What do you do with a favorite board once it gets pretty well used up?

I think the ideal situation is to unload your boards before they're to far gone to get any resale dollars out of them… but who does that? When you’ve got a board that you really like it just gets surfed and surfed and surfed. Then one day you look at it and realize ‘this things has had it’. Then what?

How come we get so attached? What makes a certain surfboard “magic”? And once we find a board we really like why surf it to death? Well, maybe it’s the only board you have so if you surf it until it dies… understandable. But if it’s not the only board you’ve got? Or why not start looking for another board before your fav has had it so you can at least use an alternative to surf so the favorite board will last a bit longer?

The curious thing about the magic of surfing is that your surf memories have surfboards in them. Those great surf days, the epic sessions, the special surf trips you usually have a certain surfboard that was along for the ride… and you remember the event and the board. Even the pros… when they win a big event the board they rode will be part of the memory.

But when you’ve got to retire a favorite surfboard it’s kind of like part of you is sorry for it. You don’t want to but you’ve got to. Geez, maybe that’s it, maybe I’ll never have another really good board… what if?

Some times you’ve laid off of surfing for a time… maybe years and want to get back. What do you do? Remember that favorite surfboard and try to find one like it. I guess it would be easy if your favorite board was molded. If the model was still in production just go find another one…. It would be the same right?

I’ve been looking at my 8’0 that was the prototype for the model I call the Gadget. I made it in ’02 and it’s not been surfed for some months now because I’ve been working with my stubbie. I really didn’t take notice how used the 8’0 was, I just surfed the heck out of it but got to thinking I should surf it some… then realized I’d just about used that board up…. Bummer!

D.R.

1987, Kauai with a favorite board under arm. I left it with a friend and didn’t go back to surf it until ’92. I surfed it a few times while finishing up a new board, then brought it back to Ventura and sold it off… still in good condition.

How many surfboards need to shaped by an individual before they are considered having credibility?

I find it interesting that numbers seem to be a marker of sorts…. The question is often asked “ how many boards have you shaped?” If I’m asked my immediate thought is ‘who cares’. Honestly I don’t know how many boards I’ve shaped, certainly thousands more than some and thousands less than others.

On a forum thread recently there has been dialogue on shaping a board in X number of minutes… and again my thoughts are ‘who cares?’ I thought it interesting that no one commented on the jewels of knowledge that were in a shaping video that got the “shaping a board in so many minutes” thread going. One was getting the stringer clean with a nice even curve and the other was getting the outline clean without any bumps or flat spots. I’ll leave the explanation on why that’s important for my next ‘so you want to make a surfboard post’.

On another forum thread there was the question “should you buy a surfboard shaped buy a guy that doesn’t surf or… more specifically, has never surfed.” Well guess what? People do it all the time by the container loads. Do you think that the boards being made in China and Thailand are shaped by people that surf… or for that matter, have ever surfed?

Back to the numbers game. If cleaning up a machined shaped blank is considered shaping a surfboard… which it seems is by some… then how many surfboards are being shaped or have been shaped by the people in China and Thailand day in and day out over the past 2, 3, 4, 6 or more years? Think in the tens of thousands upon thousands. So what does it matter how many surfboards you’ve shaped when there are guys that have done tens of thousands more and probably have never surfed?

Just a couple thoughts between surf sessions.

D.R.

The Tip Tool Review.

Today I got to surf some small clean lines at the point on my Tip Tool. I’ve had this board since maybe late April but haven’t found the kind of waves I’d really like to surf it in until today. Not that there haven’t been waves, and I have surfed the board a few times, but I haven’t been able to catch the right conditions when I’ve had time to surf.

The board has a nice swing weight for turning. I knew this but I got to set up a nice left go right on a few occasions in the water today that were smooth and effortless.

Moving from turn to trim has a good feel, the board at 24 inches wide gives you a great stable feel under your feet as you transition a step or two from the tail after setting your turn. Stepping back for small redirects and rail positioning is effortless as well.

Today the waves were standing up nicely on the inside sand bar which is where the fun really stood out for this board… the nose ride. With a name like the Tip Tool it should be no surprise that I’ve designed this board for nose riding, and nose ride it does. When I’ve ridden the board before nose riding was good but today across the inside sand bar the nose riding was great. The board is stable on the nose. It has a very solid feel on the forward third and right on the tip. Depending on wave and wave face positioning the board will stall on the nose as well as trim. I was even able to slide under sections in the forward third too. Going the distance standing right on the tip on a nice stand up wall is such a great feeling…. The Tip Tool does it… I’m stoked!

D.R.

Memories…. Surfer Magazine Vol. 7 Number 6.

Jim Allen came by the shop this past week with this old Surfer Mag. From when the publication was still a Bi-monthly. It says it’s the January issue; cost is 75 cents and has coverage of the ’66 world contest that Nat Young won.

Amazing how your memory can be jogged by looking at something like that. I wonder how much time I spent looking at that magazine back some 43 years ago because I remembered so much of what is in it. I think the ads stand out the most… but some of the pictures too. There’s a 18 frame sequence of David Nuuhiwa’s 10.1 second nose ride from the world contest that made history. Some shots of large Newport Beach barrels and quite a few reader photos that were pretty nice.

The killer thing for me in the mag. is the article about Stanley’s Dinners… written by Arson Herd, photos by Bill Delany. How curios is this… just a week ago Dale aka Arson, whom I haven’t seen in years, came by the shop to say Hi. I had left early so I missed him but he left a nice note. So there’s the article with all the pictures of Stanley’s including the one I have etched in my mind of Pee Wee Shaw that I mentioned in this blog post. And once again I got to see what we’ve all been missing since that spot was destroyed by the freeway and off-ramp.

D.R.

Stanley's from across the PCH

The pic of Steve "Pee Wee" Shaw etched in my memory

Steve with the board he bought Sept 08