Little Island Surfboards

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About Little Island

In the early 1990's I was pestered enough to think about building a few boards for my mates around Bicheno - on Tasmania's east coast. The name Little Island stuck and has remained well known ever since. Longboards were the most popular but a lot of the younger blokes got into mini-mals for the smaller days.
Access to the best materials from suppliers in Sydney meant I could produce the best quality possible. In the late 1990's I ventured into some other things, particularly my aquarium ( www.bichenoaquarium.com.au ) and in 2006 I decided to restart Little Island.
Times change and so do local councils - and not having any land zoned for industry such as surfboards was a big problem. My mates at Moonlight Laminating came to the rescue and we now produce the boards at their factory In Torquay. This provides even better access to materials and, most of all, the ability to use the skills of great shapers like Michael Anthony to help broaden the knowledge base. I will be flying into Torquay regularly to shape.
This all leads to a better product which means you get a better surfboard.

Bryan Hughes - a brief bio ..

I consider myself incredibly lucky to have grown up through an amazing part of Australia's surfing history. I have seen the changes go full circle and being able to witness what's happening  in modern surfing is unbelievable. I am proud to have known some of the great pioneers of our lifestyle and fortunate to have worked with some of them.

Australia :
Born and raised in Manly, on Sydney's northern beaches, I started surfing on my Dad's back as a toddler. Same as all the other beach dwellers of the time, I went through skid boards, surfo's , borrowing old hollow boards and on to balsa and then foam . I saved enough to buy my first board in '59.

Leaving High School early in '65, my mate Glynn Ritchie got me a job at Scott Dillon's . I had already been fixing dings for years but was still lucky to get a job in a board factory.

I changed to Danny Keogh's ( Keyos ) factory in '66 with the start of the shortboard revolution and then on to Nipper Williams in '67.

There was always plenty of work so if you wanted to you could always get extra when other factories were overloaded (or sometimes the workers). This gave me the opportunity to learn all the different parts of the trade.

After Nipper closed in late '69, I mainly worked at McGrigors for Ken Bevan but I always kept up doing stuff for as many factories as I could. Hot Buttered, Aloha, Bennett's, McCoy's to name just a few. This continued through to the '80's, with a fair bit of fishing and travel in between.

U.S.A.
I started going to Hawaii in the early '70's and when the surf was flat I did bits of work for Ted Wilson in Honololu . He was doing some of the Lightning Bolts for Jack Shipley and Gerry Lopez - and had some greats like Ben Aipa , and George Downing working there.

I spent a lot of time in California in the early '80's. Terry Fitzgerald from Hot Buttered gave me some great contacts and I got lots of work with G & S, Bill Caster and Steve Seebold. Garry McNabb at Nectar had the Simon Anderson thruster license, so that was a turning point in Californian surfing and it was good to work there.

Tasmania :
Coming back to Australia in late '84, I moved to Tasmania for the uncrowded surf and did a lot with Greg Muir's Island Energy label and with Nick Stranger at Pure Surf .

Little Island came along in the early '90's - mainly due to a need for longboards and a return to the fun side of surfing.

After doing a few different things I decided on a restart in 2006 and the new range of Little Island and Little Island Surfgirls has been the result.

Contests:
An original member of Manly Pacific Boardriders Club in '62, I surfed in the Club, State and Australian Titles, Bell's Beach and Newcastle contests through the sixties. My last contest was at Bell's in 1970.