Falmouth Maritime Museum: Surf!

This exhibition runs until January 2027.

Surfing is a huge part of Cornwall.  I may live here, but I have never surfed.  Even so, I know plenty of people that have.  I have worn surf brand clothes.  I have watched many surfers.  Surf events, such as Boardmasters are a huge part of the calendar of events.  I have even watched films about surfing because the footage tends to be so beautiful.

It's easy to see why surfing deserves such an exhibition.  It's a huge part of Cornish culture and a great draw for so so many visitors.

So what did the exhibition cover?  A lot.  100 years of surfing with 100 surfboards.

The exhibition begins with a piece of video as you walk in, showing local surfers in some great waves.  Then we have the very first surfboard.  I had no idea that they surfed on coffin lids from local undertakers to begin with.  Old floor boards.  Literally anything.  From there the journey begins with Bilbo and a replica shop front with a VW camper van parked next to it.  From there, the trail takes you past many surfboards, leaflets, magazine covers, clothing...  Photography was an early companion to surfing, as was surf clothing, although that began as simple t-shirts with a shop logo, but it progressed pretty quickly.

Surfing and the 70s went really well together and psychedelic surf art was created for low budget local surf magazines and event posters.  Skewjack surf village offered surfing holidays near Sennen for Londoners.  The surf instructors doubled as DJ's and the parties were legendary.  But the authorities were not so keen on surfing and saw it as a menace.  Space at many beaches for surfing was limited while it was banned at other beaches.  People protested and things changed.  It's so different now.

Cornish surfers started to do well on the pro surfing circuit and eventually, the world championships came to Newquay.  There was a collection of short pieces of footage on surfing, probably short segments from the news.  The BBC British and way of talking about surfing made these clips very endearing to me and I enjoyed them very much.  My favourite was watching the very Cornish Mayor of Newquay and his wife in their sunday best meet an Australian pro surfer called Rabbit.

What became very obvious very quickly is that surfing has been incredibly innovative from the beginning.  Different makers make different types of boards and they were creative to make the boards match local conditions.  Fins were introduced and numbers changed, from one to two and...  Shapes changed, the edge profiles changed and size changed.  There were boards for lying on (body boarding), for kneeling on (kneeboarding) and standing on.  There were adaptive boards and it was really nice to get introduced to some para surfers.

I have heard of Pegleg, who is infamous for surfing storms locally and around the world.  It was great to see a clip of him talking about surfing and talking about surfing with one leg and then getting surfing prosthetics.  It was great to Swell get a mention, their foam boards have been used to teach many a learner and they are a familiar sight.  

What I found tricky was to relate this profusion of boards to wave conditions and the why of it all.  I have a science brain I know, and I suspect that many people don't spend enough time looking at all the information to start asking deeper questions.  The exhibition looked at surfers and surfboards but it didn't look at waves, the mechanics of surfing and why all this variation matters so much.  As a result, as interested as I am in things, the boards blurred together a little.  I imagine local surfers would instinctively understand more of this.  I didn't.

What makes a great piece of surfing in a competition?  How do you surf a tube?

I get why people want to innovate the type of materials boards are made from and this was pretty much well covered.  There was talk of an over-reliance on petrochemicals but I think it would be easy to assume that this is just the materials boards are made from.  Do they mean wax as well?  I saw wax in the displays but there was no talk of why they use wax.

They also included a bit about the connection to skateboarding, which was nice to see.  It isn't really surprising to learn that when they cannot surf, many surfers take to skateboards.  There is therefore a cross in skills and style.  Some great photographs, including one of someone skating over rocks near the RMS Mulheim, a well known wreck near Land's End

My favourite section though was the artistic boards and I enjoyed looking at these very much more than all the prize winning boards and boards used by serious surfers on a daily basis.  These boards were stunning and pristine.  If I was  surfer and I had a Damien Hirst board, I would hang it on my wall...  It was so pretty!  Covered in butterflies.  I loved Polly Morgan's Half Skull of Fish and Tamsyn Trevorrow's Terry Frost inspired board.  This whole display was lovely though and I would love to see more work by Tigger Newling, Joe Greenaway and Neil Wernham as well.

It was great to see Surfers Against Sewage too.  They have been such a strong force locally, campaigning for water companies to clean up their act and stop  discharging raw sewage into the sea.  This is still an issue but less of a daily issue.  There has been change.  Where discharge was constant before, now they are allowed so many discharges a year during storm or flood conditions.  The problem is, surfers tend to like surfing in those difficult conditions.  It has made many people very ill and one surfer could no longer surf after catching Hepatitis.

I think here, there was the impression that Surfers Against Sewage is a little done and that plastics are now the issue.  Sewage is still an issue.  I guess they don't want to tell tourists visiting that pollution and sewage are still an issue.  Plastics feels like a 'safe' issue in some ways, we all need to change and we can all see it when we go to the beach.  I loved the wave sculpture made using plastic waste.  But back to Surfers Against Sewage, there could have been more coverage as they had a huge influence locally.  Their balls were legendary and people would go in costume.  Once we left the main exhibition on the ground floor, there as a ramp up to the first floor.  There was wall space and there could have been more photographs.

Lastly there was a film showing a group of surfers of all ages.  It was very calm and meditative.  In fact the whole exhibition was.  Sounds of waves followed you around.

So I loved the exhibition, it covered so much ground, included so many items and such a lot of social history.  There was so much I connected to as someone living in Cornwall, even if I have never surfed.  I imagine the VW campervan was probably a highlight of many visits.  I just felt a gap or two, mostly around the science of surfing and surfboards.  That may well have been a conscious decision.  Maybe science doesn't sell, but surely they could have squeezed one display in there, just so all the surf boards made sense in their dazzling variety.  

They also could have included a little more on surf fashion, although they did have a Seasuit there, developed to give women of Islamic faith the opportunity to surf and for women in Islamic countries to observe modesty rules.  Surf clothing is a huge industry now, with so many little local surf brands.  

But definitely go!  Admire all the surfboards, but maybe don't try to read the blurb on every single one like I did!