It is with great pleasure that we announce the inaugural recipient of the FCS Legend Shaper Award, a man who is a true pioneer of surfboard shaping and design, and an absolute gentleman, Bob McTavish.
Bob’s influence on surfboard design and performance dating back to the 1960s is undeniable.
Here’s a man who spearheaded the shortboard revolution and found new ways to ride waves. The fact that over 40 years later, he’s still in the bay and surfing daily is testament to his love of the craft.
Congratulations Bob, and on behalf of the global surfing community… Thank you
When we kicked off the FCS Shaper Awards we wanted to not only honour and celebrate shapers for their significant contribution to the sport of surfing, but also have them shape a board for FCS team rider Mick Fanning.
We’d document the board building process and then get Mick riding each board, gauging his feedback. This was all going to plan until Mick blew his knee out.
That didn’t stop our shapers from getting dusty though, and Bob was incredibly receptive to the idea of making a board for Mick that best represented his shaping history and philosophy.
He decided on the McTavish Bluebird, a significant model from the ’70s, and a board that many surfers of the era considered their very first shortboard.
Mick shared time in the bay with Bob as he hand shaped the beautiful board, which is now waiting patiently, glassed and ready for Mick to ride. And while we’re confident you’ll enjoy watching the edit we’ve produced on Bob, we’ve put a ‘To Be Continued’ on Mick surfing the new sled.
The FCS Shaper Awards is our platform to celebrating legendary and iconic shapers for their significant contribution to the craft of shaping, surfboard building and manufacturing.
We created two categories; the Icon Award (20yrs shaping) and the Legend Award (40yrs shaping).
What started with a public nomination process, where we received thousands of submissions for each category, then moved to a judge’s deliberation among our esteemed panel; Wayne 'Rabbit' Bartholomew, Tom Carroll and Brad Gerlach.
Stay tuned to find out who will be featured in the Icon Award.
