Gold Coast City Council is having their annual 'kerbside cleanup' where residents are invited to throw 'worthless rubbish' out onto the footpath for free collection.

I tend to randomly wander the streets at this time of year on my days off, keeping an eye out for goodies like old surfboards I can fix up and get back into the water, in the last couple of years I've actually found and repaired half a dozen. But today I found something just a little 'different' hidden behind a pile of garden cuttings and broken bits of furniture...



It's a 1980's Farrelly windsurfer, 8'4" long 24" wide and about 3-4" thick! According to our luggage scales it weighs about 10kg.

It's condition is 'amazing' to say the least! The pod is trashed, the fin has been botched on with glass and resin, and the mast, sail etc that came with it, courtesy of the lady of the house who asked if I'd like them, then got them out from under the house for me, are all probably toast, although I did bring them home with me, just in case. The board itself though, is in pretty damn good condition, probably because it's been under a house for 'many years' I was told.


As soon as I got the first pics, I shot ff an email to Farrelly Surfboards, and got a reply from Midget Himself the next night! (My boyhood hero as a grommet in 1963!) He confirmed it was an 80's board, and probably a 'special' one at that. But that was all the information he had..

So the question is, does anyone else out there know what I've actually got?

Agree with Decrepit (seriously, why the red thumbs ) the back has been cut off and the centre fin glassed in, god knows why anyone would do that.

It is worth exactly NIL

Just hope the next kerbside pickup isn't too far away so you can get rid of that piece of cr@p!

hoop said..
Was it shaped by Midget? That would be cool. Someone's done some cool mods to it.

Good score I say.Get some culture bitches!

fck!ing up chopping the end off does not make a Chopper

you are going to need some serious balance to SUP on that !!!!

Is there any sign of a fin box under the centre fin?
Typically that would have had about a 10" box in it, aprox 4" in from the back of the board. That may give you some idea of what's been removed.

Shortening boards makes them looser, may be that was the reason.
The dual footstrap positions indicate it may have been more than 9' originally, shorter 8' 6"/8' 4" became more fashionable mid 90s. so it may just have been an attempt to make it more current.

@seanhogan, my comment to him exactly! Then he reminded me I used to surf a 19" wide McTavish Bluebird gun board, so I suppose anything's possible!

@decrepit, yes there's a fin box under the glass holding the centre fin in. The end of the box is actually right at the cutoff point, so the board's been shortened as much as possible without having to move the fin boxes. The end of the centre box is actually 'open' at the back of the pod. I'll post a pic so you can see it.





MikeyS, and the other saying about one person's trash? I'm having fun, it keeps me out of the pub, and that makes my little wife happy too... :)

I also unrolled the sail from its bag and took a pic of it. It's putrid dirty and there's a rust stain on it that I suspect won't come off. I'll lay it out on the driveway one day and attack it with a scrubbing brush and bucket of hot soapy water. The sail's brighter than the board, it must have looked like a Christmas tree on a sunny day!




Cheers, Glen.

Well it was never going to go very fast with that glass job around the fin!
Although that could be a later event.
the side fins don't look original either.