Bruce Palmer 70s singlefin

Atlantic Surfer 1978

Bruce at the Watergate bay open 1976 by Alex Williams

I haven't put on one of my own boards for a while so here's my Bruce Palmer singlefin from the mid 70s. Its quite a plain and unassuming board to look at but its beautifully shaped and is great to surf, with less volume than usual on the rails and tail , 6'8 x 20 1/4 x 2 1/2. Bruce was an Australian, and good friend of Kevin Cross. As he says about his days in Devon with Kevin -
''We were friends then as we are now but at that time we were very much in opposition with each other.My business Started in Lobb Field's Quanset Hut before moving to Knowle where I manufactured about 1000 boards that I sold throughout Europe also making some 150 Lightning Bolts under licence..I'd like to think that my business was real boards for real surfers ''
 He was British champ in 1975 and was one of many Aussie surfers who knocked around the south west in the 70s, adding much to the quality of our boards. He starred in the international surf flick Playgrounds in Paradise in 1976 surfing the Severn bore, and the resulting wave was the worlds longest ever recorded on film at the time. The film predictably showed the UK as only having comedy waves compared to the US and Oz, and Rod Sumpter was filmed surfing an enormous board called the Queen Mary in half foot slop.