Glenn "cat" Collins

Glenn cat started surfing freshwater beach in the late 60's when his parents put him on a Miget Farrelly pro champ foamie. Over the years (he's still got the tear out's in a folder) he allways loved the board design section's that plagued the Tacks Magazine which at that time wasn't poisoned by the corprate pigery that exsist's today & for that reason he rarely bother's reading any surf mags or watches surf DVD's.

Towards the end of the 70's Glenn took an interest in the shaping side surfboards. Greg Clough from Aloha surfboards in Brookvale in sydney showed him the basic's of the art. Living in Manly, he then took a job in the long standing factory of it's time McGrigor surfboards owned by Fleckey. It had though in it's time some of the best well known shapers ever: Barry King, Ian Goodacre, Steve O'Donnell, Steve Artis, Porky Peter's &Wayne Hutch.

Way before Glenn worked there, Malcom McNeil, Rod Ball, Owl Chapman, & shit loads of others was also the glasser's & finisher's for the NAT YOUNG"S fall line lable & yep Glenn had to polish all of those boards at the time( poor bastard & fix dings)..

Moved to Noosa Heads in late 85 & repaired boards for the local "In There" surfshop at the time Surfworld Noosa but maintained the the reason as to why the change & to why the surfboards shape should move forward. After Cheyne Horans' breif 12 months living in Noosa, Cheyne detailed the Lazer Zap concept in it's depth & his Star Fin design. Glenn started playing with the fin configeration in his own shapes based on the Lazor Zap. He at the time firmly beleives the lack of fin was probally the undoing of the design & still beleaves that this concept/design that Cheyne Geoff MCCoy ain't finished yet as with the right fin concept to the shape goes F&@Kin nuts , i love EM Glenn Cat said...

These day's the boundries are pushed via the reshaping of off set shapes. Different rail's for the back hand & forehand, scolloped rail's thru to the "ORIGINAL T SPOON CROSS CHANNELL EXPERIMENT", as well as The Jet Bottom chucked in on quite a few different shapes let alone the bizzare fin configerations. The foils with in foils & really they have to be seen to beleaved as this guy did invent the the double foiled side fin in 82 "XL"fin & 20yrs later the VECTOR2/3 happen to have hit the market with a simlar foil...

These days & still in noosa surfing on the 'experiments", he shapes in the secret shaping room north of Noosa to escape & think the next move in the FUTURE ON THE SURFBOARD functional & non functional

Click the link to see some of Glenn's Surfboard Designs or Surf art