named after it's designer Sydney clamshell forget about let me call your attention to bustling Sydney Harbor the most man get the AHA if you look closely you'll observe an Australian phenomenon known as rugby it's a fast moving jugg and autate game in which you start out with 13 men on a side and if you're lucky end up with n or 10 just answer one question is there a contest and are you in it well since you put it that way there is a contest all right but I'm not in it what about that he's not either we come here for but don't that bother you mates if it's a contest you want there are plenty of fellas around here who'll give you all you can handle come on good day Yanks on behalf of the Australian surf Federation I want to welcome you to Long Reef we are winding up a series of Heats which will produce the five Australians will meet your best five in the semi-finals we'll be finished in a few minutes so you can start getting ready our first look at the Aussie sent us into deep shock these guys were unreal they were using boards that were 1 to 2 ft shorter than ours and the bottoms were mostly v-shaped rather than flat maybe it was just as well that young and McTavish weren't in it looked like we were in for a long day without them almost as surprising was the friendly relaxed atmosphere on the beach judging by the Articles the Aussies had written we thought we'd run into all kinds of bad vibrations over here but the people acted as if they'd never heard of the controversy we were all pretty confused until Mavish straightened us out you see for years we've been reading that America was the capital of the surfing World Australia was never mentioned in the same breath yet we were just as dedicated as you we knew that we had some highly talented Surfers and board designers and we wanted recognition our opportunity came at the world contest in California no one had given us much of a chance against the mighty Yanks but when that won the contest it meant that Australia would emerg from the Shadows at last we were all super stoked and for most us that's as far as it went there were a few guys however who got carried away and they started yelling that the Yanks had been exposed as second Raiders well naturally when you guys heard this you got stirred up it was all just a misunderstanding I'm sure that if we'd got together on it things would have been sweet but unfortunately we were 12,000 Mi apart and so the controversy was on and of course it got blown out of proportion but now that you guys are here I hope that we can Square things up between our two countries what we need more than anything else is to get a flow of ideas back and forth so that things can develop faster so that we can all enjoy our surfing a little bit more now as to why I'm not in the contest well contest used to be all right but then they' got real commercial and generally uptight so I split my bag now is just to ride waves and build boards and not much happier I just came down to say hello to you guys see some good [Music] surfing this contest is being judged under the rules of the international surf Federation the six Surfers who survive will meet in the finals tomorrow at Palm Beach okay all semi-finalists in you go once again from America Mike perus skip fry Peter Johnson Mickey mono and Steve Bigler and for Australia John Mooney Russell Hugh Robert can grabbed the first wave and he showed what the short V botom can do [Music] skip waited [Music] patiently Mickey was the first American up and this was a typical ride he just never did get going he's driving hard as you can see then Russell U dropped in fantastic cut [Music] back turns are just incredible skip finally got the wave he was looking for but he was only able to come up with a Soo ride [Music] [Applause] on the far left that's John Mooney the rookie player look at those cutbacks a goofy named John Mooney wouldn't stay down for the count it was Australian power surfing at its best keep driving that short board into the curl defying it to knock you off pety Johnson couldn't turn on I guess he left his best rides in New Zealand it seemed that the Ries were just too tough but suddenly with skip showing the way we began to match them turn for turn it looked like this was going to be a contest after all [Music] he but then it [Music] happened Skip's board was washed 200 yards into Shore skip prize lost his board tough break for him and he couldn't recover it in time to get his required rides it was a real bummer Mike and Steve hung in there though and managed to make the finals which were held the next day at Palm Beach and now here is the contestants for the finals from America Mike purpus and Steve Bigler and from Australia John Mooney Ted Spencer Russell Hughes and last but not least strike me they goes me flaming out hey grab it someone will you oh yeah and uh Farley of course and now the special judges skip th Mickey Muno Max Bowman and John wiy voo if you find a aity let's hit the water the waves at Palm Beach were only 3 to 4 feet for the finals they were choppy but very usable while the Surfers are paddling out I'd like to go over the rules once more ladies and gentlemen the contest will last 45 minutes we're using the rules of the international surf Association every ride will be considered and the surf who performs the best during the allotted time period will be a judged the winner here we go that's Russell Hughes getting up and ripping off a beautiful as you can Russell use was the first one up and he trimmed nicely through the White Water those are just inredible Steve tried to get to the nose of the wave was too slushy John Mooney who's also a professional rugby player haul a nice cutback Fairley executed a couple of neat turns before kicking out [Music] Ted Spencer cranked a turn threw a cut back and worked his way to the nose then he climbed and dropped a little on the inside section [Music] Mike knew he was the Dark Horse so he opened up with his best maneuver a skeg first takeoff no one in Australia had ever seen it done before and it really knocked everybody out unfortunately the wave quit on him and he didn't get too good a score for the ride Russell ues played with a curl before cutting back into it to set up a head [Music] [Music] dip Steve tried to stall his board so he could get to the nose but he couldn't quite make it Mike's long board was good for nose riding but when he tried to cut back sharply like the Aussies his board fought him all the way [Music] on the other hand was using a short V bottom and he was able to rip off a series of effortless turns [Music] Mooney climbed and dropped off the small wall all the cut back and trim through the soup by now Mike knew he was beaten so he decided that if he couldn't be the best serer he'd at least be the most [Music] popular quite a comedian that [Music] boy 's took off right but saw a better opening to the left and drove through the center of the w racking up a lot of [Music] points Moy danced his way through a small wave nice pulled off some of the most incredible turns we'd ever seen But when he tried to execute a sharp roller coaster he wiped out and lost a lot of points just before the end Ted Spencer moved into contention with a couple of really hot rides [Music] [Applause] [Music] okay and now when the finals ended we knew that the winner was going to be an Aussie Steven Mike had given it their best but they were simply outclass maybe if skip had been in it we then again what if Nat young had entered the way they talk about him around here he must be something else the contest had been real close and the judges had a rough time coming up with win 365e please move your car you're blocking the Flaming entrance finally they decided on Ted Spencer with fley second and Russell use third the official prize was a flower and Ted was really [Music] stoked he became even more stoked when he got the unofficial prize [Music] later skip Mickey and McTavish got together we were going back to the states in the morning and McTavish wanted to make sure that we fully understood the new Concepts before we left well you know the whole idea of that board was as you said was to increase maneuverability while still maintaining speed when old board uh the idea of increasing maneuverability means you can get into positions that you can get more speed you know so overall you're going to get more from the wave many things fitting the board into the wave and getting it yeah by maneuverability by having really good maneuverability you can place it in more advantageous spots you see a power pocket sitting up on the top of the wave and you say I got to get up there and get that power you just go sit up in there CH your own track sure pick your own tracks you're just not hored out in the same old track that's right straight line you've broken the straight line see all ways previously had because of the length of the board they insisted they work most efficiently when you turned them and plac them in a certain direction you sort of AED them like a like a gun or like an AR them in the fall line if you went out of the because of there too much of them yeah too much of them and so you had to turn the board aim it down the four line and then go in that direction as long as you possibly could and then walk to the back of the board then change your direction again so this little machine you can stand on your speed point and still maneuver from there the walking's cut out you haven't got to walk back to change your direction you can stand in the middle and go up and down and change your direction when you see a pocket you you you can be moving at full speed and you want to get somewhere else you haven't got to walk to the back of the board to maneuver it and you stay right where you are and just go whammy up in there and full of power out there McTavish went on to diagram the V bottom he explained that the principles had been developed by a genius named George greo a guy few people had ever heard of but who was years ahead of other Surfers ma they talked all through the night and into the next morning by now all our questions had been answered except those concerning that young after all he was the guy we'd come clear across the Pacific to Surf against and ironically we were heading home in a few hours without even having seen him apparently contests weren't important to him anymore and he was into something different but McTavish was only able to provide a part of the story the rest of it was up north somewhere with [Music] Nat this place tends to agree with me more than any place I have ever known every everything here is in perfect harmony I've come to understand myself simply by looking and feeling the contest scene is not extremely relevant to me anymore to say it is would be a distortion of Surfing as I now see it when I arrived in California for the world championship I was obsessed with thoughts of trophies and fame I'd spent years preparing myself for the only thing that mattered to me winning the world title when the contest was over and I returned home as n Young World Champion I should have been entirely satisfied yet for some reason I I was not something was still missing and I had to find out what it was in the uing months I withdrew and took a long long look until finally I saw a guy getting to know himself for the first time it was at that moment that I understood at last the real meaning of the surfing experience [Music] surfing is the finding of yourself through the medium of a surfboard it is the perfect form of [Music] self-expression I Glide and rip with no inhibitions totally free to express the mood I am in I see how small I am in relation to the ocean I'm sure it holds the answers I seek if I can get closer to it I can get closer to myself [Music] I've learned that you canot adequately express yourself in a contest whenever you compete you must conform to the demands of a scoring system this means that you are being conditioned by other people's values rather than your own yet almost everyone believes that contests are necessary and that without them there would be no progress I too felt this way until I met Bob McTavish and George greo they have no desire to win trophies or recognition they would rather find ways to be more maneuverable and thus Express themselves a little bit better Mavish is one of the most graceful fluid Surfers I have ever known but in spite of his ability he felt a need to cut away from the contest scene he was sure that progress would come from board design not from [Music] competition he was determined to shape a board which would Place him in the most critical and exciting part of the [Music] way he found the time to go out day after day in an effort to apply goo's principles to Conventional surfboards [Music] while everyone was headed towards longer boards Mavish was quietly building shorter more maneuverable ones the McTavish plastic machine is a product of Bob's dedication to Performance it brings the surfer closer than ever before to the full expression of his personality [Music] nah [Music] nah [Music] [Music] la [Music] [Applause] Mavish breakthrough would never have been possible had it not been for the ingenious concepts of George greo at a glance greo couldn't possibly be a surer of any importance I can assure you this is an illusion George's Devotion to surfing performance is exceeded only by his enormous wave riding Talent although he's never entered a contest I consider him to be the greatest surfer in the world today [Music] he's found that he cannot achieve his ideal of total manuverability by standing up his method of kneeling best enables him to develop his theories he uses a hollowed out piece of fiberglass 5 ft long and 20 in wide something that looks more like a spoon than anything else [Music] I've never seen a person anywhere capable of carving a turn as severely as George greena a [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] waiting almost totally submerged his head barely visible he seems no match whatsoever for the angry ocean but once up he ears a wave like no one else [Music] [Music] he his board which he designed and built makes it all possible it has a completely flexible tail and bends in respect to the turn he wants to make a certain amount of pressure applied to the top of the board will bend the back so many inches allowing him total turning freedom [Music] [Laughter] [Music] he must at all times respect the force of the wave for if he exerts too much pressure his board might [Music] collapse as soon as he releases the pressure his board drives flat enabling him to accelerate [Music] the inside of a wave holds the ocean's deepest Mysteries no one has explored them as thoroughly as George greo o [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] he [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] greo is the one who worked out the theories in relation to how much pressure can be applied to a board he talks in terms of power G forces and flotation but the guy dropped out of school years ago he educated himself by reading books on physics oceanography and Hy ramics in addition to every Science magazine he could lay his hands [Music] on his ideals on life and surfing revolve around self- experiment going out there and trying to do something if it doesn't work he tries something else but no matter how complex the problem he always comes up with the right answer he's so self-sufficient and practical it's frightening [Music] I consider him to be where we're all headed the Greeno fin is already being Incorporated in most of the surf boards around the world and I believe the boards of the future will be shorter and flexible like his if they aren't it'll probably be cuz George has invented something better [Music] Bob and George are The Unsung Giants of the surfing World greo works out the theories and McTavish translates them to Conventional surfboards the only thing they cannot provide is the ideal wave to match your frame of mind only nature can do that if you're in a Mellow Mood and things are going just right you want to ride a wave which lends itself to the free expression of your feelings when you find the right one it will stimulate your inner need to become involved to develop an affinity between you and the water I have a golden rule that I always obey it's don't think let your mind run your body and surfboard will follow this is true this is so damn true [Music]