The Brighton social worker was in his late 30s when he took up the sport. Now he is not only hitting the waves, he is making and selling wooden surfboards under the brand Wood Vibrations, a clever pun on the Beach Boys' hit Good Vibrations.
His initiation to the sport came through a workmate who was a ''mad keen'' surfer and kept asking him to have a go.
''I finally gave it a go, partly just to shut him up,'' he said, laughing.
''It was just the first wave and I got hooked, which is what happens to most surfers who stick at it.''
That was nearly six years ago, on a trip to the Catlins with his family, and there had been ''no looking back'', he said.
On average, he surfed between two and three times a week and while his skills had got a lot better, he admitted he was still a novice.
Mr Willers is also a woodwork enthusiast, having completed a carpentry apprenticeship and he also worked as a builder for a few years. He was ''always pottering around home making a few different things''.
He was scanning the internet one day ''looking for nothing in particular'' when he came across a ''build-your-own surfboard design kit''.
While he did not buy the kit, he started looking around and discovered Tree to Sea, a US-based business where you could buy a template to build a surfboard and, in return, trees would be planted.
So he did that as ''a bit of fun'' four or five years ago and was reasonably pleased with the result.
''I was pretty stoked with it,'' he said.
Since then, Mr Willers has continued to make boards - ''I suppose you call it evolution, they just got a bit better'' - and it got to the point where he was happy to sell them to other keen surfers.
While it was still a hobby and there had been no profit in it yet, his interest was custom-making boards for people who had a passion for surfing and also for wood. He did not want to ever lose the enjoyment from doing it.
Wooden surfboards were still ''not such a sought-after thing'' as they were quite heavy, but he liked them.
''I think people just have to get on them and try them before they make up their mind,'' he said.
He had not come across anyone in the South Island who was making wooden boards to sell.
The trickiest part was bending the timber into the required shape, Mr Willers said.
The best part was being able to use his own board to go surfing. He no longer had any foam boards. It took about a month ''from start to finish'' to make a board. They were made up of ''a lot of different bits'' of timber. His last board comprised about 80 pieces of wood.
Some parts of the process could be a 10-minute job but it then took 24 hours for the glue to dry.
He used mostly paulownia timber, which was native to Indonesia but also grew in the Waikato where he sourced it from, and different varieties of cedar and redwood.
