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Born in Newcastle, Mick grew up the second eldest of a big family of 5 brothers and one sister. Saltwater flowed through their veins. Mick’s great grandfather was a lighthouse keeper at Palm Beach, Nelson Bay and Byron Bay. (He introduced the goats to Byron ‘s lighthouse).
When Mick was 12 years old, he came across his first surfboard at Nobby’s Beach, damaged and left to rot in the rocks. A quick call to his father and before you knew it they were back at home in the shed repairing the 9ft balsa pig longboard.
Mick’s first true shaping experience was only a few years later aged 16, he brought some material and was back in his dads shed trying his hand in shaping a S deck surfboard. The board actually came out pretty good and after a few surfs, he was able to sell it to cover the costs. From then on Mick made surfboards for himself and local surfers while juggling his apprenticeship.
As the era changed to Peace, Love and Happiness, Mick & his wife Chris traveled around enjoying the hippy era. In 1973 they crossed the Pacific for New Zealand to surf the North & South Islands and ended putting down roots at the famous point breaks of Raglan. After settling in Mick hired a small boat shed and began manufacturing surfboards for the locals and traveling surfers. After awhile the travel bug hit him again, word was spreading about the island of Bali and the temperature of tropical weather and awesome surf was to hard to resist. They packed their bags and headed over.
Life was good in the tropics. But after a while it was time to leave Bali and resettle back in Australia, but this time on the west coast in a town called Margaret River. Mick and Chris settled in quite well in the small town and with abundance of quality surf breaks Mick began shaping again out of a small farm house, producing boards for himself and various locals. With a 2 year stint in the west coming to a close they decided that it was time to get serious about settling down to start a family and to open a surfboards manufacturing company in their hometown of Newcastle.
In 1980 Jye was born. He spent his pre-school years being raised in the surfboard showroom and the factory, along with his sister Breanna. Developing a love of the water at an early age, it seemed only a matter of time his love of surfboard manufacturing would also develop. When Jye was 10 years old for pocket money he would clean the shaping bays, progressing through the years to repairing and sanding boards after school. Mick believes to become a good surfboards maker you need to start at the bottom and learn the basics first. After Jye mastered sanding of surfboards he progressed to glassing. Also learning along the way to spray and do tints and pigments.
Jye soon mastered all the techniques passed on to him by his father and was straight into the shaping bay where he hand crafted surfboards under Mick Byrnes labels.
While competeing professionally on the World Longboard Tour, Jye was also quietly honing his skills in surfboard design when on home turf. Always experimenting with shaping different boards and using the vast knowledge gained from Mick who surfed and made surfboards through several different era’s. - from the 60’s onwards.
Jye has learnt the fundamentals of the design of each era and has incorporated this into his own designs, here the Jye Byrnes Surfboard label was born.
After retiring from the tour, Jye poured all his efforts into shaping his new label. With a diverse range of templates, and emphasis on custom made boards, Jye takes each board from start to finish.
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