The 7 wood is a barrel bagger. Made for big ocean beach but not huge ocean beach. Made for slabs and nasty takeoffs. This particular 7wood has a beaked nose and a throwback cut lap glass job. 6’7×19.25x37cuL. Get in early and thread it.
The don’t “FALL” series of boards – 4 IRON 3.0
The 35 cuL 4 iron will get you in and out of waves that will be locked into your memory bank. This is a step board and barrel chaser. Ride this thing at average puerto days. Ride it at your local slab. Ride it at pumping NOR CAL beach breaks. Ride it as your travel board. This is a staple of your quiver. The rocker profile is tried and true – a blend of 2 magic step-up boards. I’ve made a few of these 4 irons and every one is a performer. This one is rocking the dia de los muertos theme (ready for oaxaca) and a vector carbon tail patch.
The dont fall series of boards – the 9 iron
The other evil brother of the sandwedge (both are evil step-down boards). This is the nine iron with skittles fin boxes and mexican blanket cotton lam over the tail. The outline and rocker have a striking resemblence to a bunny chow (al merrick’s jordy smith step down board). Admittedly this board has a bit more of a focus on appealing to the everyday surfer wanting to improve their everyday performance in everyday waves. Medium entry rocker with flatter tail rocker. Volume generously carried throughout and extra volume and boxy hips which really caters to tail heavy surfers. A winner out of the gate for the 2-6′ range.
the don’t fall series of boards – the sandwedge 1.0
This is the evil step brother of the 9 iron. The pictures really don’t do it justice. It’s no pig. Have you seen the new Hayden shapes LOVE BUZZ board. This could easily be a cousin of that model (or maybe a twin?). Got to ride this in really good waves on Sunday. It ripped for both me and a buddy. Super fast, super foregiving and very versatile. 2-8′ is ideal size range. Made of EPS and Epoxy construction. Mexican blanket cotton lam for extra strength and style in the tail.
the dont “FALL” series of new boards – NIBLICK 3.0
She is a beauty. Version 3.0 of the niblick board model. All business on the deck with a fine chevron cotton print. All party on the bottom with skittles “taste the rainbow” futures fin boxes. This board is was a co-lab project with Bill doing the finish shaping – and a fine job he did for a first time out in the bay. I did the CAD design work and all the logistics.
I rode my version 2.0 this morning in 2-4′ ocean beach high tide grovel waves. This board makes fun out of nothing. Gotta love it.
the 4 iron preview
Just wanted to share a preview of the 4 iron (version 2.0) with the 80’s throwback cassette tape inlay. More to come
The niblick
What is a niblick you ask? It is actually an early design of a golf club that is no longer used (or rarely). Early golf clubs were hand-crafted, often by the players themselves, and had no standard shape or form (sound familiar to surf craft?). The niblick was similar to a nine iron or a wedge and thus this board fits into that spectrum in my quiver.
The board is 5’8 x 21 x 2.5 and has 36cuL. It is not really a pig and the rails are medium with quite a bit of bite through the midsection (so that rail control is precise for mid rail flat wave turns). I did a Balinese cotton print deck lam on this board. It adds some weight but it also adds some strength. Obviously not the same strength to weight ratio as fiberglass cloth, but it isn’t a total waste of weight for a board of this design.
The board design has influences from bob simmons, dan thomson, and greg liddle (and many more). It really is a unique blend of features that I haven’t seen blended quite like this before. Apparently the glasser and sander were really stoked on getting to see this board come together – so am I. It should work – we’ll see. Look for an update to come out shortly on how it performs.
Post trial surf update here . . .
Surfed ocean beach in mediocre thigh to stomach high crumbling waves – perfect conditions to test a grovel board. The niblick is super fast and rides high on the water as you would expect for a board with as much concave as this has. It is surprisingly loose, not a feature I was expecting due to the tail’s extreme width. I attribute the looseness to result from the large swallow feature combined with the pronounced double concave to significant Vee that the tail has on each of its facets. The swing weight of the nose is not an issue but the nose width is visually distracting as you make roundhouse cutback turns. Because of the width, I was taking a ton of caution not to dig the nose into the face of the wave as I was doing carving open face turns (a narrower nose just stays out of the way in a roundhouse cutback and you don’t see or think about it). I think if you’re an experienced long boarder, the visual distraction aspect I’m referring to wouldn’t necessarily exist, but with a nose this wide, you’re not really going to be able to hook it into the pocket to tuck into a barrel. The board turns and maintains speed really well. As one would expect there is a non-linear release point when applying pressure to the rail in a turn, all is feeling well and your hammering the rail and then if you push too hard, you’re going to get a release. Figuring out where this release is, is part of the fun of figuring a new board out. Once you have that mark identified, then you can slide the tail out or break the fins loose on command. The main attraction to this design is that the release point is REALLY far along the progression of applying pressure to the rail and I was able to really drive though some cutbacks and do some really powerful swinging bottom turns (keep in mind that this is in 3′ garbage surf). I found myself singing “do you believe in magic” throughout the session – its really is exciting to have a VERSION 1 of a model work this well.
At 36cuL and 4 inches shorter than my height, I believe the board is perfect for an advanced yet domesticated surfer in the 190lb range. As experience decreases or weight increases (or vice versa), volume should increase (decrease) using the whitney guild factor volume tool. For example, my everyday shortboard is a guild factor of .37, this board is a .41 for me. Note that Guild Factor (GF) is Weight in Kilos X GF for Skill Level = Liters of Board Volume.
I made a Niblick for a buddy coming off a long board (former competitive longboarder). For his board we used a guild factor of .45 (board is 46cuL so you can do the math on weight), which I thought would be plenty of volume for a 6’2″ niblick (length equal to his height). The problem is that longboards are usually a GF of up to 1.1 and that novice shortboarders usually need up to .50, so this left the .45 feeling a little low on the volume for him. These are all good metrics to keep in mind when ordering a board that isn’t something you’d usually ride and thus don’t know your ideal dimensions or volume off hand. We’ll find that niblick a new home and get him one with a GF of .50.
The refined HP Pitching Wedge (version 3.0)
Version 1.0 worked really well in 2′-4′ surf after I found the right combination of fins. Version 2.0 saw a modification of fin placement to work in a wider variety of surf and has become a staple all around board for surf in the 3′ to 8′ range. The intention behind Version 3.0 was to move the spectrum to a higher performance profile for mediocre surf in the 2′-6′ range. It really could be another board but because it has the same DNA and elements of both Version 1.0 and 2.0, I decided to continue to call it a Pitching Wedge, but lets call it a HP Pitching Wedge (“HP” being higher performance). Staged nose rocker has been increased. Nose, rail and tail volume have been refined to bring the foil down a notch. Volume is at 33cuL. EPS and EPOXY construction – very light weight.
Sea otter classic
Ride nicaragua hat
The “classic”
Sea otter classic’s opening day had epic weather. Sun burns all around. Special thanks to Endurance Conspiracy (enduranceconspiracy.com) for doing a selfie promotion in exchange for this Ride Nicaragua hat that I couldn’t pass up. As promised here’s the blog post! Maybe I’ll get it up on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
Volunteering in Nicaragua
The current elementary school
The “girls” table at the elementary school. The boys were not sitting down as instructed.
English class courtesy of surf for life volunteers
Mural at the new highschool
Construction photo of the new highschool
Walking home from school
Many of my friends and colleagues have heard about my last trip to Nicaragua to help build a new high school in the rural norther part of the country. Some have even signed up to go back with me this summer. I wanted to share a couple photos to give a sense of the flavor of the work and why I know it is so valuable to the community.
rocking the boats 