An Oarsome Skill
Illawarra Mercury
Tuesday March 2, 1999
Corrimal-based PeterTaylor is the fourth generation of a boat-building family.
Until four years ago, he specialised in surfboats - but today he spends most of his working time making and repairing carbon fibre and timber oars used by surfboat crews.
His great-grandfather started the boat-building tradition in England. His grandfather built boats around Sydney Harbour.
Peter's father Max served his apprenticeship at Halvorsens and worked on 110ft Fairmiles and 38ft crash boats towards the end of WWII.
Max moved to Wollongong about 46 years ago, doing carpentry and cottage work before building his first surfboat in 1975 - the year Peter joined the business.
Their first boat, named Max's First, went to Bulli Surf Club and eventually won more titles than any other craft in surfboat racing history. Its victories ranged through branch, state and national surf lifesaving titles to George Bass and Mazda surfboat marathons.
Peter completed three years of technical college studies then a further two years at Ultimo Technical College to gain shipwright qualifications.
A decade ago he went back to college to study fibre reinforced plastics technology. Around that time surfboat builders began abandoning timber for reinforced plastics. Of more than 50 surfboats which eventually carried the Taylor brand, the final seven were in fibreglass.
Although the Taylors had made surfboat oars from timber for 20 years, Peter's experience in fibre-reinforced plastic took oar-making in a new direction, virtually creating a new business.
Peter has one of the very few fibre placement machines in the Wollongong area able to do filament winding.
Oar-making is at fever pitch between October and Easter, the duration of the surfing season, when Peter puts out about 120 new oars and does repairs as fast as crews the length and breadth of Australia damage them.
He is able to copy from a range of oar patterns on a specially built copying machine and depends on feedback from boat crews to refine oar designs.
Although Peter doesn't go to sea in surfboats, he's tried his hand in other craft.
He built a 25ft Virtue class yacht to a 1938 design. This craft, which carries two tonnes of lead ballast, is now based in Queensland.
© 1999 Illawarra Mercury