50 yrs of official formalised surfing in the country is being celebrated in 2015. Durban especially, has produced many world champions including Shaun Tomson, Martin Potter, Twiggy Baker and Jordy Smith. Most surf spots around the country are covered by webcams for live reports on surf conditions.
There are many companies dealing in surf product such as:
- Billabong
- ONeill
- Lizzard
- Spider surfboards
- Natural Curve
- Surf HQ – www.surfhq.co.za
- Safari
- Baron Surfboards
- Wedge Surfboards
- Island Style
- http://m.wavescape.co.za
SA, especially Durban, is known for its good shapers. Spider’s style developed when he started shaping for Shaun Tomson at the original Safari factory. Spider and Shaun pushed their shapes to the limits and worked closely to develop the ideal board to suit Shaun’s revolutionary style of manoeuvring far back in the barrel. The boards had to be as fast as possible and still have the freedom to manoeuvre from all positions.
Subsequently, Shaun made headlines in Hawaii, blowing everyone away on Spider’s ‘Safari Pipeline Gun’. Shaun taking the ‘Pipe Masters’ title in 1975 and the ‘World Champion’ title in 1977 brought the worlds attention to Spider Murphy’s shaping ability. “This is where the curve of today was developed and we are still shaping ‘Shaun Tomson’ replica’s today and developing new models for the future”