Innehållsförteckning för #338 SURFBOARD från Surfing Life

What sort of surfboard turns your screws? Are you a rider of a stumpy little thing with a wide tail and fins like the forward flippers of the sea cow, or do you like to order boards of the sort favoured by the professional surfer: the continuous curve, the lithe outline, curves so subtle even the shaper can’t find ‘em? Lately, I’ve gone for something I call Risky Business Casual. I like the idea of ‘getting radical’, as they say, but as this so rarely happens, waves, ability, I need something looser on the hams and fuller on the waist. An elastic waist as opposed to buttons and clips. It’s the finest line to walk because no one likes to be caught riding those blunt instruments called Fun Boards. And…

It had been 40 years since my world title, 49 years since I first surfed J-Bay, and the WSL hired me to supply the colour commentary, the expert analysis for the event there. I’d do the morning show, I’d do the closing show and occasional live cross pieces. They asked me where I wanted to sit. I told ‘em I wanted to set myself up in the competitors’ area I wanted to feel their energy. When I’d driven up to J-Bay the week before, the first guy I saw was Filipe. The surf was small, three- to four-foot, and I’d never seen anyone go so fast. Ever. I thought maybe it was because I hadn’t seen a lot of pro surfing firsthand recently, but even in comparison, the guy was…

SUPER SIAMESE TWIN 5’6” x 19 ¾” x 2 ¼” 26.11L SHELDON SAYS: This was the board I picked outta the board bag and just immediately knew it was gonna be fun. And it didn’t disappoint. It was the best of all the test boards. The SST is a super-loose board that was amazing to turn, especially off the top. I’m dead keen to ride this board more. I feel like the board would really excel in a long pointbreak chest-high or under. Its bread and butter would be two- to three-foot, down-the-line waves... especially on your forehand. When the wave gets a little sucky, the board just takes off and you’ve just gotta hang on. It’s that fast. I rode it on a fun little right that looked made…

GAMMA 5’6” x 18 ¼” x 2 ¼” 23.4L SHELDON SAYS: This ‘Gamma’ is the lightest board in the test. Jeez, it might be the lightest board I’ve ever picked up. It came in 5’6” x 18 ¼” x 2 ¼” – which I thought was going to be way too small for me. I’m usually on 5’10”s with a litre-and-a-half more foam. Being four inches smaller and with so much less volume, I wasn’t even sure if it’d float me. But it went really well. I rode it on some bigger days, and it held up nicely. It’s a fivefin setup, although I rode it as a Thruster. It held its turns and rail really well. For my surfing, it performed better on a smaller, suckier right-hander we got.…

HOLY GRAIL 5’7” x 18 ¾” x 2 ¼” SHELDON SAYS: I rode the Holy Grail at a wave called Bubbles. It was shoulder, and this board rode super well. It’s such a unique outline. One I’ve definitely not seen before. Really wide and flat on the nose, and some chunkier rails than I’m used to. But this board is all about the unique tail. It’s really pulled in, with a super noticeable hip – or side-cuts as Hayden calls ‘em. And the thing is, you really feel the tail when you’re surfing this board. This board has so much pop and is really, really fast. It’s ultralight and it just feels so fast. That first wave I was racing along, I put it on rail and the board kinda…

The surfboard designer Hayden Cox, who is a sunny-faced 35, arrives for the interview carrying three gorgeously brazen surfboards. One is an all-black eight-foot-six gun – a scaled-down version of a nine-six he’d made for the Narrabeen big-wave surfer Ben Wilkinson to ride at Jaws – and early and final versions of his new model the Holy Grail, one a five-six, the other a five-seven. Hayden’s here to explain his kink for rail curvature, or side-cuts if we’re to be specific, and how he says he can build a board that has all the easy-paddling and stability of what you might call, in hushed tones, a fun board, but with a radical highperformance back end. Think, a car you can easily drive in traffic, but still loose on the track.…

Recently, Dane Reynolds, a 32-year-old father of three and a former world number four, placed himself in the Central American country of El Salvador with the photographer Quinn Matthews, and Malibu’s Dillon Perillo. One especially tropical afternoon, Dane, riding his current ‘enabler’ – a CI Black and White – made, and made clean, what Dillon later called the biggest air reverse Dane had ever done. And so, given the nature of this issue, Surfboards, and given the closeness of Dane to boards (he applies himself with vigour to the art of shaping; his sponsor Channel Islands even built him a shaping bay at his house) and the photographic results of the trip, it made more than a little sense to explore Dane’s thoughts. “I GET A QUARTER OF THE BOARDS…

If you were going to compile a list of the world’s shapers, right now, you wouldn’t have to extend your thoughts for long, especially since the concept of individual shapers has been squashed in favour of surfboard models. So who you gonna sling in there? Darren Handley, Jason Stevenson, Matt Biolos, Jon Pyzel, right? The guns. Reliably brilliant. Handley has eyes for Fanning, Wilko and Gilmore; Mayhem’s reverent gaze falls on Tyler, Carissa, Kolohe and Mason. JS whispers huskily at Joel, Julian, Freestone, Owen and Mikey Wright. Pyzel is all John John, and that’s all that matters. For this issue, I thought it’d be interesting as anything to pull cards from the two most thoughtful of the pack: six-six juggernaut Matt Biolos and rose-bud lipped Jon Pyzel. Get ‘em to…

“You want to know what the most beautiful thing is about surfboards? The personalisation a board gains when someone takes ownership of it. This board can look identical to the other thousands that are made, but when someone owns it and rides it, it takes on a sense of their personality. Some people put sprays or artworks on their boards; everybody stands in a certain position; their tail-pad is applied just so. It all becomes part of the memory of the board. What other piece of sporting equipment actually becomes a part of their owner? “And, for me, the big kick I get out of design is the happiness I see in the people who ride my boards. Who come back with comments like, It changed my surfing or I’m…

It was seven years to the week since the last Category 4+ hurricane spun east of the Lesser Antilles, shooting swell directly towards Barbados. Even though the island is one of the most popular surf destinations in the Caribbean, no one knew the true potential of some reefs until that recently because of their constant battle with onshore tradewinds. This time, with Hurricane Irma strengthening rapidly, people were well aware of the conditions lining up and the buzz around Bathsheba was real. Nathan Florence, Dylan Graves, Ben Bourgeois, Asher Nolan, Nate Behl and Balaram Stack shot over on last minute flights. Locals posted up in trucks and under tents, waiting to get a glimpse at the first sign of swell. Sixteen-year-old Zander Venezia was one of them. Hanging on the…

Swing into a good surf shop – you know, the ones that sell surfboards, and all those resolutions not to buy any more boards, because, like, your room is full of ‘em, evaporate. You become dizzy with an insane urge to own one of these pop sculptures. Can you imagine the thrill, therefore, if you were gifted a board from Australia’s most innovative shapers, with the aim of building the ultimate every-wave, and every kink, quiver? For this year’s surfboard test, we did it. We ordered a modern single fin, a summer twin, an all-rounder, a hightech shredder, a quad, something asymmetrical, and something hi-fi but just a little wild. Shapers from every corner of the country, each with a specific expertise, were corralled for the build. We shipped ‘em all…

THE RENEGADE (TRAVEL) 5’9” x 18 ¼” x 2 ¼” 25.46L SHELDON SAYS: This board is real close to the dimensions I ride at home, maybe a fraction thicker. It’s an easy and forgiving board to ride. I rode it in some mushy lefts and, given the conditions, the board went surprisingly well. With the quad setup I had a lot of fun. There’s so much drive in the board. The flatter rocker and chunky rails gave it so much down-the-line speed – a superfast board. What really surprised me, howevs, was the positions I could put the board into. I didn’t think it was possible on a quad! You get it up in the lip and it loved the barrel. Who can complain about that, right? In my other…

THE TWINION 5’7” x 19 ¼” x 2 3/16” SHELDON SAYS: With the asymmetrical boards, the tail and fin combinations are designed for either goofy or naturalfooters. So, this is a naturalfooter’s combo. This is definitely, to look at, the most interesting board on the test. The board is a pretty neat construction, sandwich epoxy. But it’s the fin setup which really grabs me. A quad setup on one side, and a twin fin setup on the other. And you really feel this when you’re riding it. We had head-high rights with a nice shape to them, and this board went excellent. I really wasn’t sure what to expect from it, as it’s so outthere from anything I’ve ever seen or ridden. I watched a lot of Harley riding his…

Bike. Surf pumping at the Point. Monday morning, mid-morning. Pandanus palm mark carcass. Life outside the mainstream work-a-day culture. Backyard high tech… Monday morning a couple of weeks ago, late winter to be precise. What are you up to? Making an honest living somewhere? Trading your time/ labour/expertise in exchange for a handful of shekels to help pay for the sky-high cost of living near the ocean? Probably. Dan ‘Tomo’ Thomson is at work, too, or at least riding home from work. Peddling a bike along the dirt track underneath the whistling she-oaks beside the frogs croaking in the swamp that lays just behind the basalt boulders of Lennox Point. Under the arm, some new foamand- fibreglass creation has been put on the test track. Something that justifies the term…

Guy Walker started his working life as a freesurfer for multiple surf brands. Travelling the earth and surfing, his life was as good as it gets. And as the size-fit model for Billabong, he was exposed to the design process, which he immediately fell in love with. From there he attended design college and went on to design clothes, boards and accessories for Rusty. Around the same time, Guy was making his own surfboards and researching how to build a sustainable, eco-friendly house. The design principles of the geodesic dome, in particular, piqued his interest. In a lightbulb moment, Guy figured, “Geodesic is the largest single span structure possible – the strength, the flexibility, the aesthetic. What happens if everything about it is applied to the core of a surfboard?…

Ryan Hipwood is one of m y favourite big-wave surfers in the world. And, therefore, it was with much curiosity I watched him pull back on consecutive two-foot waves. But that’s exactly what surfing on swords will do to even the bravest among us. A foil board, with its trim speed of o ver 40 clicks, will have you sitting one metre above the waterline. The only thing worse than the discernible crack when you hit the water at speed is the threat of dancing the underwater tango with the set of carbon swords which once propelled you. FOILING IS HAIRY If you tip the board and go over on a rail, it’s possible to commit hara-kiri, minus the honour and tradition, as you come face-to-face with the sharpened carbon…

Did you know that in the quarters at this year’s Fiji Pro close mates Matt Wilkinson and Julian Wilson paddled themselves halfway back to Australia in a show of strength before their heat started? And that Wilko scooted back to the lineup on a little lump of whitewash, 100 metres or so, and found himself in perfect position as the horn sounded? You didn’t know that because unless you were sitting in the channel watching it didn’t happen. Not a frame on the webcast and nothing in the Heat Analyser, even though it changed the complexion of a crucial World Tour quarterfinal between two world-title contenders. Us plebs on the web were watching 90 seconds of adverts while this all went down. We then joined Strider Wasilewski in the lineup…

HYLAND SINGLE 5’9” x 19” x 2 3/8” 27.5L SHELDON SAYS: I surfed this board on a solid, but fat, righthander. I also surfed it on a crummy two-foot left. The board went really well on the left. I found it hard to turn at the start of the session, and I couldn’t quite work it out. Then I shuffled my foot back further on the tail-pad and then it started going really well. It was really fast. I found that I could lean forward and get my speed right up, or I could put my foot further back and I could jam it in real tight. The wide point feels like it’s around my front foot so it’s mega easy to paddle. The waves weren’t that powerful where we…

Depending who you speak to, fins either make or break a board or they simply add to the design aesthetic. Below are the rudders used in the making of this feature. THE MODERN SINGLE FIN (PAGE 80) 3D 6.2” DIMPLE TECH AND FCS 7” SINGLE THE QUAD (PAGE 88) FCS CARVER SML, KOMUNITY SIMON ANDERSON TEMPLATE THE SUMMER TWINNIE (PAGE 82) FUTURES AMT ALPHA HIGH PERFORMANCE FLYER (PAGE 92) FUTURES ANDO SIGNATURE FIN THE TECH SHREDDER (PAGE 86) SCARFINI FX2 MEDIUM AND CREATURES ICON MEDIUM THE ASYMMETRICAL (PAGE 94) SPECIALISED FCS2 FINS RESIN TINTS ARE TOUGH! PAUL GRAVELLE ON THE REVELATION THAT SPRAYPAINTING YOUR BIG-WAVE GUN MIGHT WEAKEN IT! “When you use a resin tint, no paint is sprayed on the foam,” says Paul Gravelle, who is 66 years old…

The sun has come up and I am sitting by a beach that is foggy with the breath of a life gone by. I’m a sight this morning: an Independent Surf Co. wetsuit pulled down to my waist; an old cable-knit Etro sweater that I’m dreading to take off. It still amazes me that I haven’t been warm since George W. Bush was president. I wonder if this is how it is for everyone my age. A Mayhem Short Round 5’9” 20” x 2.38 carrying some 30.71 litres rests at my feet. My life? It isn’t easy to explain. It has not been the rip-roaring spectacular I fancied it would be, but neither have I burrowed around with the sand crabs. I suppose it has most resembled a brand new…

Forty-three years ago, in the Hawaiian winter of 1974, the South African shaper Spider Murphy shaped a radically curved board for Shaun Tomson that changed the game at Pipeline forever. Fast-forward to 1981 and Spider did it again. He shaped a 5’5” twin fin with an outline of The Saint painted on the deck for 15-year-old prodigy Martin Potter. “Can you imagine the best Dane [Kealoha] surfing you’d ever seen, and the best surfing of Cheyne [Horan]? Then, all of a sudden, there’s a kid combining the two?” remembers Derek Hynd. The Pink Banana and The Saint were two boards that were brought into existence by the famous pair of hands belonging to Spider. Like God in the Garden of Eden, he sculpted two glorious creations, and both went on…

CRAIG ANDERSON AIR UNDER THE FRONT FOOT And what a pleasure it is to peer into the treasure chest that is the photo files of Newcastle’s Peter Boskovic. And, here, we see the great Craig Anderson, riding into an orange sunset on one of his Hayden Cox-shaped winged swallow-tails called Untitled. The board is real flat under the front foot, has a deep concave and enough tail-lift for the thing to really… pop. DION AGIUS ON THE PRECIPICE Mostly, Dion likes to play in the sandbox of trickery, alley-oops and airs and so forth. But it doesn’t make up the whole. From Tasmania, where he keeps a home, to isolated reefs south of Sydney, Dion will wallow audaciously. Here, sharing a completely empty reef with his pal, the photographer John…

Last September, Kelly Slater grabbed perhaps the final win of his three-decade career, combo-ing John John Florence in the final of the T ahiti Pro. Kelly included a 9.77 and a 9.90 in his heat total of 19.67. It was Kelly’s 55th contest win. And the surfboard he won the event on, which is called The Gamma, is Kelly’s “utility shortboard” design. It means he can ride ’em in a variety of conditions. Kelly keeps a quiver of Gammas in oneinch increments from 5’9” to 6’1”. This version, however, a 5’10” x 18 3/8” x 2 5/16” , just shone from the batch. A touch shorter , and with a little more beef for getting it o ver the ledge of joints like Teahupo’o and Fiji. I ask Kelly, who…

We can examine our surfboards and pick at the converging elements like birds at scraps. Hold that flashy surfboard this way, that way, up, down, sideways; pinch our eyes and try to see the ‘slight’ double concave that’s supposed to be running through the fins. But what hits a surfer, suddenly, stunning us – like being whipped with a wet towel by a locker room bully – are those moments when all that matters is that the pop sculpture under our feet actually works. The next issue of Surfing Life is called SURFERS. Unblinking, candid close-ups of the most interesting men, and women, in surf. Surfing Life, issue 339, on the newsstand DECEMBER 11. Daring readers who choose to subscribe get theirs a little earlier. SURFING LIFE: SURFERS ISSUE. ON…