Five hundred dollars apiece! Plus free Japanese beer…
If you’re kicking around Sydney’s northside and you’ve got a few c-notes in your billfold, I can’t think of a better way to liberate that cash than with the purchase of one of Craig Anderson’s old-ish surfboards.
Craig, you might remember, was the star of Slow Dance and Cluster, the participant in one of the great moments in surf history, helped popularise one of the most significant board designs in recent history, quit Quiksilver despite being offered a million bucks a year and the company’s blessing to start his own label, and a couple of years back did start his own label, called Former, with Dane Reynolds and a skateboarding man.
Several Februarys ago, I watched as a Jew supplicated himself before Craig at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem; the day before at the Jaffa Gate, American girls had swooned as Craig roared past on a Segway, your reporter in the hottest pursuit!
Craig, who turns thirty this year, is a surfer whose surfboards matter, I think. And if you go to the Hayden Shapes headquarters, in Sydney’s Mona Vale, today and tomorrow, you can buy one and examine a few others.
Still left (a Holy Grail just sold for $A600), are three 5’7 1/2″ White Noiz’s, hand shaped by Hayden Cox, with Futures fin boxes (the best in the biz and the choice of champions from John John to Ando and so on), Former, Electric and Huff stickers and in a condition that ain’t pristine but ain’t beat-up either.
The price? Five hundred Australian dollars. Three-eight or so Americano.
Come and Hayden will even give you a Kirin beer for free!