just surfboards for over 40 years

Maurice Cole is one of an increasingly rare breed: a genuine Australian original. Through 40-plus years of surfing, shaping and theorising he’s developed an entirely unique take on the sport of surfing and the craft we use to perform it.

Maurice’s surfing history is as wild and woolly as the coasts hes inhabited. His sparring partners have included the likes of Wayne Lynch, Dane Kealoha, Tom Curren and Mark Occhilupo. His own wave-riding spans pioneering years in western Victoria, South-West France, Northern Spain, Hawaii, and Western Australia.

His instincts push him toward the sports cutting edge. Maurices partnership with Curren produced the Reverse Vee revolution of 1991  an idea that changed surfboard design forever.

His work with deep concaves and vee exits inspired surfers like Kelly Slater and Rob Machado, and designers of all stripes around the globe. Maurice’s ongoing work with formula-one tow-boards for Ross Clarke-Jones, with ultra-concaves and incredible release, hints at his vision of a faster future.

board design

MC’s approach is design first, followed by a rigorous process of trial and error. Through experimentation over at least 20 years with materials and technologies such as epoxies and carbon-saturates, the surfboards performance is greatly enhanced and improved.

In times gone by a designer/shaper focused on achieving the magic surfboard. By constant trial and error a magic surfboard was conceived, plotted, planed, carved and surfed. The notion of the magic surfboard is something that only occurs through a surfers exploration – something rarely observed in today’s mass market mentality. Mc’s vision is to reintroduce the passion and the serach for what is the holy-grail – the magic surfboard.

Everybody’s magic is different. Mc’s challenge is to give the average surfer a feeling of there own personalised magic surfboard (PMS)!!

His instincts push him toward the sport’s cutting edge. Maurice’s partnership with curren produced the reverse vee revolution of 1991 – an idea that changed surfboard design forever. His work with deep concaves and vee exits inspired surfers like kelly slater, taj burrow and rob machado, and other designers of all stripes around the globe. Maurice’s ongoing work with formula-one towboards for ross clarke-jones, with ultra-concaves and incredible release, hints at his vision of a faster future.

Some key points of an MC surfboard are:

Concaves: are the basis of MC’s design. He uses concaves up to 1 inch deep, which are heavily influenced by his tow board development.

Strength: MC has always been agaist the disposalable surfboard. MC’s boards are made to last and the usage of long-life epoxy resin has significantly boosted the lifespan of the modern surfboard.

Fin systems: likened to the suspension and tyres of the motor racing world, fin systems are critical to a magic surfboard. Fins are an often overlooked factor of the modern surfboard, and with each board created MC incorporates the best fully adjustable fin setup available.

The faster surfboard that doesn’t spin out. For more details see the boards section.

tow-surfing

For the last 10 years tow in surfing has been a big part of my shaping and design life.

Being one of the Australian shaping/tow surfing pioneers, I have watched the sport of tow surfing grow to be one of the most challenging sports in the world, and from a design and shaping perspective – tow surfing has become a new frontier and direction that will bring design and technological advances to the sport of surfing. This revolution is the Formula One of surfing!

I have been blessed to work with Ross Clarke Jones for the last 7 years as my lunatic test pilot. Ross Clarke Jones is one of my best mates, and someone who I have shared major design and technological advancements with in waves that are beyond the imagination of the current surfing world.

We believe with the current boards we are testing that we are attaining speeds of anywhere up to 120kmh, and at these speeds having to turn and carve on boards that are generally 5’11” x 16”1/4 x 1”3/4 is throwing out some spectacular results. At these speeds the hydronamic world kicks in or you get your ass kicked! Everything from the fins, their placement, their angle, their stiffness, their size, their foil – is all important.

Also of note is the hull shape – we have evolved the shapes to where we have a substantial 3/4” concave running the length of the board, which gives you less wetted surface area, (think catamaran vs mono-hull) but also gives you a very straight/fast centre bottom line with all the curve for turning being on the rail line – trimming super fast, turning, accelerating and being able to do the fastest carves known to man!

Construction of the boards goes from multilayered fibreglass hulls, carbon/kevlar hulls, and now using the highest grade carbon available we have, with 80/20 foil fins, achieved the stiffest, but with memory second to none, tow board on the planet!

But what does this mean to the other 99% of surfers that don’t tow? Well, if at speeds 3 times the normal paddle board we can get the results we have with our tow boards, you can be sure that this information fed into the surfboard has produced a new evolution in regular surfing.