Surfing: Like being forever fourteen

John Gisby at 90 Mile Beach. Picture / Richard Robinson

They don't make surfers like John Gisby anymore.

Then again, they only made one of 'Gis' in the first place.

As the sun rose this week on the national surf champs in the Far North, it shone for the umpteenth time on the sight of Gisby riding the waves.

If you cast around for a character who might be dearest to the heart of this booming sport, one name rides high.

The 52-year-old surveyor has been collecting national titles with a determined gleam in the eye ever since he took up chasing them at the ripe age of 30.

He has 23 so far - twice as many as anyone else he understands - and was gunning for the grandmasters (over 45s) and legends (over 50s) prizes this year.

He's won five different divisions, has not left the championship empty-handed for 14 years, and will line up in two more finals tomorrow.

His haul of nationals goes alongside a world senior title, a Pan Pacific Masters crown, 50 Gisborne titles and his province's Sportsman of the Year gong.

But the collecting doesn't stop there. No sir.

There is a stash of 70 rare and interesting surfboards in his hometown museum these days, thanks to Gis. The collection represents years of relentless board-hunting, when he scoured the country for treasures.

The full travel catalogue is too deep to detail here.

But on one occasion, it involved a dash to Wellington where a friend had spotted the tip of a rare Nat Young model poking out of a rubbish tip.

On another, he charged up to Whangarei, hearing that some good surf coincided with a highly promising garage sale.

Gis sold this collection of boards to the museum for $10,000, and reckons it is worth $100,000.

The prized find was an early 1900s redwood board, the triumphant end to a 25-year search for a reminder of the wooden dunger he first took to the waves on as a kid.

He tracked the relic to a Gisborne house where the owner, also a relic, used it as an ironing board.

Gis paid $100, and reckons it is now worth $3000.

When it comes to his own boards, he has a simple motto. Victorious boards are carefully stored away. Losing boards are thrown away.

Pride of place goes to the board which carried him to the world over-45 title in Taranaki three years ago.

There used to be more to this surfing collection craze than simply surfboards, however.

Try 3000 magazines, 100 books, 400 videos, t-shirts, hats, you name it.

After one trip to Australia, he had to buy three extra suitcases to get all the gear home.

"If I saw a key ring with a surfboard on it I had to buy it," he says with joyful anguish.

"But really, I had to get rid of all these things. It was ending up as a disease. I quit this disease two years ago.

"I'd ended up with a double garage full of boards which I could hardly see. So why not let the public see them?"

So what is left, besides his 16 cherished championship-winning boards and two trunkloads of trophies?

A stash of highly unusual diaries, actually.

Since 1980, Gis has recorded the details every time he has surfed at Gisborne.

How long he surfed for, the height of the surf, the wind, and the breaks.

Hey. Even if a man can no longer overwhelm the house with surfboards, magazines and videos, he can still have a little fun.

This record of record-keeping is unbroken. When Gisby is out of town - surfing, of course - he rings friends daily to get a report on conditions.

These phone calls weren't actually required in 1994, when Gis surfed every single day during a successful mission to nab two national titles.

But every other year, just now and then, his friends are at the ready.

A masters student even wants to use the diaries in a thesis, although I forgot to ask whether the subject was Gisborne surf conditions or human behaviour.

Soon, the diary information will be transferred to digital, meaning Gis will know how much time he has surfed in a quarter century. Considering that he surfs between two and four hours most days, it will make a tidy total.

"Even if it's a horrible day, I'll still go out. I think it's important at our age to keep up the surfing fitness," he says.

As if he could stop himself.

Yet it isn't all the remarkable collecting of surf gear and titles that really stands out when you meet Gis.

What shines is his excitable praise for everyone else, from Gisborne star Maz Quinn to Surfing New Zealand and its work in looking after youngsters - or grommets in surfing lingo - through to the legends.

They all get the infectious Gis treatment, dollops of praise delivered with a cute enthusiasm.

Gisby doesn't look his age. And he has reached a stage where he is content in not being regarded as an old man of the sea.

"My two sons are into snowboarding but they're going down the same slope every day," he says.

"Surf changes every hour. We're on an incredible playground. I call it a surf park.

"You couldn't even turn that wooden board I first jumped on when I was 12. But from that moment I was hooked.

"I'm called 'The Oldest Grommet' because I still treat surfing like I'm a 14-year-old.

"I used to take it as an insult but everyone told me, 'Mate, it's a compliment'."

And it is.