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Your backstage pass to the world of surfing, hosted by MC and commentator Terry “Tappa” Teece. From pro surfers and legends of the sport to shapers, innovators and anyone with an epic story and a love for the ocean—The Green Room dives deep. Expect tales of epic wins, brutal wipeouts, and behind-the-scenes moments from life in and out of the water. Whether you’re chasing waves or just some inspiration, this podcast will leave you stoked to paddle out.
00;00;07;19 - 00;00;29;09
Tappa
Welcome to the Green Room. Your backstage pass to the world of surfing. I'm your host, surf emcee and commentator, Terry Tapper diving into epic winds, crashing fouls and wild stories with surfing's biggest names, as well as the legends working behind the scenes to keep that state alive. A big shout out to our sponsor for this episode. The official break out with their new Jersey lager.
00;00;29;11 - 00;00;50;05
Tappa
So wax up, paddle out and join us in the green room with a surf chat. Navy guys flat. Good eye folks, welcome to the Green Room. Today's guest is what I believe a true legend in surfing. A top class surfer, shaper, photographer, author, artist. A true pioneer in the surfing world. Over the years, this man reputation has been as a purist and innovated as surfing.
00;00;50;10 - 00;01;07;07
Tappa
Whether it be shaping or anything to do with the pure art which is surfing. I got to talk to Richie properly the first time, probably at the 50th anniversary of the pipe bender, which Richard was the inaugural winner against a field of the world's best surfers. After after that, I knew we had a lot more to talk about.
00;01;07;13 - 00;01;10;07
Tappa
It's a pleasure to welcome to the Green Room, Richard Harvey.
00;01;10;12 - 00;01;12;04
Richard
Thanks very much to nice to be.
00;01;12;04 - 00;01;24;14
Tappa
Here, my judge. A pleasure to have you here. And I might just. I'm actually done. I got to say, I don't know everything you've done because there's so much you've done over, what, 78 years now?
00;01;24;15 - 00;01;25;28
Richard
Yes, that's right, 78.
00;01;25;28 - 00;01;31;22
Tappa
Is that sometimes. But when it all started, I believe you moved to Avalon. But wait, where were you born? And that sort of thing?
00;01;31;28 - 00;01;37;12
Richard
Well, I was a country kid. I was born in a little town up in the Tamworth called Manila.
00;01;37;18 - 00;01;38;11
Tappa
Oh, yeah. Manila.
00;01;38;11 - 00;02;05;17
Richard
Yeah. And we used to come down to the beach for holidays and we'd go down to places like Nambucca Heads and places like that. And, I was always a bit hesitant about the surf. I like the pool, but I didn't like the frothy stuff of the of the surf. And by the time then I've moved back down to Avalon and into the city, I started to ride us surf surfer plane and sort of got the feel of the surf, and that's pretty much where it all began.
00;02;05;20 - 00;02;16;12
Tappa
And do you remember the first wave that got you hooked on surfing? Like a like. I know for me, it was at the pass when I was about ten that pushed us on a wave. And after that, that's all I wanted to do was surf.
00;02;16;14 - 00;02;38;20
Richard
I, I had a funny experience because my sister was a surfer, before me, and she was one of those girls that that ride tandem, one in front and one on their knees and one standing up behind them, that type of thing. And then, one of the guys had, an epoxy board which had a polystyrene core in it.
00;02;38;22 - 00;03;07;08
Richard
And, he used to allow me to ride it every now and then because I was the, the kid brother of a the, you know, one of the girls that surfed. Anyway, this particular board, the inside of it had come away from the outside and the water had got up to the inside of it. And when you turn the board, there was like a delayed reaction where the water run down the board, and then the board had sort of take off.
00;03;07;10 - 00;03;41;25
Richard
And I was surfing in a little spot, an amount of alcohol, the basin, and I'd paddled onto this wave, and at that time everyone was going straight. So it wasn't like one man on the wave, you know, there was always 2 or 3 people on a wave, which was fine, because we're all going into one direction. But anyway, what ended up happening was the water ended up rushing across the board, and I ended up doing a go behind on one of these waves with one or the other surface, and everybody was quite amazed that, you know, and that's what probably one of the very first waves that I really remember riding was only about two
00;03;41;25 - 00;03;42;04
Richard
foot.
00;03;42;04 - 00;03;44;20
Tappa
And, and what would that have been, mate?
00;03;44;23 - 00;03;48;11
Richard
That would have been about 60, I guess. 60.
00;03;48;13 - 00;03;52;27
Tappa
That's surfing. Christ was really hitting. Hitting in the Australia. I suppose that was it.
00;03;53;00 - 00;04;19;27
Richard
Well, Gidget was a popular movie, which was sort of more a general public type of a movie. And then the surfing thing really sort of happened in about 56 when the, American lifeguards came over with the Olympic Games, Greg Noll and Thomson, I bought balsa boards over with them, and they were shorter because everybody had been riding these big, long 16ft toothpick types.
00;04;19;27 - 00;04;20;05
Richard
Yeah.
00;04;20;05 - 00;04;22;05
Tappa
Yeah. I don't know how anybody could ride that.
00;04;22;07 - 00;04;45;27
Richard
Well, I look at the old movies and I've just gone there. That's a real skill to ride those things. And so when that balsa board thing happened, which is where I sort of came in at the beginning of, well, probably at the end of the balsa era because foam came in in about 60. And so I started on a balsa board and then ended up going on to foam after that.
00;04;46;00 - 00;04;56;22
Tappa
And so from there at Avalon might say, you started to did you start to go in contests and all that straight away, or any clubs or anything, or did you just was just surfing at the beach? That was.
00;04;56;24 - 00;05;16;00
Richard
I, I had a funny little story and what it was that I bought my first, surfboard from a guy who was one of the really hot surfers, a guy called Peter Hughes. And he was he was the number one surfer minor while at the time. And, because we might have I was a long way from Brookvale.
00;05;16;00 - 00;05;35;10
Richard
It wasn't like you could just take your board to a, you know, a surf shop and get it fixed. You had to go into Brookvale, get a can of residents and promoter and catalyst and fiberglass and come back. So this particular board ended up having a bit of a a ding in the nose, which I'd ended up cutting off and putting tape.
00;05;35;10 - 00;05;56;11
Richard
I've written all of that, so I ended up eventually. It just started to rotten, like a real mess of it. So I ended up cutting about one foot off the front of the surfboard straight across with a big ol rusty saw. The way to that doesn't look too good, so I cut some corners on it, and then I got some, fiberglass light it over the top.
00;05;56;11 - 00;06;17;07
Richard
And the guy told me at the surf shop, he said, oh, look, this purple stuff's called promoter. And you put it into the resin to make it go off a bit quicker when it's called. So on a went archive pouring a bit of promoter this whole thing fiberglass turned purple. The pot on the beach that up. We're all at home where I was fixing it.
00;06;17;09 - 00;06;39;06
Richard
All started to smoke and carry on, but the board ended up being an eight footer and so what ended up happening? Because I'd cut one foot off the front, the board was really easy to turn ugly looking surfboard, but it was really easy to turn and so I went in the state titles and they ended up coming third in the New South Wales titles.
00;06;39;09 - 00;06;42;07
Tappa
On a board with a cut off knives that you'd put back together yourself.
00;06;42;07 - 00;07;11;26
Richard
Well, it wasn't even put back. It was just basically cut straight across. And I'd only been surfing about three years, so I was sort of not too bad. That was held at Avalon and I remember at, in the, at in the final and that was in the juniors and that and I was sitting on this big peak out the back, and there was a right on one side and a left down the other, and the right hand ran into the corner and the, the left sort of ran back down on the beach.
00;07;11;26 - 00;07;24;10
Richard
So we sitting out there together and it's really nice peaks come through and I've turned around and that I've gone which way you're going. And he's gone both. And it doesn't.
00;07;24;10 - 00;07;25;20
Tappa
Sound like that much, does.
00;07;25;20 - 00;07;41;18
Richard
It? It turned it did this because turns all the way across the peak and eventually went right. And I eventually got my left hander after he'd gone. But that was sort of my first real contest experience, and I really enjoyed it. You know, it pushes you a little bit.
00;07;41;21 - 00;07;49;29
Tappa
Well, that's it, mate, and I believe you, you became a quite a well-known surfer pretty quickly because, What how old were you when you're surfing that one when you got third?
00;07;50;02 - 00;07;51;19
Richard
Probably about 13 or 14.
00;07;51;20 - 00;08;01;10
Tappa
13 or 14. So. Or where I was guaranteed quite a few years on from that. So you must have had a few more contests after that because, you know, you end up getting paid.
00;08;01;12 - 00;08;23;07
Richard
Well, there was a, a range of little things that sort of went on. The contest used to be on the north side of Avalon or Manly or, on the, South side down a pond and one of the state titles. We went down there to bond all I. And that was the year that Kevin Brennan won the juniors and seniors.
00;08;23;07 - 00;08;26;29
Richard
It was about 1 or 2ft high is a little tiny.
00;08;27;01 - 00;08;27;21
Tappa
Kevin the head.
00;08;27;25 - 00;08;53;12
Richard
Yeah. It is a really good surfer. But the lives were so small. It was his home break that he beat everybody and all, all the different contests. And that was one of the contests that I went in. So I'd, I'd sort of done. Okay. And then we got to about 67, I suppose. And I had won over at Maroubra, and I was doing some different types of maneuvers.
00;08;53;12 - 00;09;14;23
Richard
I was doing backhand reentries and things where they weren't really doing any of that type of stuff at the time. And then, I'd been working in the film industry. That was one of my, one of my jobs being a film editor. And, a mate of mine came up to me one day and he said, oh, Ron Wyden wants to offer you a sponsorship.
00;09;14;25 - 00;09;38;03
Richard
And I went, oh, yeah, what's that about? And and he said, well, he wants you to ride his boards. And I sort of went, yeah, okay. And I've been writing Scott Dillon's and McTavish shapes and things like that at the time, Wallace and, and I and I didn't do anything about it. And then he came back to me and he said, oh, look, what I'll do is I'll give you a 15, $15 or 15.
00;09;38;06 - 00;09;44;08
Richard
Yeah, I think it was dollars at the time, $15 a week. And what I'll give you.
00;09;44;09 - 00;09;45;24
Tappa
That's a fair bit of coin. Back then it.
00;09;45;24 - 00;10;01;01
Richard
Was a lot of a lot of money. And he said, I'll give you a, an old Holden ute that's painted orange with Big Ron Wyden right down the side. And you can drive it wherever you want, and I'll pay all the fuel. And I was at his doorstep the next.
00;10;01;04 - 00;10;01;13
Tappa
One.
00;10;01;14 - 00;10;10;25
Richard
I mean, I mean, and so that was my first real professional thing. And somebody, you know, I used to travel up and down the coast and just go surfing everywhere.
00;10;10;27 - 00;10;22;08
Tappa
I just to bring you out the back end. Ranchi. What? Like you said, you know, one, what's what made you to actually do that maneuver? What inspired you to get to do that back in reentry?
00;10;22;10 - 00;10;49;12
Richard
When you're writing long boards, the hardest thing is when you're in a hollow wave is to sort of, straighten, straighten out. So one of the easiest things to do was to go up higher and let the wave break and let the what? Let the whitewater sort of fall down and then write it down that way. And so I'd been doing that a little bit, writing hollow waves and just finding the backhand that was easier rather than sort of straightening out.
00;10;49;12 - 00;11;07;23
Richard
So at the end of the wave, I'd sort of go up and right up onto the water, up on the top, and then sort of come back down and even, you know, people that commentators and things like that, the weren't judging said that the judges didn't understand what was going on. It was something that sort of hadn't happened yet.
00;11;07;25 - 00;11;29;01
Richard
So there were a lot of lot of little things. And then after after that, I sort of went, oh, I don't want to go in contests anymore. But then the 69 came up and they were going to Western Australia, and my mum said, well, you can have a trip to Western Australia for a 21st birthday, or I can have a party, whatever you want.
00;11;29;01 - 00;11;42;28
Richard
So I went Western Australia, so that was the one that net one Peter drawn came second and I got a third and 69 and then after that I've just sort of got to retire. After that I.
00;11;42;28 - 00;11;43;19
Tappa
Retired.
00;11;43;23 - 00;12;13;29
Richard
So that was sort of basically the end of like surfing career or more professional, contest sort of things. Yeah. And then in 73, I'd been in, I came up to Queensland sort of permanently about 1970. And then, they said, are we going to hold the Australian titles back in Western Australia again? And I went, oh, gee, I really like those waves over there, big left handers.
00;12;13;29 - 00;12;17;01
Richard
It was sort of like a Sunset Beach reverse.
00;12;17;03 - 00;12;18;21
Tappa
And you being a goofy sort of course.
00;12;18;26 - 00;12;53;00
Richard
And yeah, that's right. And I really liked The Wave. And by that time midget drew and all those guys had sort of, you know, stopped surfing. There was a new generation of surfers coming through, like Michael Peterson and Rabbit and Pete and all of that crowd. So I had to go into Queensland titles to qualify, which I, which I ended up doing, and then going over to Western Australia and Rabbit and Peter, you know, I'd drive over there in a, in a souped up, Cortina station.
00;12;53;00 - 00;12;55;11
Tappa
Wagon. That would have been a little adventure on its own.
00;12;55;11 - 00;13;08;19
Richard
Might, it was. There were some stories in that one, that's for sure. It, I, that was the only time in Michael's little run of contest things where he got beaten and by.
00;13;08;19 - 00;13;09;18
Tappa
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00;13;09;18 - 00;13;35;12
Richard
Well, there were a couple of things that sort of contributed to it. One was that, we drove via Bell's beach at Easter before we went over to Western Australia. And one of the things happened is we built these really long, sleek, pin tiles to ride Burley, because Burley had these long point Hollow wives. So a building slick of boards to go faster and faster down the line.
00;13;35;15 - 00;13;54;02
Richard
And I built this really fine, thin thing. It was all painted silver, and it was just like my pride and joy. I was going to take it over to Western Australia and and I that was that was a bit of a trip. And, took it out of Winky Pop and about an eight foot eye and got pushed through the middle of it.
00;13;54;05 - 00;14;14;22
Richard
And so I broke my board in half and I only had one board. So I went, ran to the Ripcurl factory, and I went, oh, you can build one of these, build one here. So I ended up building this big, thick, chunky monster of a board which was perfect for for me because I could sit 20ft outside everybody else and get every set wave.
00;14;14;22 - 00;14;41;00
Richard
So I had the right equipment and the judging system had changed a bit too. So Michael, who was very fast in the water, was doing a lot of a winning a lot of contests because he was doing, a lot of maneuvers from getting points for maneuvers. But the Australian title was held on a different system where the judges would sit up and going, okay, that's a good wave, will give you a eight out of ten.
00;14;41;07 - 00;14;43;07
Tappa
More like what the system is today.
00;14;43;10 - 00;15;02;23
Richard
That's right. Yeah. And so the system was a little bit different too. So having the right equipment, being familiar with the with the wives and just a bit of, you know, contest knowledge and stuff behind me, it ended up, you know, winning a, a title, which was pretty good at the time.
00;15;02;24 - 00;15;12;14
Tappa
And Aussie title. Well, that was a very big thing. It's a bit different today. Unfortunately, it's not held in as much higher. God, the Australian title now the open title, which is a shame.
00;15;12;16 - 00;15;28;28
Richard
Well there was there was no other level. It wasn't until Pete and Reb sort of started the professional thing a few years after that. By that time I'd gone, the Australian title in the pub, and that was the head of just, you know, not a rod out of that.
00;15;28;28 - 00;15;48;11
Tappa
Oh, it's not long after that, pop and oh my, that like winning the inaugural pub and all that, mate that like it's still held in such high regard that event even though you know like it. I tell you what. Richard won 1500 bucks. It's this year's prize money was 1500 bucks, but was worth a bit more then. But how was that contest made?
00;15;48;12 - 00;15;53;00
Tappa
Because I heard it got called off as well. Because the big sock line was in 74, wasn't it?
00;15;53;00 - 00;16;18;14
Richard
That's right. We, we were, at Burley and, we decided to go up to the, the pub Bendel and all the roads started to get flooded. And I went, oh, we'll see if we can get through before all the roads got closed. So we've got the last road out of the Gold Coast, which was sort of up near Southport and up onto the highway driven up to Brisbane.
00;16;18;16 - 00;16;38;16
Richard
The old Brisbane Showground near the hospital was like probably under about 30ft of water. So we've come all around the ridges going over that old, Red Gate Bridge, and the waves were hitting the edge of the bridge and washing over the top of the bridge, and we've just kept on going and kept on going. We got up to everybody.
00;16;38;16 - 00;16;39;21
Tappa
Must have thought you were mad.
00;16;39;28 - 00;16;58;09
Richard
Well, I had a can of WD 40, you know, just spray the engine and drive for, you know, 20km to get out and spray the engine again. And we ended up getting up there and we got to, Caloundra and they went all, no one can get through. So we got to call the contest off. So we've got, what are we going to do?
00;16;58;11 - 00;17;20;08
Richard
The eye of the cyclone was sitting right over Noosa. So Noosa was absolutely blue sky, six foot waves. Nobody could get through. There was a bunch of probably 4 or 5 good surfers that were there. There was Keith, Paul, Lopez, Terry Fitzgerald, myself and a couple of local guys. And we had Noosa to ourselves with.
00;17;20;08 - 00;17;20;17
Tappa
How many.
00;17;20;17 - 00;17;22;16
Richard
People with about 4 or 5 of us in the.
00;17;22;16 - 00;17;25;10
Tappa
Water. And what about 6 to 8 or bigger?
00;17;25;12 - 00;18;06;19
Richard
Probably. Tea tray was about 4 to 5ft, but like just perfect, just perfect lives. And then the contest was held the next weekend and everybody arrived. And by that time the cyclone swell had sort of gone through and it was dribbling in at it, probably about, I don't know, 2 to 3ft. Yeah. At Moffat's prior to that, prior to that surfing contest, I, I went down to a guy at Chew Gum and he was a hypnotist, and I said, oh, what a highlight or what a sort of, perform at a higher level than what?
00;18;06;19 - 00;18;27;22
Richard
I don't know what I could, you know, what I was doing. And so he said, I'll, I'll hypnotize you. Anyway, I went, okay, so I went out the contest in the heat. I might have been a quarter or something like that. I ended up taking off on a couple of lives, riding them through, and came in, and they went, oh, you've been eliminated.
00;18;27;25 - 00;18;46;26
Richard
And I went, but I got my three wives and I went, all the judges. I've only got you down for two wives. And I said, well, look at this. A couple of the judges sheets have got me down for three wives, so these guys have missed my other wives. So what I did, I assessed an average of those things, gave me that thing.
00;18;46;26 - 00;18;52;25
Richard
And then I got through and went right through and ended up winning the final and winning the winning the prize money.
00;18;52;27 - 00;19;00;03
Tappa
And you had a young, a young boy like in the final with. Yeah, that I've had on here on the green room guy over on how I was going in. He would only be a baby with.
00;19;00;06 - 00;19;28;09
Richard
I think he was about 12 or 13 or something like that. He was is a terrific guy, and I've traveled a lot together and we've done bills together. We've done the pub all together. We've been in the mentalities together. It's, and we've, we've had a pretty sort of parallel type of a life. So he's been a good, good young kid and, you know, I, I suppose I took him under my wing a little bit with surfing, but,
00;19;28;12 - 00;19;47;18
Richard
Hey, it was just a competent surfer, a good kid, and, I mean, it was a couple of goofy footers, like Doris and Guy, you know, and burly. And the weight was sort of like a little bit of a a click. And even the, the burly, the, the surf company used to say, you know, Doris and Glen.
00;19;47;18 - 00;19;53;23
Richard
Oh, I, we're the left wing of the, of the surf company and. All right. Yeah. That's probably pretty much it.
00;19;53;25 - 00;20;08;25
Tappa
Yeah. It's there's always been the thing about burly about the best goofy footer at the point, too, like, you know, when I bay and all that, there's always someone who's the goofy footer at the moment. It's a sort of a nice flavor of the month on the thing or. But flavor of the year sometimes.
00;20;08;27 - 00;20;38;21
Richard
And it's interesting because with the time that I've been surfing, I've probably been surfing over 60 years, I've seen a whole bunch of different generations of surfing come through, and every generation has had its surf stars just like they've had their own music. And you know, when you go through from the times of, you know, when I was a kid, there was midget and then there was net and and then that sort of pulled out a little bit.
00;20;38;24 - 00;20;54;09
Richard
And then I was in a gap in there for a bit. And then there was Michael and Rab and Pete, and then there was the, Mick Fanning and Paco. So every generation has had its group of hot shots.
00;20;54;11 - 00;21;10;24
Tappa
Or speaking of Hot Shots like that pop Bendel in 74, that was a red hot contest. The surface of anything. Of course, Jerry Lopez was in it, but rabbit and like the you probably know the names more than I do that were in it, but it was a it wasn't just like a, an easy field was an international field.
00;21;10;26 - 00;21;30;10
Richard
It was. And at that time, because there was no real professional circuit, the Australian title and the par Bendel, which was the richest contest held in Australia or actually in the world at that time, they that was sort of like the epitome, the height, the high part of, you know, professional surfing.
00;21;30;10 - 00;21;42;27
Tappa
Now, we said $1,500 was the first prize. So this is a great story. I've discussed this with Richard before. What did you do with the $1,500 in people? This will equate to how much that money was worth.
00;21;42;29 - 00;22;06;28
Richard
Well, I came back with the money and I put a deposit on a house down in, Albion Avenue at the just near the golf course at the Billy Golf Club. Is. And the the block of land was, $1,000 and the brand new two bedroom brick house was $9,000. And I went, okay, I'll put the money down on that.
00;22;07;00 - 00;22;33;25
Richard
So, you know, we ended up getting into the house about 3 or 4 weeks ago, maybe a month ago, I was driving past and there was a guy outside the house. So I pulled over and I said, oh, hey, you're going to, you know, I bought this house back in 1974. And he went, oh, well, so, you know, we talked a bit about it and he said, oh, you know, has it I asked him how that's going, and he said, oh, it's gone pretty good.
00;22;33;25 - 00;22;39;08
Richard
And I said, I'll give live in it. And he said, no, I rent it. I get about $1,000 a week for it.
00;22;39;08 - 00;22;41;21
Tappa
Now that's a whole week.
00;22;41;22 - 00;22;54;12
Richard
And I said, oh, what's it worth? And you said, oh, about 1.3 million and I hit 1.3 million. That that equates to probably about $130,000 in, you know, in terms of what.
00;22;54;15 - 00;22;55;21
Tappa
That money was. Yeah.
00;22;55;23 - 00;22;56;17
Richard
Was worth.
00;22;56;19 - 00;23;00;23
Tappa
Because you imagine you had a surfing contest now with 130 grand first prize.
00;23;00;24 - 00;23;02;11
Richard
You get people from all over the world coming.
00;23;02;11 - 00;23;16;25
Tappa
To. Exactly. And that's what that's what happened at the par. Now, my before you were saying like when you had your little sponsorship and that you and Barry were coming up and down the coast everywhere, what was it like traveling in the, in the early 60s, up and down, looking for wives?
00;23;16;27 - 00;23;39;16
Richard
Well, it was empty. It was, it just would pull into places and Barry and I'd be the only surfers there. And we had times we'd go around with, photographers and we'd go into places like Yangon and there'd be just Keith, Paul, Barry and myself and maybe a couple of other surface. And we were always surfing by ourselves.
00;23;39;19 - 00;24;05;08
Richard
My very first trip, my very first real surf trip to Queensland, and I came up in about 63, was probably about 65. And I came up with a mate of mine called Barry Stock. And Barry was, a neighborhood writer from Collaroy, and he said, I'm going to take your surfing into Queensland. And I went, yep, okay. I didn't know too much about it other than was just, you know, tropical water.
00;24;05;08 - 00;24;20;21
Richard
So we've driven up, pulled in a green mount, and I've looked at the color of the water and I just got, oh, I've got to go surfing. And he's got none. Hi. This is no good here anyway. And we've driven up to Burley and I've looked at Burley and I've got to go. I've got to go surfing here.
00;24;20;21 - 00;24;40;22
Richard
Look how clear the water is. And they were, was all longboards. So there was like 2 or 3 guys on every wave coming through and all the way up got dropped in about 3 or 4 times and came in a bit frustrated. He went, nah, I told you so. This is no place to to go surfing. And so he said, what we're going is we're going further up the coast.
00;24;40;24 - 00;25;05;11
Richard
And I went, oh, okay. We ended up getting up to Noosa in 1965 when there was algae, Grubhub, McTavish and a few elders, and we surfed first point for a week and I could see, Johnson's a national sort of app at the back at the end of the point, but with a big, long, heavy surfboard, you didn't really go anywhere.
00;25;05;11 - 00;25;08;07
Tappa
You just saw rocks there, too. If you fell off, probably.
00;25;08;09 - 00;25;26;19
Richard
Well, the first point was sort of just nice and Sandy. And then we surfed there for a week, and then the wind turned onshore and I would all go for a walk and have a look and see what's out the back. And I didn't even know territory in those places even existed. All we did was just surf. First point.
00;25;26;19 - 00;25;43;03
Richard
Yeah. So that was that was one of my experiences with, you know, traveling with Baddiel. Lowe. We had a funny one on one of our funny trips was and I've, I write a few of these stories down, so people of.
00;25;43;05 - 00;25;46;11
Tappa
Camera, we've got some great books here, too. Yeah, yeah.
00;25;46;13 - 00;26;08;24
Richard
Anyway, we've called in to, cresent on our way up through to Queensland and as we've called in, Crescent was known that at certain times of the year, the headland or the hill up on top of the headland, came out in mushrooms. So all the people from Kempsey used to come out.
00;26;08;26 - 00;26;09;20
Tappa
Pick out top.
00;26;09;21 - 00;26;14;17
Richard
Stick all the mushrooms, you know, and go back and, you know, normal, normal mushrooms.
00;26;14;17 - 00;26;16;13
Tappa
Oh, normal mushrooms. All right.
00;26;16;15 - 00;26;31;18
Richard
This one particular year it came out with magic mushrooms uncle on the side of the hill. And they had ambulances coming in and out picking people up from Crescent, taking them back into Kempsey. These poor country people. You. I didn't know what to do.
00;26;31;18 - 00;26;34;05
Tappa
My master must have sprinkle some spores up there.
00;26;34;07 - 00;26;55;23
Richard
Well, I don't know what happened. You know, maybe it was something that the cows because it was always in the, you know, the cow patties. Yeah. That these things that grow up so better, you know, I've just grabbed a whole pile of them, stuck them in some plastic bags and, and driven to Queensland, watching the color lights of the, and the music going on at the same time.
00;26;55;26 - 00;26;57;21
Richard
We had some pretty funny trips.
00;26;57;23 - 00;27;07;04
Tappa
Oh, my, that's amazing that, you know, and and then discovering the Ice Wives all the way up to there would have been many wives that like, probably hardly anyone that have surfed.
00;27;07;07 - 00;27;26;24
Richard
Well, we knew a few places, but some spots we'd just drive in. And you're going any surf here? Not drive up to another place. Any surf here? Yeah. Oh, look, that's a good point. And can still happen now. You know, you just pull in somewhere and the sand changes and yeah I've had that happen a few times.
00;27;26;27 - 00;27;41;03
Tappa
Am I like you said you started. When did you start making surfboards? Because behind you there we've got a beautiful board, chamber timber board that you've made that's even got the Harvey logo in timber. When did you first start getting into making surfboards?
00;27;41;05 - 00;28;05;01
Richard
My first sponsorship was with Ronnie Wine. And the days when there wasn't any surf, I'd come in to Ron and go, I want to do something. And he going, oh, okay, I'll teach you how to cut plane shapes. So my first sort of 3 or 4 months, the blanks were really big at the time because boards were starting to drop down in size, but the blanks hadn't changed.
00;28;05;01 - 00;28;22;02
Richard
Still big, thick Mel Blanc, so we had to cut them down a fair bit. And so I learned to cut plan shapes. And I, I got pretty good at, you know, cutting plan shapes, you know. And then he went, okay, now I'm going to put you on the plane planer. So we didn't have the nice little plane that they used these days.
00;28;22;02 - 00;28;41;05
Richard
We had the big heavy companies planets because most of the manufacturers were all chippies. Yeah, that's what I came out of that, that industry of building plywood boards. And then balsa. Then when foam came in, it was sort of like it was the same sort of tools. So I learned to use one of those giant big planes.
00;28;41;05 - 00;28;44;14
Tappa
You would have been big on the back would have been hard work.
00;28;44;14 - 00;29;13;14
Richard
Well, it was good. So that's where I started. But to to fill you in on another little story that that happened, that Keith, Paul and I were driving up to Noosa on a trip and we've called in to, about Timber Gargan, which is sort of part of the magic. Not, well, not the Magic Mountains, the, what I call those mountains up at, you know, near, back of Nashville.
00;29;13;16 - 00;29;17;24
Tappa
Oh, right. The glasshouse. Glasshouse men say the lunch. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00;29;17;26 - 00;29;26;13
Richard
Anyway, we've called into this little place to get, you know, some breakfast, and these two cowboys have started. Give us a hard time. Are you surfing wimps?
00;29;26;15 - 00;29;28;23
Tappa
You know, a long had had. You would have loved.
00;29;28;24 - 00;29;49;02
Richard
All of that, you know, and that's a lot of hippies. Yeah. And I, you know, they started giving the girls a bit of a hard time. So I said to one of them, okay, oh, you know, you think you're so tough. I'll give you a, an arm wrestle. And I said, well, okay. So we've got up on the table and you're on your ready, put my arm up there.
00;29;49;02 - 00;30;10;11
Richard
And they looked at me and I pushed his hand down like that. And he he's looked at me in a bit sort of shocked, and I, I looked at him and I said, oh, you weren't ready. Okay, let's go. We'll go again. Ready? It's gone. Yep. I think that what he did know that I've been picking up one of those John big playing is for about, you know, five.
00;30;10;11 - 00;30;12;06
Tappa
Years old I bet 10 pounds.
00;30;12;09 - 00;30;32;16
Richard
Oh that were heavy. You know, really big heavy things. And you pick them up and now they are like little tiny things. And I feel like they toys. Yeah. That interesting learning had a shape there. And then Shane asked me if I wanted to go. And so for his time he had a more professional sort of time. So I ended up, you know, working.
00;30;32;18 - 00;30;34;16
Tappa
Shane Steadman yes.
00;30;34;16 - 00;30;35;11
Richard
I did.
00;30;35;13 - 00;30;36;01
Tappa
Yeah.
00;30;36;04 - 00;30;42;08
Richard
And then Shane went, I want to open up a shop on the Gold Coast. And I put my hand up and went.
00;30;42;11 - 00;30;43;18
Tappa
Get me down the golly.
00;30;43;19 - 00;31;08;16
Richard
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was my introduction. And then just coming across all different sorts of people. I mean, I traveled a bit and, you know, traveled and sort of hung out with the Campbell brothers, the bonds, those guys in California, and traveled in France, met some, guys that, had access to really good balsa and transom net.
00;31;08;16 - 00;31;26;17
Richard
And I built some balsa boards over in France. So I learned a bit about, you know, building the timber boards. So everywhere I've gone, I've picked up, you know, little bits and pieces. So I wouldn't say that I've learned it all by myself. Just, you know, it's been a teamwork of, you know, people.
00;31;26;19 - 00;31;32;04
Tappa
Well, I'm. I'll manage. So if you stop, stop learning, you stop live and say you got a cape, Cape, London every day.
00;31;32;04 - 00;31;34;10
Richard
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's right.
00;31;34;12 - 00;31;41;07
Tappa
And so and then you basically wanted to shine did you at that. When did you start doing your own label like that. Harvey label.
00;31;41;10 - 00;31;56;15
Richard
When I won the Australian title, we changed the label from shine over to Dick Harvey. Yeah. Surfboards. And from that time, it went on. And then I came back and worked with Dick van. Yeah. For, 2 or 3 years, we had the Burley surf comp.
00;31;56;15 - 00;32;13;25
Tappa
Oh, that was, that was like, I remember back when I was a kid, that was more like when I first started surfing the burley surf cow in that. Well, it's where McDonald's is now. If you ever go to the go castles around Belgium. Exactly right. It was there. And, that iconic picture of, like, pole the pirate.
00;32;13;25 - 00;32;14;28
Tappa
Yeah. The burly. There it.
00;32;14;28 - 00;32;18;07
Richard
Is. There you go. There's a present for you. Oh.
00;32;18;09 - 00;32;32;25
Tappa
My. Unreal. Like this. The burly head surf guy that's like that iconic photo with, that was like, thought and, pulled a pie over Dave McDougal, Duane Harris, Peter Harris and Boris Johnson.
00;32;32;27 - 00;32;33;22
Richard
00;32;33;24 - 00;32;39;04
Tappa
That was that was the story I have of surfing in there on the northern end of the Gold Coast.
00;32;39;04 - 00;33;03;26
Richard
Really it was. And we used to get all those people that had come in, like Michael Ho from Hawaii, and he'd get boards. And Dick was very experimental. Yeah. It bill boards and drill them all out and fill them with ping pong balls and all sorts of things. And one of the funny things with the ping pong ball is the board busted in half at Carroll and I had no ping pong balls on all.
00;33;03;26 - 00;33;11;01
Richard
I have a carrot point, so that was good luck. And Dick still experimented. Yeah, stuff is a he's a creative person.
00;33;11;02 - 00;33;26;17
Tappa
You're very creative. I remember seeing a movie of him when he came up from Sydney. That in the 60s movie. It's a quarter amazing movie where they just are in the shops and and stuff and, you know, they're just living kinda hand to mouth, but. And surfing.
00;33;26;19 - 00;33;40;03
Richard
That's what it was. And you just went, well, all I need is enough to go, you know, have a feed so I can go surfing. And that was the whole thing of it. Our whole goal was just to surf and just keep surfing.
00;33;40;05 - 00;33;56;26
Tappa
Yeah. That, that, that is a that's like yeah, that's like my friend said that it's just kind of hard to sort of recreate that because like money was kind of plentiful in the 60s sort of thing, like the economy, you know, there was money around. And if it wasn't so tight on things, you know.
00;33;56;28 - 00;34;18;24
Richard
Well, it was a lot of freedom. So we used to come in and ship at night, glass at night, you know, and then surf all day and then go back and ship again at night. And some of the funny things that happened. There was a guy there. There was a glass of cold Frankie Vale and Frank, used to, play around with some psychedelics and things like that.
00;34;18;27 - 00;34;34;01
Richard
And we came in one morning and his Frank had been glassing all night and had it fallen over, whether he'd fallen asleep or in a drug induced stupor, I don't know, but he was risen to the floor and took a, and couldn't get up off the floor.
00;34;34;06 - 00;34;35;08
Tappa
Say, come here, he's got.
00;34;35;10 - 00;34;43;04
Richard
Help. But we had to cut him off the cutting, cut his hair and cut him off the floor. So that was it was pretty funny, but.
00;34;43;06 - 00;34;44;07
Tappa
Fortunately not for him.
00;34;44;14 - 00;35;02;13
Richard
Well, and I had funny things written on the wall. You know, Dick, Dick had all little sayings, you know, like, the arty farty party company and, one of them that I really liked was the castle. Come on, the castle go. But the ball goes on forever. Yeah.
00;35;02;15 - 00;35;11;01
Tappa
That's probably was right. That, might have. Oh, like it would a shape for many surfaces. It was your favorite surfer. The shape for.
00;35;11;03 - 00;35;43;02
Richard
Well, there's a few guys that I really enjoyed shaping, in the longboard era. Rye Gleave. Rye was really, particular about what he wanted with these boards, with the edges and the white, distance of concave and how we, we used to have these little roundish conclaves under the nose, but then we developed the flow through concave because he'd always put his foot on the edge of the dish and get a little bit of a wobble.
00;35;43;04 - 00;35;46;18
Richard
So we used to fine tune things. So Rye was one of the.
00;35;46;25 - 00;35;51;07
Tappa
Amazing long border. I've seen rye surf back. Yeah. He's amazing surfer.
00;35;51;07 - 00;36;07;28
Richard
Yeah. And and then there was hog big bird. I mean, Big Bird, six foot six. And he can do a roundhouse cut back on a, you know, a four foot wave that just comes back and bounces vertical into the water. And he was really good.
00;36;08;03 - 00;36;11;24
Tappa
And I believe nobody took off deeper at the alley than him either.
00;36;11;27 - 00;36;33;22
Richard
Around the back of the work by around the back. And then shape boards for, you know, all different sorts of people. It was a young guy, is, still show boards for called Boucher. Who? Surf's up at, Broad Beach at the moment, and he's about. Oh, it'd be 60 something now.
00;36;33;28 - 00;37;03;21
Richard
Still riding five eights. Little round of pin tiles, but smooth and sweeping. And he'd he'd get the, the right rail shape at the right bottom rockers and would fun to take the little tiny things because what happens with surfboards and it's been lost a little bit is that body inertia and wave size creates, pressure, of the board on the water.
00;37;03;21 - 00;37;31;11
Richard
The faster you go. So the dynamics get magnified. And what happens is that the small things in design are being lost because the computers are just going, oh, we'll cut from here to there and forget all the different parts of a board, reliant on doing different things, like the flap under your chest needs to be flat. So when you paddle into planes and then rocker in the tiles, they can come off the top.
00;37;31;11 - 00;37;56;14
Richard
And now rocker in the front, you know, all different little bits and pieces that go in. It's probably about 60 little bits that go into building a board. So some people would come in and you'd tweak a board for just for them for one particular thing, and you'd make an improvement in their surfing. So I enjoyed building boards for everybody, and that's one of my things.
00;37;56;14 - 00;38;17;27
Richard
Now that, I like to teach people how to do all those things, but some of my workshops teach them to the finer things and the, the, the detail that makes the difference between, you know, one board and another board. And I tell them, I just go the difference between ordinary and extra ordinary is just a little extra.
00;38;18;00 - 00;38;43;16
Richard
It's all the little tiny things that are magnified under pressure that give you a good board or a great board, and you get feedback from every board that you build of people that come in and go, oh, I want, I want this, I want that, and I'm going, what's the strengths of in your surfing? What's the weaknesses? And then you can go, okay, well how about we boost this bit and we give you a bit more freedom in this bit.
00;38;43;18 - 00;39;01;16
Richard
So then there's an evolution of design on just a lot. There's been the evolution of from balsa through to foam and long boards and pin tiles and then, you know, right down to where we are now with, you know, conclaves and different materials and things.
00;39;01;19 - 00;39;16;20
Tappa
I'm saying some boards on the weekend, it actually had a flat bottom, one of these, what were they? It's choppy and actually had a flat bottom. And this guy said, guys, go on. I thought, well, I don't think I've seen a flat bottom since, oh, I don't I when they.
00;39;16;20 - 00;39;22;17
Richard
Those little things probably the 70s. Yeah. When we started moving into V's and Fives and.
00;39;22;19 - 00;39;43;13
Tappa
And they said a flat bottom evidently this guy went, went really went really good. Just, just so I looked at it and I was going, wow, I haven't seen anything like that before, but but I go back there like, you make all sorts of boards. What do you think of, like, you know, the retro movement and like mid lengths and how everyone's going that it's like it's different, different strokes for different like sort of thing really.
00;39;43;16 - 00;40;14;24
Richard
And is and one of the best things that you can do is have a, a quiver of surfboards, especially on the Gold Coast. We have everything from one foot green mount that will be running for 200m down to, 8 to 10ft carried. That's just piping. And, you know, everything in between beach breaks. And when you get specific in your design, each design works better in particular waves.
00;40;14;26 - 00;40;39;24
Richard
So if you're looking for, a board and to ride in really big waves, obviously you could pedal out at 1st May or by on a fish, but it wouldn't be very effective. So the idea then is to be building boards that work in different conditions. So length gives you run width gives you stability. Thickness gives you buoyancy.
00;40;39;26 - 00;41;04;07
Richard
And there's all these different combinations that you can put together. A bit more area up in the front creates more lift in the front. Which means then you go to stand further forward should give you a trim speed which suits certain types of boards like fishes or, pin tiles. You know, that might be, light and buoyancy further forward.
00;41;04;09 - 00;41;49;06
Richard
And then you've got the performance thruster where the weight and the buoyancy is back underneath the feet, but you don't move your feet. So every little design has its, benefit. So then by working out the lives that the person wants to ride, the ability of the person, their strengths and weaknesses, then you build this piece of equipment that sits in the middle, and then when you build that piece of equipment that suits both the rider and the waves that they want to roll it, the board basically just disappears and allows the person to be a surfer riding a wave rather than someone riding a surfboard.
00;41;49;09 - 00;41;51;11
Tappa
So they're one with the wave, in other words.
00;41;51;12 - 00;42;25;11
Richard
Well, there's two types of surfaces. People that, a board, riders that stand on a board and ride in on the white water, and then the surface and surface of the ones that feel the energy of the wave. And there's there's some things in surfing where you can really pick energy in different parts of the life. One of them in particular that I really enjoy surfing and always have, is that point where you get right up in the top of the lip, where the water is running right up the face of the wave, and then it becomes stationary.
00;42;25;13 - 00;42;57;13
Richard
Even though the waves running that part of the wave, the water becomes stationary because it's the point where it runs up the face and then it stops before it goes the opposite direction. So there's one part that runs over, another part that goes over with the lip, and then there's that little point that sits up in the top in there, where the water is stationary and everything becomes really still, and then you get up into that little zone, up in the top in there, and it's like the world stand still up in there.
00;42;57;13 - 00;43;06;10
Richard
It's just a special little thing that you can get every now and then and every now and then I'll sort of I'm not surfing that much more on, you know, I've.
00;43;06;17 - 00;43;08;28
Tappa
Still got to go for 78 if you're still surfing.
00;43;09;02 - 00;43;36;05
Richard
Well, I pedal out and not very successfully, but, you know, have a bit of a, have a bit of a play in the water and whether I'm just sitting on the boat enjoying the rhythm, you know, or whether I'm sitting on a board, it doesn't make a lot of difference to me these days. But, you know, finding that little spot in a wife and finding the spot for every surfer with the style that I like and the merge that they like and the waves that I want to ride.
00;43;36;07 - 00;43;46;10
Richard
That's where Shipping's taking me from. Or more knowledge. My experience is putting it into those boards so everybody else can get out of it. What do I got out of it?
00;43;46;10 - 00;43;58;28
Tappa
And so you're giving back now. But like I know a while ago, you, stepped away from your factory, went, okay, I'm not shipping anymore. And I had that. How long that lasted, but I think it lasted very long. But you're still, putting on a few boards.
00;43;59;04 - 00;44;03;28
Richard
I'm not building a lot. I'm probably building, you know, maybe a couple of months, but.
00;44;04;00 - 00;44;05;10
Tappa
So still not too bad.
00;44;05;10 - 00;44;17;15
Richard
Yeah. And, I enjoy glassing. I enjoy, shaping. I enjoy doing the workshops. I do a workshop probably one a week, which is ten hours. So I'm in there for a couple of hours.
00;44;17;19 - 00;44;22;07
Tappa
And had I had if someone wanted to do a workshop with you, how do they do that? Right.
00;44;22;09 - 00;44;45;06
Richard
Well, first of all, that book, a book a time. So we run it over a week and then we do two hours each day. And with the first session is all about, learning about templates and foam blanks and how, you know, how it all sort of fits together, how the shaping by works. And then the second thing is all about cutting plan shapes.
00;44;45;08 - 00;45;06;18
Richard
Then the third day is all about using the planner. So we don't use any computer cuts. Yeah. And then the next two days are sort of finishing it off. So if somebody wants to do it, I basically go online and then they can email me and just go, oh, look, I'm interested in doing a workshop. Or a girl goes, oh, I want to keep my hobby.
00;45;06;20 - 00;45;07;21
Richard
Something special.
00;45;07;21 - 00;45;11;19
Tappa
That's pretty cool. That's a cool pressure. That's like, it's it's something that's forever.
00;45;11;27 - 00;45;27;29
Richard
Well, people get their first board and by shape it and shaping your own borders and and I have it on my little brushes and things like that are like shaping your own board is the next best thing to surfing, because it's something you get on.
00;45;27;29 - 00;45;30;22
Tappa
And then you hop on it and feel it, what you've done.
00;45;30;24 - 00;45;51;17
Richard
And it's not only failing it, but there's certain things in shaping where, and you'd know that a surface do this all the time, like pick a board up under there. And I bounce it and I feel it, and I go, that feels good. But a lot of people don't realize. But the distance from your wrist to your inside elbow is the size of your foot.
00;45;51;20 - 00;46;14;20
Richard
So there's a relationship in the body sizing that when you pick a board up. And Jeff Heckman told me years ago, he said, when you put your hand on the rail, nice and soft, it should fit your hand nice and soft in your hand and that is the rail that works for that, for that person. So there's a relationship between the body and the board they ride.
00;46;14;20 - 00;46;35;14
Richard
And the closer you can match that to the person that's riding it to match that board to them, then it's it's like when you go by close by, close to fit, you buy clothes for the occasion. You buy a t shirt to hang out in, or you'll buy a suit to go to a wedding or whatever it is that you got to do.
00;46;35;14 - 00;46;51;26
Richard
But they've all got to fit. And it's the same thing with surfboards that we build, surfboards that are going to fit. They're going to fit the rider, they're going to fit the wives. And the better they fit, the less you think about it. You haven't thought about your t shirts or any of the clothes you're wearing because they all fit you and you're comfortable in them.
00;46;51;28 - 00;47;15;03
Richard
And it's the same with surfboards. If you build a surfboard that fits, then it just disappears and the person becomes a wave rider, a surfer, because they're not riding a board anymore. They're riding a wave, and it's the connection to that thing. That's that. And this is what I try to get across to people. Some people have just go, fantastic, I've shaped a surfboard.
00;47;15;10 - 00;47;16;13
Richard
I'm excited about it.
00;47;16;13 - 00;47;23;26
Tappa
But you're trying to get the actual theory and the, the actual thing to the into them to. So they sort of accept it. Well.
00;47;23;28 - 00;47;29;15
Richard
I try to give them the understanding of why surfing is addictive. You know, once you're a surfer and you.
00;47;29;15 - 00;47;30;14
Tappa
Lot realize.
00;47;30;17 - 00;47;42;28
Richard
You're a surfer forever, that's it. And it's something that gets a hold of you. And even, you know, whether you're young or old, it's still you're a surfer and that's that's how it is.
00;47;43;00 - 00;47;57;21
Tappa
But I've been many places and I've got one of your books here. Now, what about Bali? Like, this is one of these books, say, Bali 7475. It's all your own photography and that. But I believe there's a picture of you here on a massive wave. I think it's an early. Watto, is that correct?
00;47;57;22 - 00;47;58;18
Richard
Aloha to.
00;47;58;19 - 00;48;02;08
Tappa
Yeah, yeah. How was Bali back then?
00;48;02;10 - 00;48;24;28
Richard
Well, rabbit and I paddled out in, in 74 and all the way up to. We jumped off the bamboo ladder into a cave full of water that was surging right up into the end of the cave and let it carry us out. Got out to the back and they were probably 15 to 18ft waves coming through quite a bit and some even bigger.
00;48;24;28 - 00;48;51;13
Richard
So Rab and I would sit off to the side, wired off the reef outside corner and further out, and then we'd wait until it had settled down a little bit, and then we'd paddle in closer to the bank and try to catch a wave, and then we'd sort of zoom back out if we did many thing. And, you know, we probably caught about 2 or 3 wives each one of the that really big wives that I caught there.
00;48;51;15 - 00;49;00;25
Richard
It was really spooky because the swell was so long that it ran around and disappeared into the salt mist and you couldn't see.
00;49;00;25 - 00;49;02;13
Tappa
You couldn't see where the wife was gone, couldn't.
00;49;02;13 - 00;49;25;29
Richard
See the end of the wave. It was just salt mist. And so I went, well, I've got to get back into the cave. I can paddle way back up onto the inside of the headland and try to like the gap to get back in. Or I can, catch a wave and brought it down as far as I could, and then sort of coming down on the other end of the reef.
00;49;25;29 - 00;49;45;05
Richard
So I've caught that really big wave and run down sort of the coast, probably about 3 or 400m down. And as I'm just about to sort of pull in and go across the inside of the reef, lie down, I noticed there was a headland on a point that ran around and I could sort of see wave breaking around in.
00;49;45;06 - 00;49;56;29
Richard
So later on, I've decided that I was going to go for a paddle down that way. And that's when I sort of came across Padang. And, you know, I ended up finding all I was a little.
00;49;56;29 - 00;49;59;25
Tappa
Sad, you know, one of the first of all, the first to surf. But I think, Padang, you.
00;49;59;25 - 00;50;24;15
Richard
Reckon the first start was five. Oh, no, it was just, you know, we went down there and then the year after that, I, I took people down there, you know, we took rabbit. Not rabbit. We took Doris down there. Peter McCabe, Terry Richardson, Simon Anderson's brother. Dickie, who came down and filmed down there, Bill Delaney, who did a movie called Free Rod.
00;50;24;18 - 00;50;28;07
Tappa
Oh, yeah. That's one of my favorite surf movies of all time. Friend. Right?
00;50;28;09 - 00;50;36;26
Richard
He came down there and, then the world knew about it the day I go back there to look at it and I just shake my hand.
00;50;36;28 - 00;50;39;11
Tappa
Well, it's pretty hard to get up. Pretty hard to get a wave at Padang.
00;50;39;11 - 00;50;41;20
Richard
Padang. I should have just kept my mouth shut.
00;50;41;22 - 00;50;46;25
Tappa
I reckon I might have found it eventually, but a different kind of wife to in the water to it is.
00;50;46;25 - 00;51;17;06
Richard
It's short and a and it wraps at the end and it had a little funny reef at the end. It had like a hand that sort of came up with pinnacles in it. And I remember Doris going down on the one and coming up, in the gap between some of the other pinnacles. And what had happened is the wave had run down the reef, and as it had hit that little pinnacle of reef at the end, the the hollowness had come down, and then it had opened up.
00;51;17;06 - 00;51;32;01
Richard
So what? You'd come down and you'd go and ride the tube and you'd write down right into the hollow until it was just like it was going to close out. And then it it just opened up into like a big green room, and you'd just come through it and shoot out to the end. It was was pretty special.
00;51;32;04 - 00;51;52;04
Richard
I mean, at that time, obviously the guys like Belém and Lopez were going over to GE land finding it, but oh wait, when waves are good in front of you, you know why? Why go chasing was when you got perfect lives in front of you. It's like, why go to tea tree when you go at first point you know like working.
00;51;52;08 - 00;52;08;18
Tappa
Well let's talk. I surfed indicators at Raglan and I've ended up talking a while the like I'll say, when I got in with the like all cells in the top five. So like I warned you surf the other. But I said now I'll see him with the locals. I'll go anyway. Yeah, that's when you got it. When you're on a good thing, stick to it to might some of your other books.
00;52;08;18 - 00;52;22;24
Tappa
Here. You've got kids books and, the spirit of adventure. What? So you're a photographer as well? What started you. Because the first thing I saw that was, see, you did the history of Queensland surfing in 1980 as well.
00;52;22;25 - 00;52;42;03
Richard
That's right. So all these generations that I've been through from bolster are longboards. And then the evolution into short boards in the modern era and then the discovery of Bali and then further on from that. And I've, I've travel quite a bit. I've been up into Russia and, you know.
00;52;42;09 - 00;52;43;21
Tappa
That's why I've seen Russia.
00;52;43;24 - 00;53;04;22
Richard
Not waves in Russia, but there's waves in Denmark. And the waves in Denmark are good, but they're wearing five full wetsuits. And I think they'd look like a michelin man. But yeah, I've built a few boards for guys up in Denmark. Storm surf. And so what I do is I write these stories down in the Bali stories.
00;53;04;22 - 00;53;26;04
Richard
I sort of, you know, my time in Bali, and then this spirit of adventure, was just, a thing where I've got a bit of a spirit of adventure that I like going and discovering places and going new places and going here and, you know, snowboarding in Japan or, you know, off down into Morocco or wherever it was at the time.
00;53;26;06 - 00;53;48;04
Richard
And so I've always had my camera and my notebook and I'd write these little things down. And as people talk about it, I'm just going, oh, I remember that little story and I'll write a bit down. So I've got four of those books that I've done now which are just, like, or different bits and pieces of, different, different adventures of.
00;53;48;11 - 00;53;48;28
Tappa
Photography.
00;53;48;28 - 00;53;53;14
Richard
Sometimes that I've sort of, you know, I dive in there is Gold Surfer.
00;53;53;14 - 00;53;54;12
Tappa
And I.
00;53;54;15 - 00;54;17;24
Richard
And it's good too, because history gets distorted by people's views of somebody goes, all this happened there and that happened there. And I go like, I think this happened here. And I know because I've taken photos of it that had helped my memory and clarifies, you know, when things actually happen.
00;54;17;24 - 00;54;21;26
Tappa
And fight, I don't really like. Yeah, that it is what it is in a fight. I that's yeah.
00;54;21;26 - 00;54;44;01
Richard
That's it. Yes. Yeah. So this is what the spirit of adventure books are all about. And there's, you know, similar and all sorts of, you know, places skateboarding. This was an interesting one that I was over in California with the, staying with the Campbell brothers, and I was helping Bill Delaney with his movie Free Fahrenheit.
00;54;44;04 - 00;55;10;03
Richard
And these, young kids, one young kid in particular. They got evicted out of their house in Ventura and had to go out to this area where all the roads were dirt, so there was nowhere to escape. But they found a an empty swimming pool half filled with dirt, you know, at the bottom of it, not half filled, but dirt in the bottom of it.
00;55;10;05 - 00;55;30;19
Richard
And so they cleaned it all up and they started skating in the bottom of this, or skating in this pool. And so, I went out there with Bill Delaney, and he filmed a bit of the, the skating and freeride. And then I took a lot of these photos, but these cars here became the first pool skaters in the world.
00;55;30;21 - 00;55;32;16
Tappa
So that the Dogtown boys was it?
00;55;32;18 - 00;56;10;09
Richard
This was way before the where the Dogtown boys used to come up and skate this pool. Because it was the only pool where there was. There were our skating and drains and, you know, car parks and all of that type of stuff. But the story of these guys, and there's one of the guys in there, Lonnie Toft, he had a skateboard that was, four trucks on it, and he'd cross step and go up and take it up onto the edge of the pool and ride it up onto one wheel and then cross step and walk back down again.
00;56;10;11 - 00;56;24;10
Richard
Yeah. And they would treat the edge of the pool like the lip of a wave. And then the, the diving board was out there and that treat that like the lip coming over. And then running around the edge of the tiles. And it was it was pretty innovative at the time.
00;56;24;14 - 00;56;27;19
Tappa
And you got to photography, take photos of old.
00;56;27;19 - 00;56;46;15
Richard
Yeah. And and the story and I've, I've been in touch with the guy and he told me about, you know, how he got evicted out of his the house and they found this. It'll pull them and just, you know, all the little bits and pieces they all become part of. Like this my life. And that's a bit of a story of my life.
00;56;46;18 - 00;56;53;17
Tappa
Is my one other place. Place. I talk about how why you got invited to Hawaii to, events. You go in the Pipe Masters as well. Is that correct?
00;56;53;17 - 00;56;59;03
Richard
Or first Australian, the surfing, the pipe Masters scared shitless.
00;56;59;06 - 00;57;02;19
Tappa
Well, I just left off the wall. That's enough for me. But yeah.
00;57;02;22 - 00;57;35;01
Richard
They, pipe was pretty good at that time. Was about 8 to 10ft. Six of us got invited, so the six were, Lopez came first, Rory Russell came second. Mike Armstrong came third, I came fourth, Jeff Hackman came fifth. Another guy, I can't remember what his name was. Marvin Crawford. All somebody else came. Came sixth.
00;57;35;04 - 00;57;36;22
Richard
Got $100 check.
00;57;36;24 - 00;57;39;02
Tappa
100 bucks. Bob Bando was. Well, I met him.
00;57;39;02 - 00;57;40;26
Richard
I was.
00;57;40;27 - 00;57;41;04
Tappa
00;57;41;09 - 00;58;06;10
Richard
Yeah. So, I surfed in the, the Smirnoff got on seventh in the Smirnoff got invited into the juke and got that beautiful gold plated trophy that was designed by the same guy that does all the Oscars. So it's it's like an Oscar of surfing. Surfing with the board in the background. Still one of my, you know, treasured trophies that I've got stuck away in a box somewhere.
00;58;06;13 - 00;58;09;22
Tappa
How did you find Hawaii compared to everywhere else you traveled?
00;58;09;22 - 00;58;43;04
Richard
Nine Hawaii was intense. And what it was that every surfer from every area in the world came to Hawaii to build a reputation to make their name. And it was like this intense spot of where everything was intense. And then at that time, you had the Hawaiians were going, Haley's. We hate the Haley's. And I remember arriving at the airport and this giant big Hawaiian got a mug.
00;58;43;10 - 00;58;50;19
Richard
It's just, you know, he's just gone. You all see, boys, just get back on your plane and go, Yeah, I'm. I'm just going.
00;58;50;19 - 00;58;52;06
Tappa
Oh, hi. Welcome to Hawaii.
00;58;52;11 - 00;59;16;26
Richard
That's it. Anyway, we arrived at on the North Shore, and, it was absolutely huge. And Portland was breaking news. Probably, you know, 3 or 4 people out there. I ended up going out and surfing sunset. And then I went, well, invited to surf in the Pipe Masters. I'd better go and surf, pull up a paddled out and went, okay, I'm here.
00;59;16;28 - 00;59;47;24
Richard
I'm gonna, you know, find out what's going on. So I paddle, you know, where all the crowd was. And I pedaled in it all the crowd took off on my first wave, went down, did my bottom turn. And so before I got to that point, I'd shaped a couple of boards tight to Hawaii. In Australia, we've been riding foils where the thickness was right up front, and the idea was the foil with the short board was that you'd push it into the water and the buoyancy would make the board pop up.
00;59;47;24 - 01;00;11;26
Richard
So you'd go vertical. And that was how we got our real vertical starting surfing there. So I've taken off at Portland, pushed the rail in the rails going in, just going straight back up the face and then the tail lift come up and I've slid backwards and down the face of the wave. Lives come over and blown me out in the end.
01;00;11;28 - 01;00;35;14
Richard
And I've come at the end and I was just a shattered mess. I couldn't believe what I was doing, so I never went back in there again. And what I found out later was that Lopez was riding boards that were more parallel, railed and even thickness, and he'd take off behind, just go in, put his rail in and run out nice and smooth.
01;00;35;17 - 01;00;42;28
Richard
So learning what boards worked there was, was a real education, but I sand.
01;00;42;28 - 01;00;45;12
Tappa
Fast. Education was the end of it. Right?
01;00;45;13 - 01;00;49;02
Richard
Well, I had a session out there and I did like the bottom of one wife.
01;00;49;02 - 01;00;50;01
Tappa
Oh yeah.
01;00;50;03 - 01;01;22;10
Richard
Taking off. Just losing it. Just another one losing it at before leg ropes. So, it became quite a, a big thing out there when you, you know, getting nailed all the time. I had one session out at sunset, and the Hawaiians were really particular about surfing as a Hawaiian culture. Yeah. And yet everybody's coming in at times of the year to take over all the breaks and things.
01;01;22;12 - 01;01;45;29
Richard
And Eddie, all I cal was out in the water and, we paddled out and it was about a, probably 10 to 12ft high. Maybe some were a little bit bigger than that coming through. And there was, midget was sitting out over on the left hand side of the, the peak. Eddie was sitting in the middle and I went, oh, I'm not going to get involved.
01;01;45;29 - 01;02;05;07
Richard
I'm going to sit over on the inside a little bit anyway. Just beautiful, you know, said came through and I started pedaling up the, the face of the wave. And then there was another one bigger pedaling and pedaling and pedaling, breaking through the top. And as I'm getting up to the top, Eddie's paddled over near me and he's got this one, jaws.
01;02;05;09 - 01;02;16;13
Richard
And I'm like that. It's just like capping. So I've turned around, paddled into it. Free sail, lost my board, went all the way to the beach. It's a 200 meter swim.
01;02;16;13 - 01;02;18;13
Tappa
Oh yeah, it's a long way at it. Sounds like it.
01;02;18;16 - 01;02;18;28
Richard
Gets to.
01;02;18;28 - 01;02;20;18
Tappa
Rip. Yeah.
01;02;20;20 - 01;02;42;27
Richard
I got my board paddle back out again. Eddie sort of looked at me and gone. Yeah. Anyway, I've just got. I'm going to sit over here. Stay away from everything, Joe, another John said, come through. Cleaned everybody up. So there's only three of us out in the water, yet still sitting out really wide. Eddie sort of sitting in the middle, out wide.
01;02;42;27 - 01;02;46;05
Richard
And I'm sitting over on the left thinking almost to the left.
01;02;46;08 - 01;02;47;01
Tappa
Right kameez.
01;02;47;07 - 01;02;50;28
Richard
Yeah, well, it runs over into in the sort of backyard.
01;02;50;28 - 01;02;51;21
Tappa
Or the backyard.
01;02;51;28 - 01;03;16;14
Richard
Yeah. Over through there. Anyway, just perfect. Life came through and Eddie's paddled over near me and I've just gone, oh, no, don't tell me he's going to put me into one of those things again on this wave. Climb through and he's turned around and he's got this one jaws on. It was like just the perfect wife. And so you pay your price, you pay the juice, you respect what, the Hawaiian culture's all about.
01;03;16;14 - 01;03;31;08
Richard
Yeah. And you get acceptance. And it's like that where you go anywhere in surfing, if you respect the locals and you fit in and don't try to dominate and all of that, well, you know. Yeah, it'll work.
01;03;31;11 - 01;03;45;08
Tappa
Right? Yeah. That's my respect. I think that's a lot of and I can tell you my just talking to you, I immense respect for you, mate because like, you know that you've achieved so much in a lifetime and I think you've still got a few more things you want to do in this lifetime.
01;03;45;11 - 01;03;47;04
Richard
Couple more lifetimes. We'll cover it.
01;03;47;04 - 01;03;56;08
Tappa
Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Mike, thank you for coming on the green room. It's been amazing. And, Yeah. What a what a legendary, life you have led so far.
01;03;56;08 - 01;03;58;13
Richard
Terrific. It's been great. Thanks, Richard.
01;03;58;17 - 01;04;16;03
Tappa
Yeah, thanks for tuning into the green room. Hey, folks, would you like to get your name in the Green Room podcast? Well, we are looking for sponsors, so if you want to get a sponsorship, check it out at Pod Fire. Lots of people can hear about your product on one of the best podcasts around the green room. So, check it out.
01;04;16;03 - 01;04;34;20
Tappa
Pod fire. Thanks for tuning into the green Room. A big thank you to our guests for sharing their stories and insights, and Pod Fire for bringing this podcast to life. Don't forget to subscribe, like, leave a review and share the green room with your friends. We'll catch you next time for more conversations with the Legends of Surf and beyond.
01;04;34;23 - 01;04;36;25
Tappa
Until then, catch you in the waves.