Bodyboard shapers keep craft alive as sport rises in Australia

Australia Broadcast Center

2 days ago

Just off the coast of Cronulla is an exposed rocky outcrop known as Shark Island, famous for its dangerous, barrelling waves that thunder over an extremely shallow ledge.
The southern Sydney break is home to the Shark Island Challenge, an invitational bodyboarding competition that pushes the world's best to their limits.
The event, which started in 1997, was relaunched last year after a six-year break as part of efforts to rejuvenate the sport in Australia.
The 2025 challenge is now in the "contest waiting period", set to run when the right swell and wind conditions arrive, any time until June 30.
"It's quite unique to any wave around the world — it's handmade for bodyboarding," Shark Island Challenge committee member Luke O'Connor said.
Bodyboarding was invented by Tom Morey in 1971.
It has endured, but efforts are underway to further build the sport's popularity.
"I really feel things are on an upper crest at the moment," Mr O'Connor said.
Among those helping boost the industry are three bodyboard shapers who are keeping alive what has become a niche craft in Australia.
Marc Rossouw started hand-shaping bodyboards as a teenager in South Africa more than 30 years ago.
He is part of a bodyboard shaping business in Sydney's Sutherland Shire with pro-bodyboarder and Shark Island competitor, Michael Ostler.
"Australia has a proud history of bodyboarding," Mr Rossouw said.
"There were large-scale manufacturers at one point, and then it trickled down to just the custom board shapers; there are two others in NSW," Mr Rossouw said.
He said the shape and contours of a bodyboard could be fine-tuned to boost speed and performance.
"The temperature of the water can influence how rigid the board needs to be; it can also depend on their weight and size, and their techniques of riding."
Ostler said demand remained strong and bodyboarding was more respected by the wider surfing community.
Further north in Port Macquarie, Glenn Taylor can be found carefully transforming blank pieces of foam into high-performance bodyboards, which he supplies around the country.
Mr Taylor started working as a shaper in the early 1990s under well-known brands including Manta and Turbo.
"It's not as popular as it was in the late 1990s [and] early 2000s, but there are still people in the industry who know what works for them and what they need out of a board."
Mr Taylor said there were about 15 steps involved in crafting a bodyboard from a blank piece of foam to the finished product.
"Once it's shaped, and features are shaped in, like contours and channels of the board, then it's put through a laminator, a heating process, which applies the bottom skin material to the core.
"Then there's also the application of the deck skin to the core, then the boards are finished off with the outside rail material."
Mr Taylor said he would love to pass the craft on, but there were challenges.
"Unfortunately, there's only one supplier globally that sells us all the material to make a bodyboard, so it makes it very hard for anyone wanting to get started," he said.
Port Stephens bodyboard shaper Adam McHugh said the industry had become tougher but still had a strong future.
"Bodyboarding is accessible to everyone, and it's all about having fun … it doesn't matter what level you are," he said.
"The bodyboards I make and sell go all over the world.
"I have sold to California, I've have sold to Canary Islands, I have even sold to Israel.
"The main market is in Australia, but they go everywhere."
Mr McHugh, who has been hand-shaping bodyboards for 17 years, said it still brought him great satisfaction to create something that would bring someone "happiness in the surf".
"Just nutting out all those little specification changes on the way, the interaction with all the different characters you meet shaping bodyboards," he said.
There is a grassroots push to get more people involved in the sport, including women.
This year is the first time there will be a women's division in the Shark Island Challenge, featuring Kiama-based Lilly Pollard and Sophie Leathers.
"I'm hoping that other women can see Lilly and I out there this year having a go and can feel inspired to come and have a crack next year," Leathers said.
"We've all had rough experiences in the water as female bodyboarders, so it's important to remember and recognise that there actually is so much support within the sport.
Ostler said it was great to see increasing interest.
"It's male-dominated now, but there could be a change of the tide, the girls rip, they really do, and they deserve their time in the limelight," he said.
Drawing more young people to the sport has also been a priority.
The adrenaline rush of making it out of a barrel has been a constant lure.
"I have done a lot of sports and adrenaline junkie stuff, but that is the best feeling you can get as a sportsman in my opinion," Ostler said.