Here is where we delve into the whole nature of surfboard building, design and application. We explore various designs, designers, builders, failures and fixtures. I will feature other designers such as Scott Wagner, lance Ebert, Ted Heople, Dick Brewer, Allen Tranbarger and more.
Terry Martin is THE man, but he needs our help.
If you don’t know who Terry Martin is, you may want to take a second and learn about a man who has had a huge affect on your surfing life. He is hands-down one of the world’s finest, most prolific and humble shapers.
the board rests on a floor. So shut your yap-hole.
Old Fancy Fins
All new for summer 2011
The Ted Heople WTF Model.
Shown here 5’10″ and sporty.
I went up to Kahili to Kevin Kuzma’s shaping shed and got all Morning of the Earth out there in the mountains. Scott Wagner was templating a low tolerance epoxy blank, while I sanded out two of my boards. I had to replace my snapped 6’8″ Slaytanic and I also wanted to finish the 4’8″ Poop Shooter. The Poop Shooter began as a practice blank taken from a reclaimed 10′ gun. So no functional rocker to work with, and no width to make a flat fishy board. So I just jerked around with the planer and this is what came out. I hope to ride it at $&#*€‡° to really see how it goes.
The fresh Slaytanic outside the shaping shack
Scott Wagner fine tunes his EPS blank's template
Shaping Dust
Scott Wagner true-ing up the blank with 60 grit
Some templates look a little tighter than others.
The 6'8" Slaytanic & the 4'8" Poop Shooter looking quite different
Right where the glasser managed to put a laminate upside-down, and install the glass-on bonzers in the wrong place, a hole where one of the fins was smashed out. Sweet.
Not that long ago I wrote about how much difficulty I had shaping and glassing my bonzer: Shaping in Kauai and the Birth of the Hydro-Matic® . Since that was written, I had let other people ride it. On a few more occasions I gave it a go to see if I could really get a feel for it. In the end the board seemed to be cursed. So much energy, time and money went into it. It was to say the least a heart breaker.
It only really functions in a certain size and type of wave, namely 3-5′ Hawaiian scale, hollow and down-the-line. Not a great beachbreak board. Not for hot-dogging. It goes very straight and fast and stable in the tube. That is pretty much it. Kind of a superfluous board to say the least.
I found myself surfing that very type of wave recently. Maybe a touch bigger, but my step-up was recently broken, so this was the best call. After battling the current running off the point for two hours and only catching one good wave, I was over it. I was alone and there was great waves coming through, but the energy required to get to and stay on the peak was crushing me. I decided I would give it my best effort to get onto the corner of the reef and go on the next set wave. Period.
When a set appeared I put my head down and sprinted into position knowing I was going regardless. There was a terrible rip coming off the end of the reef causing quite a bit of chop right at the peak, plus it was chucking out pretty hard. I spun around, gave it some paddles and pushed into the wave. It was a sweet one, lined up all the way across and nice and steep. I lost sight of what was happening for a nanosecond when the offshore spray hit my eyes. I stayed low grabbing pig-dog and began driving down the face.
All felt right in the world. After two hours getting bupkis, I finally was pulling into a solid one. I was even feeling I was far enough back to get shacked right at the takeoff. Then I hit a big chunk coming up the face. It knocked the board out from under me. The leash came off like I forgot to attach it. My front arm, which was behind me in a traditional pig-dog, got wrenched back hyper-extending my elbow and I went down hard. I went back overt the falls and came up in the impact zone right next to the corner where I took off and took three more on the head, each one causes lightning bolts of pain in my elbow.
Seems so apropriate that the logo get smashed. By a tank though?
When I surfaced I noticed I was moving in the current down the beach and out to sea like I had been on my board. Now I had to swim in against the current with one arm. I got three-quarters of the way in and began getting sucked out again. Eventually someone else paddled out and on his way past he mentioned that my board probably went down the beach in the current. I was thinking the same thing. I would get in and then have to locate my board and swim out to it and paddle it back in. Not cool.
When I stood up on the beach a guy up on beach by the reef was holding my board. Weird. It seems to have gone against the current. Maybe it just rode the white water straight in? As I approached the guy said, “Sorry. I didn’t see it until too late.” The board looked like someone attacked it with an axe.
The board that cost so much money to glass, took so much time in research and emotional energy was mangled. It seems it found the one solid obstacle in the entire 10 mile long beach, a tank tread that sticks out of the water at low tide. The leash wrapped around it and the board volleyed onto the tank over and over.
You can’t make this shit up.
Here are some images from a web site Larry and I were working on. They were to be full screen with hidden navigation. We spent a lot of time on this and an employee ended up ruining the whole thing. Here’s to hoping the project comes back to life!
I know nothing except the fact of my ignorance. -Socrates
What does board design really do for you? Can a new or drastic refinement of a board make you surf better? Or does it just make it easier for you to express yourself in the way you would like to? Can you go from Clown to Curren on this new ripper-stick? Or is it like cocaine, it just makes your persona more vibrant?
After spending enough time orienting myself with surfboard-based hydronamic fundamentals, I proceeded to design the Big Time Operator. Wide, flat, and short compared to a standard issue thruster, BUT, it’s tail is pulled in through double wings and the rails are more common to a thruster than a fish. It has four fins in which placement is super critical since there is no fat rail to push back or center fin to drive from. The center point pulled way forward with a wide flat nose. An all purpose surfboard to make average waves easier to ride.
What does that mean, easier to ride? My personal answer was a board that was loose to compensate for my chicken legs’ lack of power. The board should not be to wide-assed so that it can’t be ridden in the pocket or vertically. I wanted to still be able to hit the lip like a normal thruster. I wanted it to plane well unlike a modern thruster which requires effort to propel in smaller waves. I wanted to catch waves easily. What I wanted was a board with the speed and planing of a fish, but with the positive drive of a thruster.
What never crossed my mind is that I designed this board for me. I wasn’t thinking about how anyone else’s skills would affect how this board performed. Such as, if you are a full-fledged ripper would this board be an unnecessary element in your day-to-day quiver? If you are a kook, would the footwork required to function this board make you worse?
So here I am a year after launching this on the world and my friends in specific. The feedback is mixed. And there is no rhyme or reason to it. A couple rippers love it. A couple less skilled people love it. And vice versa. I personally can’t believe I made the board. It goes fucking great in softer slower waves. But I didn’t like how it went in real surf. Which began a whole new thought process. Does it suck in good waves? What the hell am I thinking? Who died and made me design legend? And what constitutes working well? Am I ripping as compared to the latest video offering? Am I able to perform the three maneuvers that I always perform?
What I am realizing about surfboard design is that all boards work. All of them. It is what is inside your head that determines how you perceive a board’s value. Too many years of videos and magazines have created a homogenized vision of good surfing. And those who know me understand that I do not buy into the hippy, retro, plywood, bearded, soul-arch-every-wave game plan. I actually hate hippies, or at least the ones under 60 years old or the ones over 60 who became real estate moguls. But I know see the value of every board. It may not be what eases display of your repertoire in perfect surf, but it rides exactly perfect. You just need to see how it goes and ride it for what it is worth.
It started in the 80′s. I guess Blair knew the Campbell Brothers and Sunshine House Surf Shop ended up with a demo 6’4″ Bonzer. Since I lived with Chauncey who managed the Sunshine House, the board was in my or Minesinger’s possession almost a whole summer. It worked great although a tad too big for me. 5 fins was so cool and different. It felt really drivey and I rode some fun waves on it.
In January of 2008. I was given a mangled blank that the shaping machine had grazed and left worthless for the project it was intended for. I did my research and asked a lot of questions. I took pictures of Hamilton bonzers, studied the Campbell Brothers info. I found glass on fins from a vendor that Chauncey himself recommended. I came up with a name for the board after reading a book on vintage automobile brightwork – the Hydro-Matic.
The real treat was I shaped the board from scratch myself. I hand drew the template using a huge piece of cardboard to flip and duplicate. I put the rocker in it since the blank was big for my intended purpose. After 6 months of research and work-a-little-at-a-time, I had a blank I was happy with. It sat in the shed until I got another board order. That took months. I finally had enough to make the trip to the glasser worthwhile. I had a airbrush worked out too. It looked sweet on paper.
After a couple months at the glasser the owner of the other board called and needed his board asap. I prodded the glasser to finish up and gave him a pick up date that was last minute. I was going on a trip and I needed the board to ship before I left. The day I left I finally got the other board, but the bonzer was still not close. It had now been at the glasser 3 months.
When I got back from my trip I called the glasser and prodded again. He finally relented and said the board would be ready in a couple days. So I made the drive out there to have a look. The airbrush was great, but that was it. He had glossed but not polished the deck only. One laminate was upside down and the fins where in the completely the wrong spot. I was so angry all I could do was take the board and walk out.
Last night the first north swell arrived and I was going to be on the north shore for business. I was so psyched I could barely contain myself. The day dawned flat and after 12 hours of meeting I finally saw the ocean with 45 minutes of daylight left. It wa head high, onshore and packed. I paddled out and caught some shitty, soft, slow wind choppy feeling waves and couldn’t even begin to feel the board. Everyone got out and I snagged a decent one and worked it through the inside. It felt positive and drivey and I ended the ride with a reo. Or should I say that I ended the ride on dry reef? I mashed a toe and dinged the board a few places.
After a year and a half, I think I deserve a set wave on that fucking bonzer. But no…