It looks, sounds and smells exactly like a shaper’s factory should. A maze of bays, back rooms and racks of second hand boards stacked alongside shiny new ones.

Out front, a television plays an endless loop of vintage surf movies while the walls are covered in postcards, pin-up girls and dusty old photos of locals charging big waves.

And if the walls of Nathan Rose and John “Duttsy” Dutton’s Margaret River shed could talk, they would sound a lot like Maurice Cole.

The enigmatic shaper built the shed in 1995, partly to cope with the demands of his then busy export market.

“I had a very big contract with Japan for nearly 1000 boards a year,” says Cole.

“I had that factory fitted out as state of the art and I was there for about six years.”

And it was in that factory that Cole set to work shaping boards for a keen young grommet named Taj Burrow.

“I was introduced to Taj and his parents by (filmmaker) Jack McCoy,” recalls Cole.

“I saw how he surfed with beautiful style and presence and how well he could ride the barrel, I agreed to manage him and make his boards.”

The factory was home to many of Cole’s early design breakthroughs and ground zero for the new buzz sport of tow surfing.

“Many of those breakthroughs were and still are the foundation of what I am doing now.”

“The waves in Western Australia really let me loose, especially with the guns and those early tow boards. It was amazing to see how big a wave we could ride on such relatively tiny boards. A lot of the bombies around Margaret River were a favourite testing ground.”

Perhaps because of that variety of waves on offer, the shapers of Margaret River find themselves with an endless supply of orders.

Much like other big-wave locations around the world, a week is a long time for surfers in Margaret River, and by week's end, it's not uncommon to have ridden every board in a quiver crafted by the once small town's growing army of shapers. Between Taj Burrow's hometown of Yallingup in the north and the secretive harbor town of Augusta down south, the Margaret River region holds waves of every conceivable size, shape and skill level.

Pioneering professional surfer Ian Cairns honed his big-wave repertoire amongst some of the region's heavier offshore reef breaks before his initial foray to Hawaii.

"On my first day at Sunset, I couldn't help but feel I was back home at Margaret River," says Cairns. "In all of Australia, there is no area that so closely resembles the North Shore of Oahu. It has the wave size, rugged wave shape, power and wind. All conditions that are extremely difficult to handle and you become a better surfer because of it."

And the tradition continues with modern day rippers Jack Robinson and Jacob Willcox spring-boarding out of the town's beachbreaks, reefs and bombies to lead the charge on the world stage.

"Margaret River is definitely the place for me," says Willcox. "It's an escape and a place I can't compare to anywhere I've been."

But the thriving surf community, which now hosts hosts a stop on the World Surf League’s annual tour, was once just a sleepy little dairy town home to farmers, timber millers and the odd curious groups of surfers from Perth.

By the late '50s to early '60s, many of those same surfers had decided to call Yallingup home, led by the ageless Kevin Merrifield, Geoff Culmsee, George Simpson and Jim Keenan, among others.
But the real gold rush began following the international showing of Paul Witzig's classic surf movie,Evolution in 1969.
The film was the first to expose Margaret River to the world, and town stalwart, Tom Hoye, was quick to sit up and take notice when it showed in his hometown of Santa Cruz, California.
"I saw that image of Wayne Lynch doing a bottom turn at Margaret River Main Break and within six months, I sold my surf shop, house and everything else I had in Santa Cruz and was on a boat to Australia," recalls Hoye."Those early years surfing here was a fantasy. Hawaiian-quality waves, never much of a crowd...it's really hard to put it into words. We were so lucky."
Hoye was quick to set up shop in Yallingup, shaping, surfing and living the dream.
"For a while, Geoff Culmsee and I were the only shapers around, but soon enough other shapers including, David Plaistead, Ken McKenzie, Tony Hardy, Al Bean, John Jakovich, Greg Laurenson and Mick Manolas moved down," says Hoye. "Most guys were surfing single fins and the odd twin, then thrusters came in around 1979/80 and it led the way to what it is today."
Despite the modern-day crowds, one constant remains, big waves require big boards. And there is no shortage of either in Margaret River.
Shaper Nathan Rose says the resurgence of paddle surfing has led to a marked increase in orders for boards well north of the once-standard 8' 0".
"A good 10' 6" seems to be the magic number here," says Rose. "Since the demise of tow surfing, surfers have realized you can catch more waves and have so much more fun on a big board. And we have such a good testing ground, every kind of wave imaginable."

GUEST AUTHOR : ANTHONY PANCIA

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