The Future’s Unridden 

Hayden Cox is sitting on the expansive wooden deck of his triple-level Sydney home, discussing everything from the flex pattern of carbon rails to the nearby ferry wake that he’s been using to teach his baby girl, Alaïa, to surf. Resting inside against a wall, 15-month-old Alaïa has her own 2’10” version of the Hypto Krypto, the wildly popular Hayden Shapes model that has thrice been voted Surfboard of the Year at the Australian Surf Industry Awards.   

As he elucidates the dynamic surfboard company he runs with his wife and business partner, Danielle, a glorious view of the harbor threatens to lull me into a state of stupefied rapture. Clusters of yachts sway against their moorings on a sheet of iridescent blue, which stretches for miles before it’s swallowed by rolling Australian bush. Hayden’s connection to this impressive perch is enhanced by the labor he’s invested in it. When they moved in three years ago, he sanded back all the timber on the decking to achieve the desired lustre, repainted the adjacent door and window trimmings jet-black, and fashioned the marble-top coffee table that rests before us with a rustic concrete base. 

“The cool thing about home,” he says, “and this is the first home that I’ve ever owned, is that whatever project you work on feels like it actually ends up as yours. If you’re working in a business and you do things like building a retail store, it doesn’t entirely feel like yours.”

Hayden and Danielle have made Hayden Shapes into one of the most readily identifiable brands in surfing. Just down the road at Mona Vale, they have a factory and boutique showroom that employs a staff of 30, including seven young shaping apprentices. Seventy percent of Hayden’s production, meanwhile, takes place in Thailand. “I am one of the shapers who’ll talk openly and honestly about where I manufacture boards,” he says. When pressed for a figure on exactly how many boards he’s making, he doesn’t get specific, but simply states, “We’re making a lot.” 

Hayden had his hands dripping in resin from a young age. He recalls his father, a metallurgist who enjoyed playing around with all kinds of materials, helping him to hot coat his faded Terry Fitzgerald thruster when he was 8. By 15 he’d made his first board, and at 17 he was peddling them to the small crew of teachers and students who surfed at the strict, Anglican grammar school he attended. 

The school’s library became the launch pad for the digital arm of Hayden Shapes. At age 17, he built a website for his brand and secured his first overseas order from a guy in Switzerland. This was in 1998, when websites were still science fiction for most shapers. If Hayden’s dad gave him a love of materials and construction, it was his mother, an economics major, who instilled a healthy respect for business principles. 

As Hayden walks me through his kitchen and living room, I get the sense his creative and economic brains work in tandem. He points out the white marble backsplash he added to the kitchen, explaining how he sourced the material cheaply off the Internet, rented a diamond blade saw, and cut the marble himself. Overall, the interior design is distinctly minimalist—white walls and flooring (which Hayden repainted and resprayed) anchored by bold, reinforced concrete benches. The whole space is framed by black edges, giving it the same two-tone aesthetic Hayden uses for most of his boards. 

In such a sharp-lined setting, a large pop art piece by Dan Watkins—aka Rad Dan—pops off the kitchen wall. It’s a collage of graffiti catchphrases laid over a slightly spooky etching of a disfigured head. Painting on Hayden’s boards was one of Watkins’ first commissioned gigs. Another of his works, an ice-cream-eating Smurf, hangs in the home theater. “This is where I get to watch all the content we create,” explains Hayden, who thrives on collaborating with his cast of team riders to capture and manicure footage. 

The term collaboration comes up a lot in his working life. A gold-painted board, which hangs vertically on an upstairs wall, was part of a joint project with Audi. A signed Tony Hawk deck is mounted next to a sleek wooden dining table, a byproduct of Hayden’s book, New Wave Vision, in which Hawk was interviewed, among other luminaries from iconic brands. Fashion designer Alexander Wang worked with Hayden to inlay marble-printed silk on the Hypto Krypto, which the designer showcased as installations in his chic New York and Tokyo stores. “I guess I like to call myself a designer,” indicates Hayden, who was recently approached by a major Australian bank to produce alternative payment accessories. (At present, he’s working on a wristband made from recycled fishing nets that can be used to make purchases.)

Surfboard-wise, Hayden doesn’t have to venture far from home to experiment with his equipment. It’s only a two-minute trip over the hill to reach Whale Beach, an idyllic nook flanked on either extremity by soaring headlands that give it a wonderful sense of seclusion from the outside world. “Whaley,” as it’s known, cradles one of Sydney’s most celebrated breaks, The Wedge—a left peak that tosses up hollow, throttling sidewinders after a high-adrenaline pyramid entry. In the early 90s, the beach was home to Tom Carroll, Barton Lynch, Martin Potter, and an itinerant Jamie Brisick. In that heady era, one party saw the entire Top 16 of the World Tour, along with whoever else was on hand, crammed into a small local bar known as the Shark Pool. David Bowie played an impromptu gig at the venue, and comedian Billy Connolly also once made a cameo appearance.  

The Shark Pool may not be around anymore, but Whaley still has its charms and, for Hayden, it plays an important role in research and development. “It’s a rad little zone,” he says. “It’s short, it’s punchy. When it’s two foot it seems like it’s three foot, and you can feel your boards out really quickly there. It’s a great testing ground.” 

He suggests that while he still enjoys being in the water at 6 a.m. on most days, it can occasionally start to feel like part of the job. “Sometimes it’s hard,” he says, “to separate surfing from work—to spend time in the water not thinking about boards, and just surfing for surfing’s sake.” On the other hand, he admits, his house is the ultimate passion project, something he and Danielle can lose themselves in. 

At present, his sloped backyard is nothing but untamed Aussie bush, filled with giant sandstone chunks and a tangle of eucalyptus. Hayden looks at it all like a foam blank he’s intent on giving shape and form. He aims to carve out a split-level lawn, add a fire pit, and build another deck, which will boast an even better view than the one out front.

As far as surfboard evolution is concerned, he remains hyper-vigilant about staying ahead of the curve. “I’m going to have to collaborate and work with young minds that have skills in robotics and design, in order to evolve our production,” he stresses. “It’s going to be with the kids that studied 3D printing in school.” 

After a couple hours with him, it seems apparent his ambitions rarely allow him rest. However, with his fabulous west-facing deck, there’s one ritual that allows him to decompress. “I always try to be home for sunset,” he says. “It’s my favorite time of day here, and a great place to have a beer and a barbie.” 

Overlooking the still water, he can visualize the pool he plans to build out front, and the bathtub he wants to install for Danielle on their balcony. Maybe one day, he muses, he’ll have a boat of his own moored below, ready to whip around to the Chicama-like left that’s just a short ride across the headlands.

*

All photos courtesy of the Surf Shacks book series from Indoek, available now.