Tribute to Jeff Hancock

Thursday 26 November 2009

Tributes continue to pour in for Jeff Hancock, iconic Cape Town surfboard shaper and former pro, who passed away in the Cedarburg, ironically on the same day as Shorty Bronkhorst. By Andre Mory, Rob Abel, Spike and several close friends. Photographs from Sean Jerram and Tammy Gardner.

Jeff was on a trip with a party of friends in the picturesque wildnerss area near Cape Town. According to friends, he had decided to stay when the rest of the party went for a walk. On return, they found him in a rockpool.

He had been complaining of a headache, and it is believed that the cause of death may have been an aneurysm. His close friend Andre Mory said Jeff, who was 43, had a peaceful expression on his face, and thought he had passed peacefully.

A funeral service is to be held in Camps Bay at 4pm on Monday 29 November at the United Church, opposite the top of the Camps Bay pre-school opposite the library (at Pick 'n Pay parking lot). This will be followed by a paddle circle at the spot called 'Jock's Corner' in Camps Bay. This is the wave in the southern corner of the beach that used to cook at times, a spot Jeff loved to surf.

Mory said the funeral had been delayed to give Jeff's mentor and close friend Jonathan Paarman time to get down to Cape Town from St Francis on his yacht.

Jeff was a hell-raising surfer with an outrageous talent, albeit with a few reckless moments that got him into trouble with the law on numerous occasions. It is legendary among many of his friends that Martin Potter - at his peak - only managed to beat Jeff by one point during a heat at the Gunston 500 in Durban. He was bosom buddies with a close knit group of Camps Bay locals, particularly Sean Jerram, Greg Coulstock, Trevor Booth, George Mayou and Andre Mory.

His friends have many stories to tell about Jeff, and they will protect his occasionally injudicious moments to a fault. He was a larger than life character, and you need to give him that, even when at times he crossed the line, and caused all sorts of mayhem for himself and those around him. But he was on an unrelenting pursuit for perfection, and did not suffer fools gladly.

When he was shaping a board for you, it was serious, like a deep and meaningful thing. If you didn't acknowledge the seriousness of the task, he would instantly get irritiated, like you didn't understand.

But if you took any interest in the craft, you could talk for a long time with Jeff about many things. Sometimes, one's experience of life only comes when you hit it head-on, and then you work out what happened later. 

My first experience with Jeff Hancock occurred almost two decades ago. It was the early part of the decade before the millenium clock clicked over, around 1992-3. Jeff was working as a shaper under the guidance of Johnny Paarman.

I remember how Jeff shaped the first of maybe five boards he shaped for me over the years. The last was an epic 7' 3" gun a couple of years ago, a breathtaking board that briefly coped with some of the chunkiest 10 footers that the Atlantic side threw at me before a big day at the Factory put paid to that. Jeff really cared about what you thought of his boards when you rode them. He got really irritated if you didn't bother to contact him to let him know how his board went in the surf.

Back then, we were almost 20 years younger. Life still yawned ahead. I was working at the Cape Argus, Jeff was working as a shaper at Johnny's factory in Chiappini Street, Cape Town. Being a fan of fantasy fiction and starting to experiment with bigger waves and bigger boards, I asked Johnny to shape me a 7' 2" gun, which i was interested in imbuing with something a little different, something that would make it fly on biggish days on the reefs.

Johnny introduced me to his apprentice at the time, Jeff, who took to the project with some excitement. He shaped a pintail gun of majestic proportion, something that i wanted to call, somewhat romantically, Windworm Reefeater. Over to the original story written for Wavescape in 1998:

"It featured no glowing fluorescent icons to fry the eyeballs. The artwork was done old style, in black and white. Almost medieval, one might say. Each part of the anatomy was enlarged using a photocopier, then pasted together with tape. The final version, after much enlarging and reducing and cutting and sticking, was photographed by a photojournalist colleague, Brenton Geach at The Cape Argus. He took the slide as a black and white positive of the creature. A slide projector was set up in the back of the surf factory and the image lined up on a surfboard blank. It was tricky to align the projector at the right angle without losing perspective. Using a 9B, very dense, pencil, Spike outlined the image with very light strokes, switching the projector on and off continually when the light became a distraction.

Once the outlines were all in place, the original artwork came out and the scales were slowly rendered. The nib of the pencil tended to sink right into the foam. The project was not easy. However, the gauged lines gave the dragon an almost 3D effect, especially after the board was glassed.

The project took 3 days. Windworm Reefeater flew across the waves at a couple of big days over several of the more gnarly reefs around Cape Town, including the Crayfish Factory and xxxs. However, the board was sadly snapped in two at the Factory during an 8-10' swell, and the pieces consigned to the scrap heap. Such is life, especially when art imitates it!"

To you Jeff, one of the best shapers of a surfboard the world has known, rest in the peace you found so elusive in your living years.

- spike

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