Wetsuits
In December 1969 another local surfer, Alan Green, joined the duo and they started making wetsuits to complement the boards in the basement of a house in Beale Street behind the Torquay Pub.
Greeny had spent some time at a wetsuit dive company "Australian Divers" and they found a sewing machine, a "Pffaf 138 zig zag", which worked on thick rubber sourced in Clayton in the back-blocks of Melbourne.
Outsourcing much of the work at first, they soon realised that to keep up with orders and get the quality they wanted, they needed to do it all themselves so the wetsuit operation moved into Claw's flat at 66 Zeally Bay Road.
Focus
Change was rampant back then, such was the flower power and anti-establishment mood of the time. Business was no different to life in general and Greeny left Rip Curl in April 1970 to do his own thing, forming Quiksilver, with Claw and Brian as equal partners in the new venture.
Eventually it was time for them all to focus on one thing or the other and the partnership dissolved. Brian recalls that he swapped his Quiksilver shares for Greeny’s half of the land at the back of Bells Beach where he still lives today. "There was a bit of a difference in opinion over the value of the land, $5000 or so," he recalls "So we tossed a coin for it, I don't remember who won, but the deal was done."
Claw later sold his shares to Greeny so they could be issued to his new partner John Law.
When asked now, Claw has no clue how much he got for them!