Winter for the surfer means winter storms that generate sizable surf. And of course some unpleasant weather.

This past week here in Ventura we had rain for 5 out of the last 7 days. And it looks like the rain will continue through this coming week for 3 or 4 days. Along with the rain the temperatures have been below 60 here at the beach most everyday. The Rivers fill and empty their brown colored, debris fill waters into the ocean. The town of Ventura has two rivers. The Ventura river on it’s north west side and the Santa Clara river not more that 2 miles south from the Ventura river just below the Ventura Marina. So the waters around Ventura during winter storms get pretty ugly. And not healthy to enter for surfing.

My shop is not heated and temps below 60 degrees are not good to laminate surfboards in…. makes for a rather unproductive week. Resin takes it’s time curing. But we make due.

Though temps along the beach are not too cold, inland not even 15 miles the temperatures drop to freezing and below. With the rain comes snow and the mountains around Ventura get a pretty white covering this time of year. Saturday we had a dry day so my wife and I went for a drive inland and took in the views.

If you surf the upper side of the Fair Grounds during the winter you sometimes will see snow covering the mountains behind Ojai. Visible looking up the Ventura river valley.

I stood right at the Ventura rivers edge and took this picture looking at the surf.

Doing a 180 degree turn I took a picture of the mountains.

This would be the same view if you were in the lineup. I’ll tell you what… the morning wind that comes down the river valley from those snow covered mountains is cold. Maybe not as cold as what some of you get up north or on the east coast but for this So Cal guy it’s cold!

D.R.

My Story post 25

The 7’6 vee bottom worked for me through the spring and summer of 1968. If I remember correctly at MP we were making boards in the sevens for most of the ’68 season. So what I was riding was pretty much standard fair, as far as size was concerned.

Then later in the year a couple of the guys I worked with started riding boards right around seven foot and doing well with them. These shorter boards were foiled different than the vee bottoms we’d all been riding. The vee bottoms had a rail line and profile similar to the long boards we used to ride. These newer shorter boards were different. The decks had an ‘S’ curve to them and the bottoms transitioned from rounded belly under the nose to flat in the tail. And, the rail line was up in the nose and down in the tail. They rode different too.

The vee bottom boards started to show a weakness in hard driving bottom turns and because of their length you still would move forward and back for trimming in the wave. The desire was to not move on the board but be able to stand in pretty much one place on the board and work the wave from the one spot.

Riding closer to the critical part of the wave and staying right there in the pocket was the ultimate in surfing. Climbing and dropping, racing under, along and with the curl of the wave was in our sites, getting there was the quest. These new boards were going to get us there. The foiled design, rails and rocker curves were going to make it happen. My coworkers and friends, Mike and Richie, made a couple of these new boards for them selves with direction from George Greenough. I followed in the fall of ’68 and made one for myself. It was 7’2

D.R.

Another foam count down.

Most everyone knows by now that Walker Foam closed their operation down the week before Christmas. So all the guys that have been using Walker will be counting down their inventory of Walker Blanks until they are all gone. It happened with Clark and now with Walker.

For me…. I’ve only got about a half dozen Walkers in stock. Funny, I still have about 3 Clark blanks. Not that the Clarks are anything special… just the few I have were for styles of boards I really do very little of so there they sit. The Walkers on the other hand will get used up quickly. I liked Walker foam very much but they weren’t my only supplier so I like everyone else will just move on.

Not all surfboard foam is alike. Densities vary, blank selections vary, deliveries or will call only suppliers. Glue ups, stringers, rocker curves all play into what board builders go through when dealing with foam.

If you make a certain model, say a high performance long board, the blank that is usually used for that model needs to be accommodating to the over all shape of the board. If I have to change to a different 9’4 blank it will not have the same foam volume or thickness distribution as the one I was always using before. So I will have to work up a new routine for shaping my high performance long board out of a different blank than what I’d been using. It’s difficult and time consuming to make blank changes and have repeat ability. Changing blanks all the time messes with your consistency. Which is why guys find a foam they like and stay with it.

Now if you have blanks machine cut, which I don’t, it’s not as big a problem. Still you have to get a blank that the board you want to make will fit into but, the machine does all the hard milling and getting the foil and rocker all done for you.

Fortunately there are a number of foam suppliers now and I’ve got a couple that are willing to work with me and the particular stuff I want for my boards. Thank God, and the foam guys.

D.R.