Surfing World Magazine

Surfing World is the oldest, deepest and most respected surfing magazine in the world. Founded in 1962, it's become a cornerstone of surfing culture both in Australia and right around the globe. It's a premium, high concept magazine, showcasing the best surf writing and photography. It's both classic and contemporary, reflecting the kaleidoscopic surfing culture of today.

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Surfing World Magazine

THE STORY OF THE STORY OF AUSTRALIAN SURFING – history doesn’t repeat, it rhymes. • This magazine came to life just around the corner from my joint in Jan Juc, a week before Christmas, in an old weatherboard holiday donger built around the same time the first issue of Surfing World was published in 1962.

The 1960s • It wasn’t naïveté. It was innocence. It was sharing, that was what you were doing. We just shared our experiences and wanted to turn other people on to those experiences.”

FROM CITY TO SOUL — John Witzig on the 1960s • I’d got my driver’s licence just over a year before the first issue of Surfing World came out in September 1962, so by commandeering my mother’s Beetle, I was getting around Sydney’s Northern Beaches. The Sydney surfing community was such a small one in those years that in time you got to know someone at the better breaks and were mostly welcomed when you visited. Localism was unknown. The community was also divided into three parochial parts: north of the Harbour Bridge, south of it, and then there was Cronulla. The three parts didn’t have much to do with one another in those years, and Jack Eden’s Surfabout magazine would beat Bob Evans’ Surfing World onto the newsstands by a matter of weeks. For us on the northside, the arrival of Surfing World was an exciting event. And this was a time when there really wasn’t much to get excited about in an Australia still stuck firmly in the 1950s.

“I DREAMED A DREAM THAT MADE ME SAD, CONCERNING MYSELF AND THE FIRST FEW FRIENDS I HAD” —Nat Young remembers Bob Evans • Bob Evans was my mentor, my dad in more ways than my biological father. My take on why he sort of adopted me was because he had married a much younger woman and had three young children. Thinking back on it I guess I was in the right age bracket to be the son/mate with whom he could go up and down the coast chasing waves. Our friendship started during my formative years, 1961 or ’62. I was 13 or 14. Apparently Evo had watched me surfing my home break at Collaroy and could see some potential, however we didn’t really meet as such. I remember the day we met vividly. I was still attending Narrabeen High school, walked into my family home after school and there was Bob Evans, sitting having a cup of tea with my mum. He was asking her if I could go on a safari up the coast with him. My mum was totally charmed by Bob; he was a real gentleman, a suave ladies man. He explained that he was making a movie called The Young Wave Hunters and he wanted me surfing in it.

“WE WERE GIVEN A GIFT… WHY WOULDN’T YOU WANT TO SHARE THATWITH PEOPLE?” —Albe Falzon on his Surfing World days • The first photographs I ever had published were in Surfing World. I’d met Bob Evans when he was moonlighting as a salesman up and down the coast, but by then he’d formed this relationship with Bud Browne. Both of them were making surf films. It was early days for them, so they were scratching for money. I met Bob when he came through up the coast and we developed a friendship. He had one of Bud Browne’s films with him and it blew me out of the water. It was the first surfing film I’d ever seen. It was of Hawaii and various other places. I had a camera, and I was interested in photography at the time, so I started to send Bob pictures and he published my first photograph that I ever took of surfing. I don’t remember the exact photo, but I remember it was a bit blurry. He also had a photo contest in the magazine...