A Steve Griffith's early G&S board still survives in Tasmania

July 2024

This week I was down in Tasmania to visit my good friend, Dale Matheson, who owns the Scamander Beach Surf Shop. Dale couldn't wait to proudly show me a surf board he has acquired for his collection. 

Dale knows that I worked at Gordon & Smith Surfboards in Taren Point, Sydney dating back to the late sixties for me. I got to know and work with the late Floyd Smith who established G&S in Australia in 1965.

Above, me posing with a Steve Griffiths shaped G&S classic at Dale's
Scamander Beach Surf shop right on the Scamander river mouth.
Photo: Dale Matheson

It was at the very start of the seventies that Steve 'Griffo' Griffiths was taught to shape by Kurnell resident and Cronulla surfer, Bob Hansen, when Bob was making Hansen Surfboards at his brother's old Total branded Service Station/Garage which was in those days located on The Kingsway in Cronulla.

Griffo remembers back that his first ever custom surfboard that he ever ordered for himself was a Peter Clarke 5'2" twin fin shaped by the legendary Frank Latta.

Griffo took up an offer to shape at G&S and did a 6-year straight stretch shaping for the famous Taren Point based label. He shaped at G&S from '72 to '78. 

Over the years Steve has worked with and alongside many shapers, Steve reckons from a technical point of view, the best shaper he has ever worked with was the late Midget Farrelly.

Still crystal clear some forty-odd years later. The shaper's personal
identifying name marker. 

Steve left G&S Surfboards and struck out on his own by starting up Emerald Surfboards in Taren Point in 1976. Emerald Surfboards rose to be one of the area's prominent manufacturers backed up with a strong Team of local riders.

Emerald also opened their own retail surf shop in Laycock Avenue, Cronulla.

'Griffo' sold the Emerald surfboard operation to Arnold and Kathy Cohen in March 1982 and moved himself and his family to Queensland's Sunshine Coast.