Tiki splat 7'8

Here's a radical board for its day (1969), a 7'8 shortboard made by Tim Heyland at Tiki. These days it looks a lot less radical - heavy, long, very rounded all over, but that's progress for you. Its from a bygone age when surfers were throwing away their old boards to get hold of the new and responsive board designs coming out of Australia. In 1968 Tiki had moved to Barnstaple in Devon and during the winter of 68 - 69 Tim made over a hundred of these Australian inspired v-bottom 8 footers which were taking over from longboards as the fashionable board to surf. This board is probably one of that batch. It has the feeling of a mass produced board with less attention to finish than some other boards of the time. The sales of these boards funded Tim to go to Hawaii's north shore for 10 weeks in '69. Tiki and Tim are still going strong in Braunton today. This board uses a stringerless castle foam blank, Tiki's in house foam, and a nice Wave set fin from Australia. Its got 50 50 rails and no hard edges anywhere, 7'8 x 21 x 3. Nice Tiki splat logo with an overlap of yellow and blue logos, very 60s. The leash plug has been added later, it would originally have been a lose it and swim, as they all were in those days.
Tim, Dave and Allan Brookes, Braunton around 1970
from British Surfer 1969