I was surfing Swami’s with my friend Riiko last week. As we walked down the steps to the beach we passed a city worker who was power washing the stairs. He stopped spraying to let us pass and I thanked him for letting us get by. But Riiko, as she walked by, said to him “Thank you for your hard work.”. I must say it was an example of a mind set that we have lost touch with in our culture. Namely, the appreciation of labor and a necessary job, performed well. To me it was a thing of beauty and a lesson I will not soon forget. Thank you Riiko and thank you to all the people who work hard to keep our public places working for us.
It’s all been done
A lot of energy has been expended on “new” designs and “retro” re-inventions lately. I’ve just finished watching a video, kindly put together for me by my sander (you know who you are, and thanks!) and I have to say, there is not a lot that hasn’t been explored. I watched square tail twins in Florida in the 70’s, hulls in the 70’s (not to mention the “foil” from the 60’s that John Bishop showed me that is suspiciously similar to the later Liddles). All I’m saying is that time is not as linear as we might believe. Ideas come and go, and come again. It’s all good fun and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. This is supposed to be fun after all. Thanks
Let me hear from you!
Thanks to all of you for visiting my site. Please feel free to leave comments. I’d love to hear any feedback, positive or negative
cali fun gun
A very fun winter board I made several years ago and had as a personal board for a long time. I let Jacek talk me out of it in a moment of weakness and have missed it ever since. Of course being the true friend that he is, he still lets me borrow it occasionally.
San O
A great day at San Onofre. The new board is a 7’11” hillbilly hybrid w/ Fins 101 bamboo glass on (currently at the Pod Room).
It’s a boy!
Another hillbilly hull. This one is 7’6″ and here are photos of the delivery.
Channin’s
shaped another board today. It’s quite an honor to be associated with Channin’s up here on the hill in Encinitas. The list of people who have inhabited this shaping room is a bit daunting. Of course Mike Diffenderfer, Renny Yater, Pat Curren?, Rich Pavel and others I can’t remember or don’t know about. I fell very fortunate to have the opportunity to have glassing of this quality available to me. Thanks to Randy and Kevin.
ruminations
I’m laying in the bus, my face is serving as a space heater, what with all the heat radiating from my sunburn. I surfed two sessions this morning. Sunny, almost glassy, and the tail end of a nice south pulse. Life is good.
Hadji
One of my personal heroes, Hadji, turns 91 this summer. He’s a Tourmaline local and I asked him if I could shoot some photos of him getting ready for our session on the day before he turned 89. We had a great session that day and I seem to recall him surfing on his 90th as well. I hope to get the chance to enjoy a few sessions with him this summer as well. It’s an honor to count him among my friends.
my personal 7’11” hillbilly hull
One of the earlier hillbilly hulls, shaped in 2004. I had shaped three boards from a 70s Frye egg that all surfed well but had too much tail width for anything approaching overhead. So I pulled in the tail and gave it more of a thinman nose and contoured the bottom with what is now my standard hillbilly hull bottom; belly-concave-double concave. There’s a lot of edge at the tail for release and a very flat rocker, especially down the center. This is easily the fasted board I’ve ever had and works from knee high Tourmaline to double overhead Cliffs.
mast surfboards 