Harry Mclaren

The surf ski is also becoming increasingly popular in open class races on flat water ‒ lakes, rivers and sheltered bays ‒ as paddlers are able to gain immediate “wet entry” onto the ski if they are tipped off, without having to first drain the vessel of water. This gives them an advantage over the traditional kayak.

The surf ski is one of those many Aussie inventions to make a huge impact on the world. But who invented it? Its origin has been a matter of minor controversy in two coastal NSW towns for some time now. Manly and Port Macquarie have been at loggerheads ever since it was introduced to Sydney’s beaches in 1933. But the iconic status of the craft demands answers.

It was loudly proclaimed for a long time that its inventor was one Dr Crackanthorp of Manly. With the discovery of the original plans for the craft, this claim has since been well and truly refuted. The surf ski was, in fact, invented by Harry McLaren, of Port Macquarie, much earlier in 1912.

At the time, McLaren was a 15-year-old boy with a desire to “shoot the breakers” of the Hastings River. His family were oyster farmers and the water, and the problems it presented, were his life. McLaren loved carpentry. One day he tried to shoot the waves of the ocean in a duck canoe and went straight over, and under.

Using the porpoise as his metaphor, McLaren was inspired to make a craft with a tapered stern and a spring in the front. A year later, his craft, made of New Zealand Kauri, was built and immediately launched. It was amazingly effective, and soon he was making them for his brother and friends. By 1919 he’d drawn up plans for the craft with the intention of taking out a patent. But then, as now, lack of funds discouraged resourceful young inventors from taking good ideas further, leaving them open for wealthier entrepreneurs to come the grouter and claim credit.

The town’s clerk at the time was one Harry Crackanthorp, who’d asked McLaren to make him a surf ski after discovering his kayak was ineffective in the surf. McLaren, who died 16 years ago, felt compelled in the 1980s to tell the rest of his story to Reg Grogan of The Sydney Morning Herald. “I made three: one for [Crackanthorp] and two for myself. I got the bug again and in 1931 I made another one of the different type, the same as the sailboard you see today with a rounder stern instead of a sharp stern.

“In 1932, Crackanthorp’s brother, Dr Crackanthorp, came up to holiday with him and during the week he rode the surf ski, but he was a very big man and as soon as he would get on, it would tip him over. Eventually he mastered it, so I let him use one of my skis. In the following year, he came back and I let him have a ski again.

“During the winter of 1933, I noticed an article in a paper that there was to be a new surf boat to be introduced to the beaches in the spring that same year. Then he got the credit of inventing the surf ski. But he didn’t make them. He had a friend called Jack Toyer who was a boat builder. He built the boats.”

After its introduction to Sydney’s beaches (for which Dr Crackanthorp can claim credit), the surf ski became immensely popular. Not only did it help to revolutionise surf lifesaving, but it led to the emergence of ocean racing. The Scottburgh to Brighton race was held in South Africa in 1958. The Port Elizabeth to East London in South Africa has been held every two years since 1972. The famous Molokai has been held in Hawaii since 1976. Other major ocean surf ski events have been held all over the world, most recently in Western Australia, the USA and Dubai.

It’s time Harry McLaren got the recognition due to him. Far from being bitter, he was disappointed. But he was pleased that, recognised or not, he was part of a great Aussie tradition of resourceful inventors. “It’s nice to know,” he said in his only ever interview, “that you’ve created something that has given pleasure to probably thousands of people all over the world today.”

‒ Robert Drane