Shady Hollow - the shapers
When Shady Hollow first started, Michael Marchant and I shared shaping duties, but with the increasing workload, Michael began to do a lot more shaping while I concentrated on the glassing.
After Michael left, I was lucky enough to have some of the best shapers in the country work with me. Following is a list of those incredible shapers in no particular order.
Michael Pierce
I first met Michael when I was 10 years old. I joined the Mordialloc Life Saving Club and as soon as I saw all the boards on the wall, I was hooked.
We’ve been friends for over 55 years and I know if I ever need any help, Michael is there for me. When I moved to the Mornington factory with Mark Loveridge, Michael helped set up the whole place as well as shaping a lot of boards for me.
Michael is a true shaper. All his work is done by hand, he doesn’t use a machine like the majority of shapers today. I look upon Michael as a true craftsman.
Wayne Lynch
Wayne shaped about five boards for a mutual friend of ours, Simon Buttonshaw. I was lucky enough to be able to watch Wayne shape a couple and it certainly was an incredible experience. The highlight came when in 1981, during Easter Bells, when the swell was 10 to 15 foot, Wayne turned up and borrowed Simon’s gun board to have a surf. When he came in, a photo was taken of him in his Rip Curl wetsuit with a Shady Hollow board under his arm. The photo was printed in Tracks as a full page advertisement and in 2019, they re-printed it calling it a classic ad.
At the vintage day at Point Leo in 2019, I was able to buy the first gun board that Wayne shaped for Simon, so I very quickly sent Wayne a photo of myself and the board. When Wayne responded back, he said “you’re so lucky to have a piece of Australian surfing history”!
Richard Evans
Richard was originally from Maroubra where he made his own boards under the label “Heat Wave”. He then moved to Victoria where he shaped boards for Rip Curl in Torquay and at Phillip Island. Phil Grace, another legend surfer/shaper took Richard up to the Gold Coast in the early ‘70s and dropped him off at Michael Peterson’s house and said “teach him how to shape”, and then drove off and left him there.
They became good friends and even travelled down to Victoria together in ‘73 for Michael’s first assault on Easter Bells. He won the event on one of Richard’s boards.
In the late ‘70s, Richard had a surf with Wayne Lynch at Bells Beach. Richard was riding a twin fin and loaned it to Wayne who liked it so much he actually bought it off him.
Richard’s shaped me quite a few boards at Trigger Bros and I count them as absolute classics. He now lives in Bali and works for DHD. I regard him as one of the best shapers in Australia. Phil Grace once said to me “Richard was never given quite the recognition he so rightly deserved”.
Ken Reimers
Ken started work at Triggers as a teenager and very quickly it was apparent he was a young man who had an incredible talent not only as a shaper, but as an inventor.
Ken then went to Queensland where he worked at “Pipedreams”. After a while a young guy came in and wanted to learn how to shape. The owner, Murray Bourton said “go over and see Kenny, he’ll teach you”. That young guy was Jason Stevens of JS Surfboards now one of the biggest manufacturers in Australia.
Ken then worked for Rodney Dahlberg in Angourie for a few years before moving back to Victoria.
Ken shaped the last board that I surfed as a Shady Hollow in 1995, and also shaped the first one that I did as a custom order in 2019.
Mark Loveridge
I met Mark when he was a teenager living and shaping boards at his family home. Timing is everything, and I was so lucky that Mark also wanted to expand and we both shared a factory in Mornington for about 18 months.
When I moved to work at Point Leo with Triggers, I still glassed Mark’s boards for a long time, until he went to Noosa and Hawaii, where he shaped boards for a lot of pro surfers. He business knowledge is second to none, quickly setting up surf shops here and in Noosa. He now splits his time between Bali and the Sunshine Coast.
Others
Other shapers who also did a few boards for me who are legends in the shaping bay and in the surf:
Phil Grace
Garry Taylor
Chris Cornell
Since 1995, all of my boards have been shaped by Simon Forward of 4D Surfboards. Simon learnt how to shape from Paul Trigger and very quickly learnt how to use a planer!
Simon now has his own factory where Kenny also works out of.
