Who does #2 work for?

Well here it is. From start to finish. There are more photos but would probably get boring. Hand shaped start to finish with Stretchs help. He actually hardly touched the board. He helped me when I got into a bit of trouble early on but then spent less and less time with me as time went on. Finally finished it and rode the board this morning.

It actually worked really well. I would have been happy if it worked ok but it worked good. Lol, despite some inperfections. Got a couple fun little shoulder head high lefts this morn on it. I felt more confident on it than I have in a while on other boards and the thing was so fast down the line and turned in the pocket insane. I also really liked the release of the top. It felt really controlled.

Anyways heres some pics of the process.

July Board update

Well had the board for about a week now. Had a few surfs on it in small beach break. First session was about chest high at best super round and hollow little ones. Board felt really fast. The rocker and concave together on the skate model is insane. Planes well but also has a good amount of tail rocker to still turn tight in the pocket. Felt a little corky at times but hard to tell. The waves didn't allow for many turns. Mostly just a couple one hit wonders and a few little closeout tubes. Caught waves really easy, and paddled really well.

Second session was again around chest to shoulder high beach break but a little more ripable. Kinda soft take offs followed by some steeper sections you could hit. Got a few turns in that felt great, but that was all. hard to chase down the good ones, only surfed 3 times in the last two weeks feeling slow. Again paddled and caught waves really well, planed really well over flat spots, and was fast down the line. This time got to turn a bit. Super loose in the pocket...real snappy, with good release. Felt a touch front heavy and again maybe a touch slow rail to rail.

Take away upon first looking at the board and after a few surfs... Too much width. it's 19 3/8 wide at dead center but the skate already has a pretty wide template, although the tail width and shape feels magic. Gotta keep the tail similar but bring the middle and nose width in a bit. maybe by 1/8.

Also too much thickness forward and a little too full of a rail. Problem here is that if I make both changes for august board then i risk loosing a lot of volume at once as well as not really feeling the difference with just one change. Thinking I'm going to focus on removing thickness from the rail on the august board. tuning up the rails may give me the faster rail to rail and more sensitivity and response that im wanting in julys board. Still gonna ride it twice more before ordering augusts board.

Board number 1 July

OK this is board number one of the experiment. 6'0 x 19 3/8 x 2.5. Me..6'0 190lbs 34 years old surfing 19 years. I mostly like surfing beachbreak because I can catch a lot of waves in a short period of time. There are a few reefs I surf, but I'll only put up with the crowd and tight pack of a reef if its a left. Yes I'm goofy.

I've decided to go with the future wct Fin because It suits more of the type of waves I surf on a regular basis. I will only ride each board with those fins to eliminate varibles. This board has a wider over all template. I'm starting with Stretchs Skate model. Its a super low entry like all his boards with and extreme bend from the middle of the board out through the tail. He calls this s1b rocker. with the skate model though you order it 1/4" thicker than you want because he digs out the deep single concave and it gives him more room to work with the over all foil of the board.The single there by lowers the stringer line rocker substantially, but leaves the extreme tail bend out on the rail. Stretches templates and rockers are what draws me back to his boards time and time again. I skated before I surfed so I have a lot of front foot going on and these wide point dead center and extreme tail rockers fit the skateboard feel very well. This one has a modified pulled in tail template from his s2 model ending in a round pin, which has been my favorite tail over the years.

My goal for this board that I'm developing over the next year is a perfect daily driver. A board that will handle almost any condition california can throw at me on a day to day basis. My direction is to go with a board that is my height going off of kellys words..."No one should be riding a board longer than they are tall". But at the same time keeping enough characteristics of a High performance shortboard to be able to push it in the best quality waves I can get in Santa Cruz and all over california really. I decided to go with 19 3/8 bcause that width has been crucial for me when the waves loose some steam from time to time. I'm discovering that width is our friend and when it's put in the right places it can only help you. 2.5 has been my standard thickness since I can remember so stuck with that. However stretch left this one pretty full up front. Just looking at it I'm thinking that will probably be the first tweak but I have to keep an open mind.

My standard shortboard dims before the shorter wider kelly/dane revolution were 6'3 x 18 3/4' x 2.5. So going off of that you can see where I'm trying to go. Havent ridden her yet but shes getting sanded monday, and we have a south coming next week.

www.asurfboardstory.com

So I mentioned this idea of one surfboard a month to a few people and the response has been greater than I thought. My good friend and business partner Kyle Berube has committed to helping document this process visually with video. He and I are setting up a dedicated web site called asurfboardstory.com to create an avenue for people to follow along. I also mentioned this idea to stretch and he's very interested as well.

I feel the need to mention that this idea is totally based off of the idea that I am a very average ability surfer looking to improve my ability through the refinement of equipment. Basically an experiment to see if the average guy can really benefit from having the shaper attention that normally only a pro would get. There by developing a truly custom board that plays to my needs with the help of a world class shaper. I've always wondered if really good surfboards can actually increase the average surfers ability. Some people think no, but I think it definitly can. I've had boards that allow me to not think about the board and actually do things I never thought I could.

So please stay tuned those of you that are interested and we should have this thing, along with the first episode and board within the next couple weeks. Still working out a few kinks in the process. Let me know if you have any ideas or things you would like to see for this experiment.

Science vs. feel

I've been thinking a lot about this over the last year. There are some shapers who stick with scientific theories on hydrodynamics and some that stick with strictly feel and whatever little theories on surfboard building they have picked up on over the years. I've had great boards from both but I constantly wonder which of these two theories will produce better surfboards over time.

The science is proven, at least in how it applies to lift, planing etc..But the right feel can be different for any one person, but when it's on science used to make the board or not, it just makes you surf better. I am on a constant quest for a relationship with a shaper that can have the best of both worlds. Even if my shaper is a good surfer what are the chances he surfs with the same approach I do. It really depends on finding a shaper that listens to you. Thats hard. It also depends on you caring enough to learn about each board you ride and give good feedback to your shaper that is accurate and useful.

I've decided that with how many boards I buy a year Im wasting a lot of money and my surfing isnt getting much better. (Thats probably nothing to do with boards). I randomly select boards from various shapers that will give me a different feel to keep me motivated in my surfing and having fun. It's what keeps me syked on those crappy days, but it's not making me find my "homerun" board. I beleive that Im at least good enough to refine what I already know I like and little by little make it better suited for myself.

So my experiment begins. I'm choosing Stretch to be my shaper. I have a lot of shapers I love. Roberts, Merrick, Bill Johnson, etc. But Stretch listens to me...I may have to argue a bit but ultimitly he believes in me and I in him. He no longer surfs but his science and craftsmanship, plus close proxemity and quick turn around make him an easy choice for me. I'm going to order one board a month and surf nothing else but that board each month. Or at least Im going to try. This blog will be my accountability for this experiment.

I'm starting with a board that will be done next week. a 6'0 x 19 3/8 x 2.5 skate model. I will post pics and reviews of each board and what I'm learning. Im hoping that after a year of this my surfing will have improved...even if only a little and that I will end up with a custom daily driver that I trust in almost any condition SC can throw at me.

I will use the same set of fins on every board to ensure that that varible is gone. I believe my very favorite fin template is most conditions is the future am2.

Let the games begin pics of the new one coming next week.

PICS of the kneeboard from the kneeboard post

Check the shaped in knee dents on the deck. This thing looks pretty sick. If you havent read the first post on this blog go back and read it then view these pics.

Ride what your most comfortable on.

Here's a good story. Most of my friends have heard me tell it. Probably too much actually. So I'm in Samoa with my friend Tim. We had been surfing salani rights for the first two days of our stay there at salani. There was this whole mythical build up of the left that all the boatmen had built up during those first days. Basically it was all this talk of how heavy it is and so on and so forth. On the afternoon of the third day tim and I convince this little brittish dude who was our boatman to take us over to "the left".

OK they were right. It was heavy. Not really beacuse of size, although it was probably 10ft faces but more because of heavy offshores, very shallow reef and a west swell direction that was very unpredictable. I was on a 6'6" which looking back on I needed to get into the wave but didnt need once I was up. Tim was on a 5'11" I think. I got maybe 4 waves that session, all just heart throbbing drops and fast down the line get in get barrelled get out waves. Problem was I was so sketched that I didnt even want the barrel...just the get in get out. Tim got a few, and had the same expericence if I remember correctly.

The next morning we went back for more with the boatman who was a goofy foot and loved the left. It was smaller, but on the boat ride out we were asking him what the best board to ride would be. I think his name was John. John then gave his answer which is probably some of the best advice I've ever had in my entire surfing life. He said, "Ride what your most comfortable on.". Very simple but so true. We then pull up to the left and he pulls out this 6'5" single wing swallow tail. It had to have been a full 2 5/8 thick and maybe even 20" wide. Totally beat board. He told us how it was the only board he had left. He had broken them all. But he was very comfortable on it.

Now tim and I had not seen John surf yet so we were pretty weary that this dude could even get up. John waxes up and paddles out and litterally took us to school on what most good surfers would consider an over sized fish. He got so many deep barrels its was rediculous. He did a few turns that were good considering his board, but his tube riding was flawless.

My take away was that this dude backed what he said. There are a ton of really good surfers in the world that we will never hear anything about. John was just one, but they exisist. Full on expat guys that could compete at least on the qs level maybe ct and you'll never hear anything about them. sSo the next time your curious about what board to ride on a certain day...big or small, "Ride what your most comfortable on."

ps. this pic is salani left taken by the same photog that was there when we were. PSS. That first day I sured it I was paddling back out after one of my waves and a set came in that looked identical to teahpoo. No lie. I later read in an article that Sean Moody compared the place to chopes but actually said he thought it was heavier because it was less predictable.

Do what you want

My good friend hurt himself a week or so back and has been filming me and a few other friends surfing this last week. The waves have been super bad, wind swell mostly. Gutless waist high or smaller. I just happen to have one of the best surfboards I've had in months. It works in anything. Review coming on that one soon.

So I have been enjoying riding it even though the waves are sub par. The first vid session was so small it was virtually not even surfable, but I managed to get one wave that I was happy with, and semi happy with on video. I'm a fat boy and I'm not a pro so I've learned not to expect too much from video of myself. The second session was in beach break rights. My arch nemesis in surfing, lol. Again not happy but managed one decent wave, so I didn't feel too bad. Although I was less happy than the first video session. Then there was the third...

Hard side offshore winds slightly bigger but still wind swell. One of the things I noticed from the second video was that my stance looked too narrow, so I thought I would try a wider stance this time. It felt awkward the whole session but I figured it would at least look better. Got what felt like a few fun ones, then watched the vid as I was dropping my friend off. Ahh...TERRIBLE. I was embarrassed for myself. Humbling...No, just flat out bad. I looked like one of those people you see turning their bodies and their board moves less than an inch in the opposite direction. You know exactly the guy I'm talking about. So bad.

I have determined that as poor as I already am, I still looked better when I just did it my way. HA, whatever that is. Every person has a unique style and ability. Some good, and some really bad. Everyone always says, "As long as your having fun". Honestly Im not having fun if i suck. Sorry to be negative but thats me. I have dumped way too much time into surfing to suck this bad.

So where does this leave me. Im not sure yet. I'd like to say I quit but I'm way to addicted. It's not fun knowing I suck. Well for the time being I've decided that regardless of my many style flaws and sub par technique I'm going to stick to what I know I can kinda do well. Turn with power and speed. Even if it doesn't look great, I'm fat, old school and I like to do it. Theres something about taking my aggression out when doing that one turn. I can't do it in any other sport quite the same. It's an expression of some sort of who I am, and what I like. I will never be as good as some of my friends and not even close to a pro, so for now I'm going to stand narrow and look funny but enjoy the one thing I can kinda do.

There are a few guys who have made a good surfing career sticking to what they love about surfing despite having a "different" approach or technique. The reason they have made it is because they do what they want and what they love. There is something very freeing about that part of surfing.

SS Palo Alto "the cement ship"

I've have seen this ship and visited it for almost 25 years and I never knew whats it's purpose was, so I looked it up on wikipedia and heres what it says.

The Palo Alto was a concrete ship built as a tanker at the end of World War I. She was built by the San Francisco Shipbuilding Company at the U.S. Naval Shipyard in Oakland, California. She was launched on May 29, 1919, too late to see service in the war.[1] Her sister ship was the SS Peralta.
She was mothballed in Oakland until 1929, when she was bought by the Seacliff Amusement Corporation and towed to Seacliff State Beach in Aptos, California. A pier was built leading to the ship, and she was sunk a few feet in the water so her keel rested on the bottom. There she was refitted as an amusement ship, with amenities including a dance floor, a swimming pool and a café.
The company went bankrupt two years later and the ship cracked at the midsection. She was stripped of her fittings and left as a fishing pier. Eventually she deteriorated to the point where she was unsafe for even this use and was closed to the public. Today she remains at Seacliff Beach and serves as an artificial reef for marine life.
In spring of 2005, oil found on wildlife nearly two years earlier was traced back to the ship.[2] In September 2006, a clean-up project was started estimated at $1.7 million. No oil is known to have spilled into the ocean, but wildlife experts believe birds came into contact with oil by entering the ship's cracked hull while diving underwater for fish

What are your top 5 surfboards of all time?

All of my friends hear me say this all the time. It's pretty nerdy but fun to think about. When I really start drifting off and thinking about all those boards, it triggers memories of certain waves, sessions, days and so on and so forth. It will make you realize how blessed we are to have had many of the experiences we've had. It will also teach you a lot about what you actually like in a surfboard. For me all mine have very similar values, and I only just recently realized that. My bet is that if you can narrow down and remember specifics of your top five you could get on track to learning exactly what you like in a board and start surfing at least a little better than going with the latest marketing trend or what Kelly is riding (even though sometimes it's insane and I'm probably more guilty of that than anybody). OK so here's my list in order. Please feel free to share yours.
1. 6'4"x 19" x 2.5" Froggystyle single wing swallow tail orange rails yellow top and bottom. OH boy, some good memories here for me. This was the board I had when I was 19 and first moved to Santa Cruz. I wanted a local board from someone I could trust and my friend Trevor had given me a list of guys to call. I literally went down that list and called everyone, and no one answered but I left messages for everybody. Frogger was the first to call me back and we've been good friends ever since. That board was so perfect for me at the time. I remember trying to do airs at hook lefts and 26h Ave. I remember a great session at jalama on it and I remember when it finally broke at MBA. I probably had that board longer than any other board I'd ever owned and it was the only board I had at the time. I didnt know what a quiver was.

2. 6'0"x 18 3/4"x 2.35" Original Stretch fletcher four fin bat tail EPS. First epoxy board ever for me. This thing was way to small for me, in fact I think it was meant to be Skindogs board, another long story. But this thing loosened me up like there was no tomorrow. I remember feeling like I was going faster than ever and doing more turns on any given wave than I ever had up to that point. My friends were all saying that it looked good which is always an ego boost, lol. But most of all I had so much fun on it. It was when I had just quit Apple and I had a month off before I started adobe in 04 i think?

3. 6'3" x 18 3/4"x 2.5" Channel Islands M4 roundtail. This board actually was suppossed to be a 6'4" I think because the nose looked like it had been chopped off and rounded. Super ugly but man that thing was good. It was actually the board I had right after the fletcher 4 mentioned above. It surfed very similar but was a round tail thruster and was better dims for me. I remember my first session on it was at Carmel and it was so loose and fast down the line and the wide roundtail and single concave gave me so much control and really was the first board that I felt like I could do what I envisioned doing on a wave.

4. 6'2"x 18 5/8"x 2.5" Pearson Arrow squash tail thruster copied from another froggystyle of the same dims. Actually I would like to lump these two boards into one. They were really close to being the same. I rode the froggystyle for over a year and eventually broke. But before it did I took it to Bob and he went over the whole thing and copied it exactly...except Bob put a flat bottom on it. No concave. I remeber him telling me that he thought conve was over rated and that everyone was just copying Merrick. I actually dropped a ladder on that board before I even rode it, lol. I had to have it reparied and I didnt even ride until like 3 months after it was shaped. But my first session was at bora on it and it was so good. It's the board I had and was riding when I first met my wife. I had spray painted a black fade on the botttom with a cross stenciled between the fins. I still was skating a bit at the time and was very influenced by Jamie Thomas and his skateboard art. It eventually broke surfing sand dollar on a good day, probably in 03.

5. 6'2"x 18 5/8"x 2.35" POIDOG roundtail thruster. POI made me 3 boards before a trip to Samoa. This was one of them that I didnt bring because it felt to small for me as I was packing before my trip. Big mistake. I came home, waxed that thing up and surfed oceanside on a medium sized day and that thing went nuts! I couldnt believe that board that small was working for me as well as it was especially in those conditions. I got my best waves in 4 years living in SD by far riding that thing. Went to mex a few times with it, got some mental barrels over the summer of 07 at oceanside, and had a really fun session on it at jalama and got all kinds a tubes. The thing I remember most about that board was that it worked good in anything, small or large. I ended up getting a dozen or soo of those before POI split for tahiti.

Stretch S2 6'1"x19.25"x2.5" Poly blank Epoxy Glass

Drivey, loose, front footed and back footed. This is my favorite of all stretchs boards. It's one of stretchs older models now. This would be the 6th s2 I've ridden. The difference....This one is a Poly blank with epoxy glassing. This is actually the first poly stretch I've ridden, and it just felt like an old shoe. I started riding his boards after clark shut their doors and stretch had moved over to all eps blanks. Hard to believe that was actually almost 8 years ago. This design is a good ol' fashioned High performance thruster. It litterally does everything well. Stays loose in the pocket while maintaining drive through the flats and down the line. The very first stretch I rode was his original bat tail quad, which was actually one of my top ten boards of all time. I believe it had a very similar rocker to this (at least it feels the same). It paddles incredibly well, you can feel it catch waves super easy. Pretty low entry in just the right place...under the chest. It has a really balanced outline with the wide point in dead center and a little wider nose and tail, which at the time of it's design was a lot wider. Now a days all standard shortboards seem to be wider in the nose and tail due to everyone going shorter in length. When Stretch came up with this design an 11-12 inch nose width was considered fishy. The rocker on this thing is nothing short of amazing to me. how he came up with a curve that can litterally do anything well baffles me. If it's mushy...it's fast, if it's hollow it's loose and turns on a dime in the pocket. It's low enough that it paddles and grovels well, but it has enough curve that you can surf it in pockety bowely waves. Todays Session was on the pockety hollow side, very unorganized cross up of windswell 6.6 ft at 10 sec and sw swell 2ft 14 sec at an undisclosed beach break north of town. Surf was really unpredictable but the board handled it really well. Got into waves super easy and early, really drivey off the bottom and loose through the top turns. The only thing negative to this board is that it doesnt handle the later drops quite as well. That low entry can poke if your not used to it, but once you adjust it's not too bad at all. I'd say its worth the trade off for the paddling you get. Over all, I love this one. I'd highly reccomend it to anyone looking for one board that does it all in almost any conditions. I rode one very similar to this at a cobblestone reef once with nearly 12 ft faces and did a few of my best turns I feel I've ever done...at least for this fat guy.

OK Already off surfboard topic

Have you ever seen anyone walk into a public restroom, wash thier hands with soap and water dry them off...then take a leak? I just witnessed this. the worst part is that the dude didnt wash his hands when he was done????

Kneeboard design

Often times during the week I stop into the stretch boards factory. It's so convienent having them in town and less than 5 min from my house. Stretch is a characer like no one else I've ever met. There are a number of things I love about his personality, but mainly that he is a very real person who says it like it is. When you put that together with talking surfboard design you come away learning things that you always thought you knew about but really had no idea. This morning a guy from Monterey came in right at the same time as me. I always come in, so I figured let this guy talk to stretch first as I can always come back tomorrow. I'm terrible with names and I can't remeber his name but he had to be barely 5'4" tall. A very fit older guy who stank of weed and was wearing beat old boardies and some pretty sick new nike running shoes(pretty odd combo). He later said he was 58. I'd have guessed him maybe late 40's. He then brought in from his car an old beat up Coletta board with an all blue bottom. It looked like a long board for him, but was actually only a bit taller than him. I think stretch measured it at 5'5" and a half. He cruised into stretchs bay and threw it on the rack as I have done many times with stretch. I let them talk for a while... I cruised into the bay to see what they we're talking about. I didnt want to be to nosey but I love meeting different surfers and hearing their perspectives on what they like in their boards. Not to metion hearing what stretches responses are to what they think they've liked for so many years. The guy walks back out to his truck and comes back in with three pictures. Two are of a secret spot in Big Sur and one of another in monterey. The first two are pics of solid ledging rights, maybe 15 ft faces and crystal clear water with a tiny spec of a knee boarder dropping in. The third is a empty wave shot of a perfect left that looked about 12ft, but hard to tell. The guy was a knee boarder. After listening for a while the guy says to stretch that he really likes a parralel template in the tail area and asked stretch if he was oppossed to that. I laughed out loud because that is something stretch and nathan fletcher have been really tinkering with and liking lately. Then stretch proceeds to ask this guy if he rides the board as a thruster. The guy says yeah because he surfs bigger waves and could never get a twin under control. Oh boy here we go I thought. For those of you who dont know stretch is known for being one of a few "QUAD" guys. Stretch then goes into a discussion of how if the tail is wider than the rear fin of a tri is high on either side at the position of the rear fin, that the fin will break free and you'll essentially be riding a twin. I've had this discussion before with stretch and it's actually something that many shapers do on their boards...makes me wonder about the knowledge of other shapers. So then Stretch mentions the quad design. Homie was weary, which I can totally understand. Thrusters are so solid feeling, and the control you get is amazing when compared to other designs. But knowing stretch and having had this conversation many times with him I knew he would push towards a quad with a wider tail template. I couldn't help myself from talking and I asked stretch ,"what about adding more tail rocker?" to remedy the loss of control without the middle fin. And this is where my lesson began this morning. My thought was that adding more tail rocker would help the quad design by adding more control. The more rocker a board has(especially int he tail) the easier and more control you have over the board because there is less board in the water at any given time. Stretch then ripped me a new one..."NO, NO, NO", he said. "Its a knee board Tim." He then proceeded to explaing to me that you cant pump on a knee board for speed. all of your weight is centered in the rear of the board and you can't move the board as easy as you can standing up to re position yourself on the wave for speed. Therefore you need a flat tail rocker that helps you plane being that your body is stuck in one riding position, usually near the tail of your board. This single conversation is what sold this guy on stretch. He immediatly knew stretch understood what he was looking for. He said, "Yeah! you know! thats exactly right!". I felt about one inch tall but was still stoked because I learned something new about riding waves. I hung out for a while longer while stretch convinced this guy that he should be riding a board about 2-3 inches shorter and drawing new nose templates on his old board with a sharpie, trying to prove to this guy that the nose area on his board was needless. Homie's head was spinning. Super entertaining. OK, take away was this. Super experienced water man almost in his 60's still learning and adapting to modern wavecraft theories, and Stretch knows wave riding of every kind... pretty rare and really cool. I love being in the ocean and riding waves whatever way you must. My passion is obviously high performance shortboards in good waves but it's so cool to see someone get all jacked up and describing the waves they surf and what they like to do. It's the reason we're all living a ocean lifestyle. It's just flat out fun to ride waves and get new feelings on new waves year after year after year.