Charlie Williams Surf Champion

Charlie Williams heads to the beach as a volunteer lifeguard but he also likes to catch a surf break.

Charles and his twin brother James went to school in St Ives. They were members of the St Ives Surf Life Saving Club became regular surfers at Porthmeor Beach. Charlie went on to become a British surf champion and is considered an early exponent of the sport in this country. He opened one of the first surf shops selling specialised equipment and became an instructor at a surf school.

Charlie and Colin Prior had started to design and make their own surfboards and set up Atlantic Surfboards in St Ives. The book The Surfing Tribe by ex-surfer and surf historian Roger Mansfiled and the Museum of British Surfing at Braunton document the advent of surfing in Britain. Porthmeor Beach is a golden sandy stretch of beach under the nose of Tate At Ives Art Gallery and close to the town centre and it is still popular with surfers today. Newquay further up the coast in North Cornwall is on the circuit for the International Surfing Association (ISA) and emerged as the surf capital of Cornwall. The ISA was a Federation when it was set up in 1964 and since 2011 holds a Stand Up Paddle World Championship. What SUP?