HISTORY

Nathan “Nugget” Purcell was best known for his ripping out at Shark Island, inventing the Gorf move and along with Mark Fordham creating the Shark Island Challenge. During the 90′s Nugget like the rest of the top echelon of bodyboarders around the world he made the winter pilgrimage to Hawaii’s Northshore. Nugget around this time put in some solid free surfing performances out Pipe and Backdoor. This cutty carve was typical of the moves that impressed the locals. Photo Stroh mid 90′s.

In the late 90′s South African born Andre Botha dominated at Pipe. Along with Stewart, Kainoa, Tamega and a handful of  others, Dre could be counted on to take off on the biggest , gnarliest and most deadly barrels that Pipe could muster up. Dre was fearless and it was this attitude and his rare ability that saw him become the youngest bodyboarder to win not one but two World Titles. Taming the beast photo below by Stroh late 90′s.

Jarratt Lau from Hawaii is still a local standout and accomplished big wave bodyboarder who first turned up in the early 90′s sporting a semi afro and an even bigger grin. He rode for Science and had his own model. In 2007 when competing in the Pipe Masters he scored a perfect 10, the footage can be seen here on youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxSBqArmr0c       The pic below was taken at Waimea Shorey showing Lau pulling in with his  typical “no guts,no glory” style. Photo Stroh mid 90′s.

When Kingy  was still a youngster and a cheeky one at that he was spending the majority of his time surfing at the breakwalls of Port MacQuarie. Damian used to Dropknee almost as much as he proned. The Kingston utilised the wedging mid north coast side washes to smash the lips and throw down the big money shot moves. Below typical Kingy hack taken in the late 90′s on the North Coast of NSW photo Stroh.

Standup bodyboarding today is almost non existent, apart from a few faithfuls the art is slowly dying. One of the best throughout the 90′s was Cavin Yap. Known for his standup aerials and all around shredding, Cavin was a regular at Off The Wall. Yap would blow everyone watching away with his power hacks and snaps. Inspired by Danny Kim and Chris Won , Cavin riding a special designed board just for standup and would out surf many of the Northshores hot standups even without a skeg. Pic below taken mid 90′s at OTW of Cavin by Chris Stroh.