Wilbur’s Flipper & Harpo

FLIPPER

Great afternoon with an old mate (Harpo) from years back, worked out it was 1974 since we spoke together and that was only to find out how slippery the track was past Boiling Pot into Ti Tree. Spent almost two hours talking about old contest days with MP, Kevin Platt, PT, another old mate Peter Roberts and when Gery Lopez and Jimmy Blears came up to Noosa and surfed Sunshine Beach on a very Big Day in 74 and how they made it look easy. Also how He and Kevin Platt spent six-hour drinking at the Reef Hotel before Kevin sold the Platt Surfboards Brand to Him in 72 for $5000 and by 78 gave it all up to become a Pro Golfer. Mainly because leg ropes took over and he believes that this was not fair in contests. Then came the story of how he was judging the final of a contest at Burleigh Heads and MP was down in between the rocks away from everyone choofing on a big log (as Harpo said it looked like he had rolled the whole Buddha Stick into a number) MP comes up the him and said watch how I surf this, I will stay low in my bottom turns and it will look like my waves are bigger, just like when I surfed in Hawaii and MP won. We also talked about one of Noosa’s true Enigmas, an Islander that we all called or knew as Flipper. He had fuzz hair and was tall and could bodysurf Big Boiling Pot into Nationals get barrels and do cutbacks bodysurfing and hardly ever spoke to anyone. He’d surf, get out and then just disappear. No one knew where he lived or where he came from and was around for only a couple of years around 71/72. Harpo let me take these photos and to post them for all to enjoy.

Harpo

After posting a short story about Harpo I have been asked to post again with “South Bondi Board Club” with little more of our chat.

Rip is a term we use to describe someone who could carve with confidence and Harpo is one of these true Waterman of our past. Harpo (David Hutchison) is a man who I hadn’t seen around Noosa since 1974. I moved on to other parts of the planet and often wondered where and what happened to Harpo. I had just restored an old Kevin Platt Stinger shaped by Harpo and decided I would like him to see his work from 1975. So began the search and finally yesterday Harpo invited me up to his place at Sunshine Beach and I enjoyed a two hour chat about both our time surfing Noosa and the Contest Surfing of that time in our lives.

We worked out the last time we spoke together was only to find out how slippery the track was past Boiling Pot leading into Ti Tree and this would have been 1974. A time when Harpo had taken over the Kevin Platt Surfboard Brand that came about after a six hour drinking session at the Reef Hotel in 1972 where Kevin sold the Surfboard Brand to Harpo for $5000 and by 1978 Harpo had finished with the Surfing Industry and became a Professional Golfer and travelled the world. A big desiding factor he told me was, leg ropes as this changed his understanding of Contest Surfing and believes it was an unfair advantage. He believes today that leg ropes changed the way we surfed in contests as it doesn’t matter if you wipe out because your board will be still connected to you and this took the swim to shore out of the contest surfing and this was a big part of how you controlled your board in the past and this he thought became an unfair advantage and that only Kooks and Briso (Egg-Heads) used leg ropes. (Which is strange as he is from Brisbane).

Harpo’s comes from a family that started HB Sales a Fibreglass and Resin Company that employed their own Industrial Chemist (Based in Brisbane) to produce resins for the surfing industry and started surfing on a board made for him by his father when he was around nine years of age. Made out of Koolite and the Chemist developed a resin that could be used on this type of foam and as he said it was as hard as. He retold a story of how this board came off the car one day and bounced down the road and didn’t get a ding to it. Later he told me that he got a new board from Ray Woosley in Brisbane and that board started his surfing the waves of the Queensland points and entering into contest of the time and about old contest days with Kevin Platt, Peter Drouyn and other old mates . The Northshore Surfriders Club, The Moffat Crew and the Noosa Surfriders where he was a member and the local contest of the days. Then the days of MP, PT, Rabbit and another old mate on mine Peter Roberts and also the time when Gery Lopez and Jimmy Blears came up to Noosa and surfed Sunshine Beach on a very Big Day in 74 and how they made it look easy, while everyone else where shitting themselves. Then came the story of how he was judging the final of a contest at Burleigh Heads and MP was down in between the rocks away from everyone choofing on a big log (as Harpo said it looked like he had rolled the whole Buddha Stick into a number) MP comes up the him and said watch how I surf this, I will stay low in my bottom turns and it will look like my waves are bigger than everyone else’s, just like when I surfed in Hawaii and MP won that contest. But he won just about all contest back in this time.

We also talked about what I call one of Noosa’s true Enigmas, around 1971/72 of an Islander that we all called or knew as Flipper. He had fuzz hair and was tall and could bodysurf Big Boiling Pot into Nationals get barrels and do cut backs bodysurfing and hardly ever spoke to anyone. He’d surf, get out and then just disappear. No one knew where he lived or where he came from and was around for only a couple of years. However it has come to light where he is known to others on the North Shore of Hawaii bodysurfing in 1976 at Sunset and Pipeline. Some have said he was a Cook Islander, others a South African or of a South Pacific origan. Does anyone know him or what his story is ???.

I asked Harpo about surfing today and he told me that he hasn’t surfed much since maybe the early 80s as with his Golfing he became very completive with and was away sometimes up to six months at a time playing tournaments all round the world. He even told me of a time when he played at Turtle Bay in Hawaii and drove past Sunset and Pipeline but didn’t stop or get out to have a look or a surf.
We ended talking about surfing Noosa and about the best waves we have ever had at Noosa. A time from 73,74 to 1975 when we had many of the biggest cyclone that produced very big swells and when MP came up and surfed the Pot into Nationals and Harpo told me that MP is the only surfer that he ever saw make a barrel from the jump off platform through the suck up section past the car park. (Believe me this is a very hard section to make while in the barrel, I’ve never made it and nor has Harpo he tells me) We both agree that Ti Tree is way up there however when the sand is right and the bank has built up from the end of National’s into Johnsons is one of our most favourite sections. It’s a wave that just becomes a drain pipe and super hollow. The photos that Harpo allowed me take copies off will show you this section of Noosa from the end of National’s into Johnsons and it is hope that you all enjoy the pictures and this yarn.