In conjunction with the 1956 Melbourne Olympic Games, an International Surf Life Saving Carnival was held at Torquay Beach, Victoria.
The competing countries included Great Britain, New Zealand, South Africa, Ceylon, and most significantly the Hawaiian and United States teams (including Greg Noll), who brought not only their paddle boards for racing but also fibre-glassed Malibu boards for wave riding.
The Hawaiian team was managed by Duke Kahanamoku.

This event started the ‘real’ emergence of pure ‘surfer’ interest and attitudes in Australia, as surfers realised that an entire segment of the surfing design history, which had been spearheaded by Bob Simmons’ late 1940’s designs, and had continued with the work's of local West Coast designers, had been completely missed by Australian surfing.
The boards that arrived in 1956 (mainly early Malibus) were highly advanced craft compared to the still dominant Australian Racing Sixteen, which had begun as a paddling board for SLSC events back in 1934.
“I cannot convey to you what a sensation these little pods seemed to us primates, champions of the bronzed sands, patriots of the paddle board. Shock, delight, scepticism.” – Bob McTavish.

The Malibu board had already made brief appearances as early as 1954, with actor Peter Lawford's Rochlen board, and with John ‘Nipper’ Williams surfing a balsa Malibu, which he bought used in Hawaii, at Manly in 1955.
Earlier in 1956, Scott Dillon was lent a balsa/fibreglass semi-gun with concave deck to surf at Bondi by ‘Flippy Hoffman’.
But at this event, an en-masse performance by the riders was as impressive as the long, but sleek and tailored boards.
A crowd of 50,000 people and extensive press coverage ensured the International Carnival was received by a large audience also, and so the new enthusiasm was widely felt.

In a gesture of display the US & Hawaiian teams competed at further carnivals at Avalon, Collaroy, Bondi, Maroubra and Manly, NSW over the summer.
Their wave riding performance was acclaimed and the impact was broadened when film of the team surfing Collaroy was shown as cinema newsreel footage - (Movietone News 28/3/1956).
This was followed by a colour film Service in the Sun (1957), commissioned by sponsors Qantas and Ampol Australia, including three and half minutes of the team surfing at Bondi.
After cinema release, the footage was shown independently in virtually every Surf Life Saving Club on the Australian coast. Some of this, including footage of Duke Kahanamoku’s return to Freshwater Beach, appears in Nat Young’s The History of Australian Surfing film/video.

Subsequently, the demand for these new design styles quickly outstripped all previous ‘toothpick’ production.
The boards used in the events remained in Australia, and were bought by upcoming Australian surfing identities such as Bob Evans (photographer and future editor of Surfing World magazine), Bob Pike (the first Australian International contest winner – in Peru 1962 ) and Gordon Woods ( pioneering Surfboard Manufacturer).

Australia Wakes Up!
The sudden onslaught of these boards and their potential, as well as intrigue for the largely unknown history that had led to their designs, - also awakened the natural Australian surfer instinct and encouraged experimentation in design within Australia which would rapidly progress over the next ten years.
This design period would once again involve Australia’s pioneer and premier surfers in progressive designs and modifications like the Aussie Pig Board, Nose Rider Mals, 'hook' tails, pin tail, the 'eggs' and more.
Equally the USA designs would continue to grow and astound surfers all over the world.

research credits:-
Special Thanx to Geoff at www.surfresearch.com.au.
Pic:-
Gordon Woods and the 9'6" Velzy/Jacobs 'Balsa board' that he purchased from Bob Burnside after the 1956 surf carnival.
fisrt published in Jack Pollard's, "The Australian Surfrider" - 1964.