Frank Latta was never destined to be a scholar, not when he lived at Cronulla, the surf was up and all his mates were taking to the waves on boards. As a 15-year-old, he wanted to join them and bought a balsa wood board from Coles Marine in Cronulla, undertaking to pay it back at 2/6 a week.

Latta bleached his hair and became hooked on the sport. When he forgot his 2/6 repayments and Mr Cole repossessed the board, he borrowed a mate’s board and took the day off school. He had a misfortune in the surf, knocked out his front teeth and got a school caning for wagging it. His resolution to that problem was to virtually abandon school. In the decades that followed, Latta became a top competitive surfer, a skilled and prolific surfboard shaper and designer and a character of the Australian surfing scene. Below Frank competing at Bells Beach ’75 photo HM

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