Making surfboards is a specialized trade. You may be able to get schooling on composites but actually knowing the what and how of surfboard design is pretty much a learn by experience endeavor.

Most people that ride surfboards don’t think or maybe even don’t care about what makes the board they ride work the way it does. And that’s fine, but there are nuts like myself that spend hours processing through ideas about design and trying to work through problems experienced in the last surf session and how the board you were riding might be improved, or, at least how your surfing may be improved by working through a certain board design.

I see the surfboard as mainly a foil. The over all dynamic of the surfboard foil will determine how the board will ride. How much or little curve the foil has on the bottom as well as the top (deck), where and how the thickness is distributed through its length, how the deck and bottom contours are shaped from rail to rail. The curve of the outline. All play together to make the surfboard of your choosing react to wave and rider.

Riding certain board designs will determine how you surf. If you try to surf a board against the way it’s meant to be ridden over all performance will be poor, for both board and rider.

An easy example of this can be best understood by the difference between short board and long board surfing. Short boards must be ridden with a low center of gravity, knees always bent, any body extensions are short and returned to that low center. If you stand straight up on a short board, unless you are moving fast along the wave, the board will sink. A long board on the other hand you will ride almost at a full stand up. Sure you’ll bend the knees but because of the foam volume if you stand straight up the board will continue to glide down the face of the wave.

Those examples may be extreme but, you can take just about any surfboard design and if you want to get its maximum performance you need to know why it will ride a certain way and not go against it.

Single fins ride different than tri fins. Tri fins ride different than twin fins. Do you want to ride a certain board design? Learn how it works, usually by riding it, and have some fun with it. Think through your moves and try to understand what’s going on. Do you have to ride one certain kind of board? No. Is one design better than the others? Not really, it just depends on what it’s for, so ride it in conditions and style it’s built for.

You can experiment, learn, and grow your surfing.

D.R.

My Story post 10

One of my main spots or surf hangouts during my high school days was Hobson Park. Though a little smaller now because of erosion, at least it’s still there. It was there or Stanley’s, just a ¼ mile up from Hobson’s. Stanley’s is long gone.

Hobson’s is a small camp site right on the beach along Pacific Coast Highway about a 10 minute drive up the Rincon from Ventura. And, it happens to be located right at a coble stone reef. At minus tides the reef is dry, a good place for clam digs.

One of the first times I got to go to Hobson’s was with a friend and his family on a camping trip. Drove up there on a Saturday morning got situated in the camp ground did a little clam digging in the afternoon low tide and the guys mom made fresh clam chowder for dinner. Nothin’ like good clam chowder.

On Sunday morning my friend and I got up early to surf. I remember being a little spooked. Not being real familiar with the place, up early, cold weather, over cast and a bit dark. The surf was a much defined peak and the paddle out was a bit more than we expected. Not hard because of the need to push water but longer than imagined from the beach. This also meant that when we reached the line up the sets were much bigger than they looked like from the beach.

There were two other people in the lineup when we got out. Not that good of a surfer yet, I remember sitting there watching the surf go by. Paddling around so as not to get picked off, and too spooked to stroke myself into one of those, what seemed to be, large peeks. What if I didn’t make the drop and fell or couldn’t get a turn off the bottom and wiped out? The beach looked like a long way off, the water cold and dark. A swim for a lost board seemed more of a panic than the surf itself. So I just sat there.

You know… I think that’s why when the surf has a bit of size these days there are plenty kooks in the lineup. No need worry about wipe outs because they’re leashed up to their boards. Anyway, I eventually came in, probably did a shoulder hop or two but that was about it.

Well, I went back to Hobson’s plenty as my high school years progressed. Made up for that first time experience, and then some I’d guess. I’m sure the place has it’s moments but, I don’t remember the surf being that epic there, even if I went there alot. Now Stanley’s…. that’s the spot that could get epic!

I don't know who took this picture of Stanley's Dinner. But, this site was made into a freeway off ramp. For those that don't know… if you were sitting in that old panel truck and the hood was down, you’d be looking at the Stanley’s line up. Get out of the truck, suit up and grab your board, walk about 100 feet and you’d be at the waters edge. One of the favorite spots of my youth.

D.R.

My Story post 9

Before my friends and I were able to drive I was lucky to have a couple friends that could get their mom’s to drive them and their buddies to the beach on the weekends, sometimes I got to tag along.

One of the guys mom’s would take us to Will Rogers State Beach above Santa Monica along the jetties. Close to where the filming of Bay Watch was done, but like 30 years earlier of course. Anyway, she’d drop us off in the morning and then come back and get us in the afternoon.

So we’d hang at the beach all day, usually three or four of us. Thing was we could only take 2 surfboards. So a couple guys would surf while the others stayed on the beach. Then one of the guys surfing would come in and the guy on the beach got his turn to surf.

Having no wet suit and just getting out of the water, you’d get cold. We had a great remedy though. Not only did we bring surfboards but we brought skim boards too. Believe me, running around chasing a skim board can warm you up pretty good. It was a perfect combination. Go surf, get cold, go skim board, get warm. By the end of the day we were beat.

One of my other friends mom would take us just about anywhere we wanted to go. She was so cool. I remember one late winter day on the way to surf along Malibu. We were probably thinking of going to County Line. But when we got to the top of Malibu Canyon and looked down you could see lines coming in around the point at Malibu.

An odd south swell had showed up in late winter. The point was about head high, and long before there were surf reports or web cams. So guess what? there were very few people that knew. We got Malibu without a crowd! Miracles do happen.

I had another friend whose dad was a salesman and would have to do a fair amount of traveling up and down the coast in Southern California. Because his dad would be driving around during the week summer days he’d get the ole man to drop him and a buddy or two at the closest beach where his dad had to do some sales calls.

The first time I surfed ‘C’ Street was on a summer day when we were dropped off there. Little did I know, at 15 years old, on that nice sunny summer day that I’d grow up and settle down 5 blocks from ‘C’ Street. Once we got to stay at Doheny Beach for a couple days. That was before the break water. Man that place was fun.

The nice thing about good memories. Think back, close your eyes, and live it all again for a moment or two.

D.R.