DESCRIBED as a “deeply spiritual person”, Steve Harewood, who has died aged 76, was a hugely influential and pioneering surfer and surfboard shaper.
He was part of the original group of trailblazing local lads, inspired by watching South African expats take to the waves in St Ouen’s Bay, who would push Jersey surfing into new frontiers.
But it was what he could do with a board off the water, as much as on it, that set Harewood apart.
After travelling and competing in Puerto Rico, California and Mexico, he found that most British boards were out of date. So he started making his own out of a shed he rented with £100 back pay. Eventually friends would ask him to build boards too and, in 1969, he founded Freedom Surfboards with Barry Jenkins and Tommy Bates, producing top quality shortboards. It was one of the few places in Europe to do so at the time.
“Our aim was to produce boards on a par with the States and Australia,” he told Surf Insight magazine in 1972, with the brand now fully expanded to the export markets in France and Spain. South African world champion Shaun Tomson was also a client of Freedom. Though the company no longer produces boards, it became one of the biggest in Europe during the 1980s.
Harewood also understood the custom board-making market for individual surfers and the environment they would surf in adding: “British waves are slower and less powerful than overseas… boards here need to be softer and more subtle in order to flow.”
As a surfer himself, Harewood was considered “radical” compared to many of his peers in the British scene, who “matched the Californians for style and technique”. He was part of the six-men British team who competed at the World Surfing Championships in Puerto Rico in 1968, five of whom were from Jersey. Harewood would make the team again in 1972 in San Diego, as the shortboard revolution refined and evolved.
Nicknamed “Honky”, Harewood was a regular in the top-three placings in the British Championships from 1962 onwards. In 1994, he won the European Masters title.
Ultimately, though, Harewood was an innovator who had a deep understanding of the ocean. He is survived by his loving wife Pauline, children and grandchildren.
Steve Harewood, surfer and surfboard shaper, born 8 April 1947; died 3 April 2024.
In Harewood’s memory, there will be a “paddle-out” at St Brelade beach on 22 April.
