Early 2011

Welsh surfboard shaper John Purton shakes the foam dust from his hands as the telephone rings. It's a regular customer, Matt Smith, and he's putting in an order for two boards, a 7'8” and an 8'0”, neither of which are for himself. A bit of a world traveller, Matt tells John he's crewing a boat that'll sail from the UK to the Maldives and onwards to Indonesia. The boards are for the fella that owns the boat, a Hawaiian gent of imposing stature and wealth known only as 'Bill'.

John knocks out the boards and sends them to Matt, who then boards Bill's boat and they start sailing east. Unfortunately, Bill's boat the 'Kealoha' gets caught by bureaucratic red tape in Turkey so Bill, Matt, and the rest of the crew including a five star chef (plus their stock of lavish food and expensive wine), charter a private jet to the Maldives. There they link up with Louie Harris of Liquid Destination and for the next 10 days they sail the Maldives enjoying top notch opulence and great waves. Bill reports the 7'8” as being a “magic board”.

At the end of the trip Bill flies back to the US to attend to business and leaves his boards on the boat. It's the end of the season, so with no bookings and no guests, Louie and Matt and a local guide decide to hunt waves in the far south of the Maldives archipelago. While crossing One and Half Degree Channel (so named because of it's distance from the equator) the boat gets hit by a wild midnight storm. The rain lashes and the wind batters, everything loose flies overboard – including Bill's beloved 7'8”! Louie and Matt search for it in the dark without luck.

October 2011

John Purton shakes the foam dust from his hands as the telephone rings. It's Matt Smith ringing to say the 7'8” was going great for Bill. However, he's got a small request: Could he get an identical 7'8” shaped - same shape, same spray, same decals? And could he, err, get it done real quickly? Bill had no idea his favourite board was lost, currently floating somewhere in the Indian Ocean...

John obliged, shaped another 7'8”, and forwarded it on to be picked up and slipped back into big Bill's quiver.

January 2015

John Purton shakes the foam dust from his hands and leaves his shaping bay. He's off to Sri Lanka for a well earned rest. A few of his mates are there already, and he arranges to meet them at Universal Restaurant on Hikkaduwa Beach.

As planned, John meets his mates at Hikkaduwa where one of them points out a board, one of John's boards, that's being used by the local surf school. John approaches the board with a furrowed brow. “As soon as I saw it I realised that it was a custom board,” said John. “Immediately I looked on the underside of the board, between the fins, where I always leave my signature, a production code, and the customer’s name.”

The name was 'Bill' but it took John a few moments to remember who Bill was. But when he did remember the thoughts tumbled like dominoes. “I knew where this board was from, and where it was travelling at the time it was lost. It was a massive shock to find it back in my hands, on a beach in Sri Lanka.”

For the record, Hikkaduwa is approximately 1,000 kilometres from where Bill's board was lost overboard. It's not known how long the board was at sea but from the photos you can see it's in good condition. Part of that can be attributed to a board cover which would've kept the worst of the elements off the board.

And what about the bloke who owned the board? 'Bill' is actually William S. Price III, who has a bank balance befitting his name. Bill co-founded TPG Capital, one of the world's largest private equity firms. In the 90s TPG bought out Continental Airlines, Ducati, Petco and many other multinationals. Over the last few years as Billabong has suffered share price woes, TPG has tried three times to buy them out.

But Bill is no longer with TPG, he sold it for $1.5 Billion in 2000 and now fills his days dabbling in the wine industry (owns four vineyards!) and sailing the world looking for waves with a magic 7'8".