The plans, which date back to December 12, 1919, are the key to how the surf ski design originated in 1912 in the workshop of a 15-year-old Port Macquarie boy, who wanted to create a watercraft which would "shoot the breakers" on the Hastings River.

Port Macquarie has laid claim to a multitude of historical milestones since the town's discovery in 1818, however, it was Harry McLaren who came up with the original design for the surf ski.

Yet long-term Manly residents are convinced it was "their" Dr Crakanthorp who first designed the wooden craft, after it was introduced to Sydney beaches in 1933.

In fact, the two coastal communities have been debating the issue of who invented the Aussie beach icon for much of the past century.

However, the notion that deletes Harry McLaren from the surf ski picture, has left a foul taste in the mouths of Port Macquarie locals who remain adamant that Harry's measurements were taken by Dr Crakanthorp and used to manufacture the watercraft on a commercial basis.

Harry's eldest daughter Norma, 77, of Port Macquarie, was surprised when she read an article in a recent Sydney newspaper reporting that the Sydneysiders still consider the surf ski to be a Manly creation.

Albert Reurich has no doubts - no doubts, they are wrong.

The former vice-president of the Mid-North Coast Maritime Museum also believes the matter was cleared up 20 years ago and the man responsible for the surf ski was undoubtedly Harry McLaren.

Even local MP, Robert Oakeshott, said he was proud of Port Macquarie's historic rights and that the Mid-North Coast Maritime Museum could document the use of the surf ski to 1919, while the earliest record in Manly was some years later.

Attempting to clear up the matter, Norma said her father Harry, who died eight years ago, even travelled to Sydney in the 1980s for an interview with the then sports editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, Reg Grogan, about his invention.

"Harry McLaren should be recognised as the inventor of the first surf ski... the evidence is all there, the original plans," Norma explained.

"He just really wanted the surf ski to be acknowledged as his true invention. He didn't want the glory, but he just wanted for it to be accepted as his."

To set the story straight, Norma has produced written evidence of an interview, completed by the maritime museum a matter of years before Harry died, in an effort to convince the people of Manly once and for all that it was her father who invented the surf ski.

And so the story goes ...

As a young man, Harry loved carpentry and used to work alongside his uncle by the family's oyster farm at Port Macquarie.

"I was only a lad at the time, about 14, and of course coming from an oyster farming family and living close to the water, we lads loved the water," Harry recalled.

"We'd love to shoot the breakers in any boat or oyster punt we could get. My uncle gave me a duck canoe that was sharp at both ends, about 10-foot long, two-foot wide.

"One day there was a fair sea running, and the waves were coming in fairly big across the spit, and I decided to shoot the waves in the duck canoe.

"Naturally, I got on the wave alright, put its head into the water and over I went. I got a brainwave then, that if I built something that was the style of a porpoise, with a round and tapered off stern and spring in the front, it would shoot the waves fairly good.

"That was when I was a kid, about 15. Later that year, in 1912, I made one out of New Zealand Kauri and nailed it all together. My elder brother Nicol came home in his holidays from studying to be a doctor in Sydney, so I built him one.

"At the beginning of 1919 I built two more. Then, on December 12, I drew up plans with the idea of taking out a patent. But I learnt that you couldn't patent anything like that. Money wasn't too plentiful, but I never took any interest in that."

Harry talked to the museum's recorder about the next few years when he married and built his own home, putting skiing on the backburner until about 1928.

"The town clerk Harry Crakanthorp, who was keen on surfing, had one of the kayak canoes which were no good for the surf, so he came to me to make him one.

"I made three, one for him and two for myself. I got the bug again and in 1931, I made another one of the different type, the same as the sailboard you see today with a rounder stern instead of a sharp stern.

"In 1932, Harry Crakanthorp's brother, Dr Crakanthorp, came up to holiday with him and during the week he rode the surf ski, but he was a very big man and as soon as he would get on, it would tip him over.

"Eventually he mastered it, so I let him have one of my skis to use. In the following year, he came back and I let him have a ski again.

"During the winter of 1933 I noticed an article in a paper that there was to be a new surf boat to be introduced to the beaches in the spring that same year.

"Then he got the credit of inventing the surf ski. I've got several books and articles that he gets all the credit for it. But he didn't make them. He had a friend called Jack Toyer who was a boat builder. He built the boats."

But what about Harry? Was he at all bitter about this?

"I don't feel bitter, I feel disappointed," Harry concluded the interview. "It's nice to know that you've created something that has given pleasure to probably thousands of people all over the world today."

So, there it is. If there are any Manly locals out there who care to dispute this story, Harry's granddaughter Margaret is quite happy to take them up on their offer to discuss it over a few beers.