TORQUAY surf industry pioneer Fred Pyke has been remembered as one of the most influential figures of his time and the inspiration for the next generation of surfboard shapers in the town.<\/p>\n
Mr Pyke, who still lived in the family home next to the original Pyke Surfboards factory, died on Saturday at the age of 87.<\/p>\n
A champion road and track cyclist who was nearly selected for the 1960 Rome Olympics, Mr Pyke started shaping surfboards in 1962, set up business in Brunswick in 1964 and moved to Torquay in late 1966.<\/p>\n
Mr Pyke was a cabinetmaker by trade and became famous for manufacturing long boards with clean lines and his perfectionist attitude towards shaping.<\/p>\n
He taught the craft to a veritable who\u2019s who of Torquay surfing during the 1960s and 1970s, including Rip Curl co-founder Doug \u2018Claw\u2019 Warbrick, Ray Wilson, Alan Atkins, Jeff \u201cBear\u201d Spence, Dennis \u201cStrapper\u201d Day (who later started the Strapper surf brand), Don Allcroft, Graeme \u201cWilley\u201d Muncey, Maurice Cole and Pat Morgan.<\/p>\n
He bought the US licence in the 1970s to make and sell Dive and Surf wetsuits in Australia with Rod Brooks – the business later changed its name to Piping Hot – and retired from the surfing industry in the early 1980s.<\/p>\n
Rip Curl\u2019s other co-founder Brian Singer knew Mr Pyke in the late 1960s in the early days of Rip Curl.<\/p>\n
\u201cBack in the late 1960s and into the 1970s, a number of the people who became reasonably well known in the surf industry started with him,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think he was, for a while, pretty well the only surfboard maker in Torquay, along with Vic Tantau.\u201d<\/p>\n
Strapper Surf managing director Mike Di Sciascio said Mr Pyke had a long relationship with \u201cStrapper\u201d Day, who had his first job at the Pyke Surfboards factory.<\/p>\n
\u201cFred was a bit of a perfectionist, he tried to get people who had that eye for detail and trade skills.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was absolutely a cottage, cutting-edge industry starting back then.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s really hard to explain what a guy like him did – I never worked for him, but he\u2019s had an impact on my whole career in the surf industry indirectly.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s in the top one, two or three of those early influencers.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the stuff he did like the branding or the wetsuits was avant garde – he was the first, second or third person to be doing it, and absolutely at the frontier. It\u2019s all standard now, but it\u2019s only standard because those guys nurtured it and developed it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bob Smith, who knew Mr Pyke well and has a large collection of Pyke-branded surfboards, said Mr Pyke was an \u201cabsolutely marvellous\u201d person.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was relatively quiet, a little bit reserved and kept to himself. He was a private person to a degree.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had a magnificent shed at his home that he made things in, like furniture and aeroplanes out of balsa.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is devastating when someone of that stature passes away that had such a huge influence on the surfboard business and the overall development of Torquay.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Pyke is survived by his wife Elisabeth and their two children, Kim and Justin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
TORQUAY surf industry pioneer Fred Pyke has been remembered as one of the most influential figures of his time and the inspiration for the next generation of surfboard shapers in the town. Mr Pyke, who still lived in the family home next to the original Pyke Surfboards factory, died on Saturday at the age of […]<\/p>\n