Now, the 73-year-old Southshore resident is set to compete in this week’s Duke Festival of Surfing in New Brighton for the third time.
Placing in the over-70s competition is not his goal. Instead, he is entering for the love of surfing, a sport which has given him so much joy over the years.
Said Poyner: “I’ve just been hooked on it, really. It’s just one of those sports that you can’t give up, I think. It’s just a lifestyle.
“It’s just the freedom of it. You’re out there by yourself, or with friends, and you’re catching waves. Every wave is different, of course, and it’s just the pleasure of it, I guess, and the enjoyment.”
He has been a member of New Brighton Surf Life Saving Club’s longboarders club for about 20 years.
Among Poyner’s best surfing memories is winning the 40 and over category of the national surfing championships in 1983, riding about eight to 10 foot waves in New Plymouth and surfing multiple times in Hawaii.
He has never encountered any sharks during his years surfing. However, he has ridden alongside dolphins at Campbells Bay, near Oamaru, most recently “just a couple of months ago.”
“You could almost touch them [the dolphins].
“When you’re on a wave, they’re right there surfing alongside you, and then when you paddle back out they’re under the nose of your board going out with you. They’re real friendly,” Poyner said.
In the 1960s he helped name a section known for big waves near Mangamaunu in the town “Meatworks” because “it was just a meaty wave,” he said.
Said Poyner: “An Australian friend of mine and myself, we were up there [Kaikōura] and we did an article [in New Zealand Surfing Magazine]. This is years and years and years ago, back in the 60s, and we actually called it the Meatworks and the name sort of stuck with it and it’s still called the Meatworks.”
In the 1960s, Poyner worked as a shaper for Sumner-based Quane Surfboards, one of the first New Zealand companies to make fibreglass boards.
There will be a display of Quane surfboards as part of the festival, some shaped by Poyner.
The Duke Festival of Surfing started on Tuesday and will run until Sunday. It will include surfing competitions, art exhibitions, a family movie night and a live concert.
The festival is a celebration of surfing culture based around the surfing life of Hawaiian Duke Kahanamoku, who popularised surfing, and visited New Brighton in 1915.
More information on event times can be found here.
