Surfboard Shaping Adventures
Small surf conditions are around regularly enough in Southern California. Even when it's dribbling though, there are still times when doing some maneuvers sounds fun even if the waves don’t want to cooperate.
I have tried a number of different shortboards from known popular shapers that were supposed to work well on small days. However, most of these boards are made to try and cover too many varying conditions and tended to work well when it got a little bigger. When it dropped down and got weak—the very conditions they were supposed to have been made for in the first place—they just didn't cut it. Unfortunately, most boards don’t work in everything.
Some shortboards require a lot of hopping up and down just to stay in the wave, so I was trying to get around that in the latest shaping endeavor I took on. As my own shaping experience is limited, I refreshed my memory on some of the things that shapers who had made me boards at some point back in the past had shared with me through the years. It also spurred a few interesting memories.
Shaping Lessons
Back when I used to ride Bob Hurley’s boards when he was a shaper, he would let me hang out in his shaping stall and watch him make them. This was of course before the ubiquitous Hurley clothing era…seems like the clothing business was maybe just a little more lucrative than the surfboards for ole Hurley there 🤑.
So anyways, when I would get boards made by Bob, he would often share shaping insights. I figured he was getting pretty bored in the little shaping cubicle the way he shared some of those shaping tips. And it turns out that the info he shared happened to come in handy now that my son and I started making some of our own boards.
I remember when Bob came back from Australia with some new shaping stuff he learned from Byrne over there. He also had some wild new shorts from a brand called “Billabong” saying he had bought the American rights to the company.
The writing was on the wall with that investment and his shaping days were soon drawing to an end. Hurley eventually segued into running Billabong America and then transitioned from the Billabong brand into his eponymous label. Wasn’t much time for shaping when he started doing all the clothing stuff, so moving on to other shapers was inevitable.
So I got boards from others and still continued to learn little bits of info along the way from people like Terry Martin who was the Hobie shaper back in the day, one of the old school masters. I ran into a bit of a situation, however, when I found out that Terry Martin was also great at taking a look at a board and making one just like it.
I broke a few boards at Newport Point one summer on an epic Chubasco swell. Newport Point has a submarine canyon that sucks those Mexican hurricane swells right in, and it can break with some serious hollowness and power when it goes off. So, after breaking a few boards at Newport Point, I was down to body surfing in the shore break. John Gothard offered to loan me one of his Stussy’s, which was something I was stoked to try out, and as I expected, the board worked really good.
Gothard had a full quiver and didn’t seem in a hurry to get it back so I thought I’d have Terry Martin make one like it. I didn’t really think ahead that doing that could strike a nerve.
Gothard was all over the magazines back then riding Stussy’s, as was Smerk who was a buddy of mine who also ripped on them, which made these boards very popular, so it was hard to even get an order in with Stussy. Getting an actual board from Shawn Stussy was near impossible for people who were not part of his little clique. In fact, his boards were so popular that it would take over 6 months to even get a board in those days and he wouldn’t take any more orders until he got caught up.
When I brought the board back to Gothard he noticed a little foam dust on it and began enquiring if I was getting one shaped like it….he then told me that Stussy was really touchy about stuff like that! Especially if he finds out you took it over to Terry Martin, since Terry Martin was known for his ability to duplicate a board really well.
Gothard was always joking about stuff so I didn’t know whether he was serious or not. But I was a bit surprised Stussy would even care since as a popular shaper he must be aware that people are gonna examine his stuff and try to find out what makes it work and do likewise.
I told Gothard: “Hey, imitation is the greatest compliment one can receive. Besides, what is the deal with this guy anyways, doesn’t he realize he’s copying Simon Andersons every time he shapes a thruster?” The thruster was in fact rapidly copied throughout the world after Simon Anderson demonstrated from giant Bells to Pipe, how great it worked. Imitation happens in every genre, and nothing really happens in a vacuum.
However, I gave it a little more thought and I figured it is better not to get on his wrong side. I didn’t think Stussy would listen to my philosophical lecture and didn’t want him coming after me with his planer and try and give me a little shave.
So just to be safe, I told Gothard: “You know, how about I keep the board a little longer and surf on it a little more to get that foam dust off? I’ll be making sure it is really clean while I ride a few more waves with it!” Can’t say I minded having an excuse for riding that Stussy a little bit longer.
Time has moved on and the era of the shaper-rock star has kind of faded with computer-driven technology and mass production touching the surf world.
There is something though about that touch of those “delicate genius” types, and that je ne sais quoi human element of shaping a board which neither computer-driven shaping machines nor someone trying to copy it can often easily or exactly replicate.
The board Terry Martin made me worked alright, but even though it was copied exactly, it lacked something the Stussy had… which is part of the mystery: Why it is that even the best board duplicator in the business still can’t capture the hidden personal element that the original shaper himself brought to the endeavor. There is just that unique element that is hard to explain. There’s a video I saw where Mick Fanning himself shared how he couldn’t get the shaping machines to duplicate his best boards to ride the same either.
Now that I’m doing a bit of occasional shaping myself, I appreciate those “delicate genius” type shapers, and the je ne sais quoi stuff those guys had all the more! It doesn’t come around all the time and it takes years to perfect it! Every once in a while, you’d get a magic board that would just blow your mind how great it worked, as I did with a few from Bob Hurley and a few others like Greg Giddings’G-Force’s, that I would ride until the board was literally falling apart and water-logged.
Back to our Backyard Board
So anyways, my son Patrick and I got hold of a few blanks recently, and I wracked the ‘ole brain to remember some of those things I learned back in the day from different shapers, and so we’ve now made a couple of our own surfboards.
This latest iteration seen in the above video being a board made especially to have fun in small, weak waves but still do some shortboard maneuvers. It was designed specifically to have some of the flow and glide of a bigger board but still turn and be fun in weak, gutless mush. So you can check it out as we put this experimental board through its paces in this short video.
We also threw in a little bit of a surf music jam, reminiscent of a time back before I actually surfed, or even walked yet for that matter. We just threw this together on the fly with an electric guitar, bass, and electric piano kick track, and then put it on a loop.
I figure anything that can keep you motivated to keep getting out in the water and riding a few waves is a good thing, as it is a blessing to be able to get out there and refresh yourself in God’s creation. Having some equipment suited to the task at hand just adds to the fun!
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