By: Gary Crockett

Gary Crockett — Tue, 18 Feb 2014 03:04:47 +0000

Hi Bruce – great to hear from you – so sorry about this reply being 7 months old as your message lost among the hundreds of spammers. It sounds like a Bluey Mayes expression and Gordon and Bill’s stamp of approval should be good enough for anyone.

By: Bruce Channon

Bruce Channon — Thu, 09 May 2013 01:49:37 +0000

Gary, I have reassessed what you wrote above about the Ke Nui road reference. That was a theory offered to me (via Bob Smith) by “Claw” Warbrick of Rip Curl fame. Recently I saw the word in Peter Troy’s book “To the Four Corners of the World”, as “okanui”. It was also shown in that book in a newspaper cutting from the time spelled as “okanui”. I have only seen it spelt “okinuee” in the surfresearch website and the author of that is only a cut and paste guy who seems to have taken it from a magazine article by Ross Renwick, back in the day. Four or so years ago, at a surfboard maker’s forum at the Noosa Festival of Surfing, Gordon Woods said the word came from “ocka” as in “Aussie” and “nui” being a “new” board, made to sound like an Hawaiian word. I thought at the time he was joking. However, I recently saw an interview with Bill Wallace on Noosa Longboards website and Bill repeats what Gordon says, and adds that he thinks it was made up by Bondi legend, Bluey Mayes. As Gordon and Bill were both at the forefront of making the boards I think it was probably a word that was said more than written, and any spelling is probably correct. I’m now going with “okanui” as both Troy and Bill Wallace had it that way.

Comments on: Ockanui or O’Ke Nui…?

By: Gary Crockett

By: Bruce Channon