Surfing and injuries.

Lets just say if you have injuries for what ever reason it’s no fun. And of course injuries can keep you out of the water… no surfing when you hurt. That’s double no fun, or that just plain sucks.

Since my thirties I’ve had a few physical problems from time to time that have kept me from surfing. Like when I broke my heal. I’ve also suffered from swimmers shoulder, though in my case it’s surfers shoulder.

The shoulder thing would flare up every now and then and it has again. Though this time not from surfing I went on the injured list just from over work or sleeping wrong or what? I don’t know.

Last winter season we had some really good surf and I missed much of it from January and February because I got a really lousy cold. Now my shoulder went out last week and there has been some really nice surf, as well, the forecast is calling for a string of new swells this coming couple weeks… dang!

At least I seem to be on the mend but, I’ve got to go real slow and let the shoulder heal well before I can put any stress on it. Other wise I go down again and have to start all over with the recovery process.

There is not much worse than an inflamed shoulder. You can’t move without feeling the thing. It screams with every heart beat. The slightest move and.. OUCH! If the prettiest girl in the world came and gave your shoulder the softest little kiss you’d knock her on her butt with your good arm. And all you can think about is, “I hope this dang thing gets better so I can surf… I hope I can surf again”

Actually thinking about surfing may help you get better. I have a friend Kevin, that years ago hurt his leg. The doctors said he may never surf again, that he was going to lose movement in his foot because of the nature of his wound. I remember him saying he’d lay in his bed and look at his feet and try to get his foot to move, because he couldn’t move his foot, and he’d keep trying and trying. He kept telling himself to move his foot. Over time and continually doing this mental to physical exercise he said he started to see the tiniest movement. That gave him hope so he’d stayed at it until he could do what the doctors said he would not be able to.

He couldn’t stand the idea of not being able to surf again so he made himself do the impossible. He got better and went surfing. And, is still surfing some thirty years later.

So I’m getting better, hopefully I’ll be surfing again in a couple weeks.

I was sent a few pictures today from Fabio, he bought himself a new Tip Tool. It made my day!

D.R.

The ability of the human senses in crafting and making things is truly amazing. We don’t think about this much or take much more than a casual look but, what we are capable of making with our hands is pretty incredible.

I got to talking with Sammy the foreman at the FCD lam shop one day this past week about this very thing. Sammy had been setting fins and was showing me his system for getting the fins set right when I sited one of the boards and mentioned that the trailing fin looked off a touch.

We got to talking about how tricky getting fins set right can be when you’ve got to deal with the minor variations that can show up in the production process. For fins it can be a stringer that isn’t quite in the center of the board or is curved a little in stead of dead straight.

Then we got to talking about machined blanks and how they can be off, like one rail being thicker than the other or the outline not centered. We both agreed that it is easier to shape a board from scratch than to make certain corrections that may be needed on a machined blank. I probably shouldn’t but, I do get a bit frustrated when I have to do fixes on machined blanks… Why should I have to fix something a robot did?

Surfboards don’t have to be perfect. You know that as soon as you ride a board a few times the decks may have dents in them and if one side is not exactly the same as the other it may not matter. After all, you only have one rail in the water, or one side of your board is engaged at a time for the most part. And, asymmetrical designs are valid. That said, a good craftsmen can tell when something is off, and we do our best to be accurate… at least I do and others I know.

Reality is with repetition, looking at things over and over and handling things over and over again, you get to the point that you can see and feel the most minute details… in my and Sammy’s case… it’s surfboards. And it really is amazing that we can take a planer and some sand paper, cut and carve a piece of foam, shaping a surfboard and then get another piece of foam and do the same thing and have both shaped blanks be so amazingly close in size, shape and detail that it’s next to impossible to tell if they even are different in some area, like one rail being thicker than the other of shaped ever so slightly different.

So if a machined blank is pretty darn good and the same size and shape board is hand shaped, like a certain model, one machine cut and one hand cut, what’s the difference? Only a human has emotion. Some how that gets transferred into what we make.

D.R.

My story post 50

Moving is not easy… it can completely turn your life upside down. Moving right before the holidays may not be that smart either… but we didn’t have much of a choice, things just turned out that way.

So now I live farther away from the ocean than I’ve lived for some 43 years. But the nice thing is I’m still about 10 minutes from the beach…. The point no less. How could you complain? I can’t see the ocean from my bedroom window anymore but what I do see is oak trees, sycamore trees, peace and quite.

A new routine is getting set up. Gotta have my gear with me when I head into the shop. You know, just in case I need to surf. Gotta be set up with a couple boards when I head out from the house so I’ve got what I need for what ever the situation calls for surf wise.
Gotta be prepared. This is going to be a good thing.

D.R.

The old view

The new view

The pool view