Rob Ward at Jeffrey's bay in the mid 70s
Tom Hoye in 1970You don't see these in Cornwall every day ! Its a mid 1980s five fin gun made for big wave charger and adventurer Rob Ward, who grew up on the isle of Wight. The board was made by top Californian surfer turned experimental shaper Tom Hoye, who had settled in Margaret river by this time and had a long shaping relationship with Ward. Hoye is known for making unusual and forward thinking big wave boards in the late 70s and 80s and not many still survive.
Rob was a true adventurer and surfed big waves across the world from the 70s till the 90s, and did a surfing circumnavigation of the world in his self built yacht Orinoco flo. He settled in Newquay for a while in the 80s and has now emigrated to Australia.
The board has huge rocker for dealing with chop on big faces and looks to have been surfed alot ;I bet it could tell a few stories ! The dimensions are 8'6 x 19 1/4 x 3 .The board will soon be going into the British surfing museum's collection where it will be well preserved. There's a section about Rob in Roger Mansfield's book The Surfing Tribe p.152-3.
