OUR STORY
IT'S ANOTHER SUNNY MORNING...
Your favourite tune is blasting out of the 8-track. The warm off shore breeze is blowing. The sun is beating down on your arm hanging through the window of your old faithful truck.. The big tyres crunch on the dirt track. You drive through the trees to find another perfect swell pulsing from the horizon with no one around. Just you and your crew there to enjoy it. You pull out your favourite board and start the walk down the hot sand towards the glistening ocean. You don’t have a care in the world. No rules have been set yet.
It’s all there for the taking. It’s Noosa in 1965. It’s the golden era… It’s the Cord era.
When two brothers started a surfboard label in Queensland in 1965, their ethos was design, innovation and build quality. From a small shop in Caloundra they ignited a cultural explosion in surfing that ripped through Australia and echoed around the world.
David Lascelles started Cord Surfboards in Caloundra in 1965. It soon attracted an elite group of board building pioneers who were later titled “The Hot Generation”.
At the Cord factory David “Humphrey” Lascelles was in the company of soon to be greats Bob Mctavish, Kevin Platt, Daryl “Rooster” Dell, George Greenough and his younger brother Peter “Chops” Lascelles to name but a few. In a few years together these guys not only shaped some of the most innovative boards Australia had seen to date, they shaped surfing culture for years to come.
DAVID "HUMPHREY" LASCELLES AT THE BLUFF, QUEENSLAND, 1965
PETER " CHOPS" LASCELLES AT MOFFAT BEACH, QUEENSLAND, 1964
David "Humphrey" Lascelles (Chops older brother),
"I’d already discussed my plans with Bob McTavish, Kevin Platt, Russell Hughes and Algy Grud. They were all real keen and agreed to come and work for me.
We needed a name and settled on “Cord” after a character in a film we all loved and so a surfboard label was born.
I found a suitable building in Caloundra and we fitted it out and began production."
Get the full story of the origin of Cord from David Lascelles HERE
MIKE MCINTIRE
(LEGENDARY LA PHOTOGRAPHER)
GEORGE GREENOUGH
SURFING DESIGN PIONEER
DAVID "HUMPHREY" LASCELLES
CORD FOUNDER
PETER "CHOPS" LASCELLES
CORD FOUNDER
For the next ten years “Humphrey” and “Chops” embarked on a journey around the world that took them to every corner of the surfing community, some times even to places that had never even been surfed. The friends and contacts they made were invaluable. When they arrived in a small town in Cornwall in the late 70’s they decided that’s where they were happy.
“Chops” started a family with his wife Mary, whilst setting up and running one of Europes most successful surfboard factories and helping the British surf world get up to speed on surfboard manufacturing, bringing designs and techniques that had not yet reached the shores of the UK. He coached the British surfing team and was one of the first people to bring international surf stars and shapers to the UK (Wayne “Rabbit” Bartholemew and Cheyne Horan were regular visitors back in the day!).
In 2013 “Chops” sadly and suddenly passed. It left a hole in the local community and sent waves throughout the international surfing community.
Markie inherited Cord, and with it all of it's heritage and the next part of the story started to be written.
WAYNE "RABBIT" BARTHOLEMEW
WORLD SURFING CHAMPION
PETER "CHOPS" LASCELLES
CORD FOUNDER
Almost six decades since it was formed by two brothers, Cord Surfboards now lies in the hands of the next family generation headed up by youngest son of Chops, Head Shaper Markie Lascelles with a vision to honour this jewel of surfing heritage.
Cord was innovative when it started, and we hold those values to this day. With a vault of future thinking surfboard designs regularly tried and tested by some of the finest surfing talent in the UK and Ireland, the Cord collective are ready to start penning the new chapter to this captivating story of surfing history.
Welcome to the next chapter!
Cord Surfboards.
Shaping surfing since 1965