It seems like only yesterday that baby-faced Josh Constable was winning everything going at the Noosa Festival of Surfing, and steering his way to a world longboard title, but this week the 2006 ASP world champ will be celebrating the arrival of middle age, with 40 candles on the cake at a Byron Bay party with family and friends.
But age certainly hasn’t wearied the champ, who remains one of the busiest beach people in town, and is still hoping to get another crack at the World Surf League longboard tour if it returns mid-next year, following solid performances at the WSL Noosa Open this year and last.
“I’d definitely like to compete again,” Josh told Noosa Today, “but 2021 is not looking too promising. They’re trying to get it going in the late summer in the US, maybe September. And the Noosa Festival won’t have any internationals and it’s moved back to May, so I’ll have to keep stoking the fire in the belly until then.”
In the meantime, the multiple Australian champion is coaching, shaping, running a business and fronting the cameras each week for his Tom Offerman Noosa Surf Report. “I wear a few caps these days,” he says. “I coach the St Andrews College longboard team a few mornings a week, and my surfboard business, Creative Army, is a one-man band so I have to do a lot of the communicating with customers, correspondence and so on, which is time consuming. Plus, I shape all the boards and manage the team I have doing the glassing and the colour work. It’s pretty full on, particularly with the surfboard sales boom we’ve been having.”
Then there’s the surf report, which is more of a mini surf lifestyle show, which he films with Anthony Caligari each week for distribution on social media platforms, showing off Noosa’s abundant beach life. “There hasn’t been a lot of surf to report lately,” Josh says, “so we bring in other interesting stuff happening around Noosa, plus the odd great house for sale.”
Josh also confesses that as he gets older he’s doing more exercise on top of his daily surfing, swimming three times a week and running on the other days. And then there’s the fun stuff. Family, surf and golf, probably in that order.
Wife Anna is also a former world surfing champion as one half of the groundbreaking tandem duo Bobby and Anna back in the ‘90s, so it was inevitable that with two active boys, Jet, 15, and Jive, turning 12 next month, family surfing expeditions would take precedence. But Josh is happy to let the boys do it at their own pace.
Says Josh: “The boys are surfing really well and have great potential if they want to take it on. They’re not fully frothing on surfing, they love it but they don’t eat, sleep and breathe it like I did at that age. We let them choose their own path. Jive’s right into skateboarding so we’re at the skate park a lot after school. Jet’s a real thinker, he’s into making model planes, the whole flying thing. This summer break he’s going to start doing his pilot’s training. That’s his passion.”
Speaking of passion, golf is Josh’s second love, and he plays twice a week at Peregian Springs, where he is an ambassador for the club. And he has also been an ambassador for the Noosa World Surfing Reserve since its dedication.
