A Wooden Wave

10x European Longboard Champion Ben Skinner racing on a hollow wooden surfboard built for the National Trust using timber from a storm damaged tree felled on one of their Cornish properties.

I've amassed quite a collection of images over the past year or two that I've been working with Otter Wooden Surfboards, but because they sit in a different folder on my computer and are technically "work" it has only just occurred to me to share them on here.  Technically speaking I'm James' "content manager" (pictures and words guy), shooting all of the brand's imagery and writing the Otter Surfboards blogs, newsletters and press releases.  It's a job that has seen me swimming around in the shorebreak with my camera, hoisted up the mast of a wooden pilot cutter in the bosun's chair, bivvying on the beach in the summer and trying to keep my fingers warm enough to click the shutter button before the sun's come up in the depths of winter. It's been great.  One of the best parts of my role at Otter is spending a bit of time in the workshop when there are "Build-Your-Own" courses running, meeting the customers who arrive to a stack of raw timber on a Monday morning and documenting their progress throughout the week before they emerge on Friday afternoon as firm friends with a beautiful wooden surfboard that they've built and shaped themselves.  Check out the recently released film below, shot by Tiny Dog Films at our first "AGM" (BBQ) this past October, and our appearance on BBC1's Countryfile that aired last night.  In the meantime, here below is a selection of my favourite images from a great 2013 spent shooting lovely wooden surfboards, workshops and waves for Otter:

Otter Workshop from Otter Surfboards on Vimeo.

"Man Overboard" shot from the bosun's chair hoisted up the mast of the Pilot Cutter Hesper.

James and his dog Buddy, on the search for surf and a spot to sleep on the beach.

Kingley's "Desert Island" surfboard, a 7'4" Island Hopper that he built during a workshop week earlier this year.

A 9'8" big wave gun nearing completion, built for Surfers Against Sewage for Ben Skinner to surf a wave of significant height on to raise the profile of more sustainable surfboard materials.

In the summer the trestles can be moved outside.  James guiding Eddie in shaping the rails of his surfboard.

Our Christmas bodysurfing image:  Surfboard offcuts get turned into handplanes, kind of the bodysurfing equivalent of snow shoes.

Tim joined us for a week in August to build and shape his own 9'4".

Dawn sessions in December. 

Jimmy test riding a 5'6" mini-simmons inspired planing hull, made entirely of Western Red Cedar.

I also make the tea.

Otterly New

 Word from the work front:  Over the course of the past few months I've been busy shooting the imagery for the new Otter Surfboards website, and it's all just gone live for the world to see.  

Otter Surfboards design and build hollow (skin and frame) wooden surfboards, run week long "Build-Your-Own" workshops and make bodysurfing handplanes in their workshop in Cornwall, and the boards that leave the workshop are a sight to behold.  
The website coincides with a new look for the brand, and James pulled in Karl Mackie to design the new logo, and Steven Daoud from Little Whale Studio to design and build the website.  If you sign up to the newsletter or follow the Otter Surfboards blog then you'll get to see and read more of my work as I'll be continuing to work with Otter to produce regular content.  

Take a look at the new site by clicking here, then come along and see James and myself in London over the course of this next week where we'll be opening The Storyboard exhibition at the Patagonia Store in Covent Garden on Wednesday evening from 4-7pm (it'll be on display there over the winter), and then exhibiting boards at the London Surf Film Festival from Thursday 11th through to Sunday 14th.  James will also be giving a presentation about his boards and how he builds them on Sunday after the screening of "Endless Winter".  There's loads of great stuff going on at the LS/FF (Chris, one of the directors appears in an image below unloading a board from his volvo) so if you're in and around the Big Smoke then come on down to Riverside Studios in Hammersmith, if for nothing else then just to check out how twitchy I get when I have to spend more than a couple of days in a big city.

Meantime, here're a few of the images from this summer of wooden surfboards, old cars, sunshine, waves, friends and tea for you to enjoy.    

No Surfboard? No Problem.

It's pretty rare these days for me to go on a surf trip and not have my home-made handplane and hand-me-down swim fins wedged in my carry-on luggage so that I can go bodysurfing as soon as I arrive; several episodes of lost, delayed and damaged boardbags have taught me that it's worth having a back-up option with me so that I don't go loco watching good waves breaking whilst I'm sat on the beach without my stuff.

Plus bodysurfing is damned good, simple honest fun.

Hold your breath and go. Image by Dave Homcy.

Swimming into waves and riding them prone without a board has always been a staple and core "waterman" practice for lifeguards and surf coaches to get back to the beach quickly (you can knock a load of seconds off your timed surf-swims if you can bodysurf a wave in) and water photographers who have to swim around with their camera rigs, but it's older than surfing itself and this last year seems to have been stepping out on it's own and getting a bit more attention which is great.

This seems to be culminating now in the release of Keith Malloy's movie "Come Hell or High Water" which is the first mainstream surf movie dedicated entirely to not having a surfboard. Turns out that as well as being a top flight pro-surfer, about ten years ago Keith started swimming into waves in an attempt to reconnect with the ocean and ended up being one of the best in the world, regularly competing in the World Champs at Pipeline. Around the same time his big brother Chris teamed up with North Shore lifeguards Jeff Johnson and Todd Sells to swim and hike a section of remote Hawaiian coastline, bodysurfing along the way, for a Surfer's Journal article entitled "The Body Will Suffice" (available to download here) which was all about taking the search for waves back to the rawest possible form.

When I pulled up to check this super heavy spot near Cape Town, South Africa, the only guys in the water going for these waves were a small crew of Hell-man bodysurfers. More power to you.

Whilst for most of us, leaving the board on the beach and swimming out to get our waves will never become the dominant choice, it's worth remembering that it's always a valid option. Whether it's for fitness, searching for a purer connection with the ocean, because the airline's lost your surfboards or maybe you just love having seawater rammed up your nose into your sinuses, every now and then it's good to ring the changes.

A few weeks ago I met a seemingly mad and immune-to-the-cold Welshman at the World Bellyboarding Championships who was telling me all about a bodysurfing trip that he did up the entire Eastern Coastline of Australia with nothing but a set of swim fins and a handplane. At the time we were bobbing around in the sea as part of a bodysurfing handplane demonstration (I was helping out James Otter who had a stand there) amongst the wedgy high tide bowls of Chapel Porth in conditions that, in all honesty, were only really bodysurf-able. Set me to thinking that maybe there's merit in the idea of a surf trip without a surfboard, and I think I've got the beginnings of an interesting plan in motion.

Kick hard and think of your body as your surfboard.

As Mr Malloy states, it's all about "taking a breath and kicking your feet in the big blue sea".

Why the Hell not?

My long arms spread out trying to fall into the pocket whilst a Welsh bodysurfer wearing nothing but a pair of speedos looks on. WBBC , Chapel Porth, Cornwall, 2011.

Photo by Kate Fewster.

Mid-winter tunnelling, image courtesy James Otter.

Beautifully channelled plywood handplanes made by my friends Rich and Nick at Thirdshade. They look all tiger-striped and rad. Available here.

James Otter's bespoke handplanes produced using leftover hardwood from his beautiful wooden surfboards. Available here.

The Train To Taghazoute and The Storyboard Go Live...

Gare du Nord - departure board possibilities...

It's been a busy week here; an article that I put together for Drift surf magazine has been published, to my despair hot on the heels of great articles featuring the photography of two of my favourite image makers Chris Burkard and Dane Peterson (talk about big shoes to fill), and The Storyboard exhibition opened in Polzeath, Cornwall.

The sights, sounds and smells of the souks, Marrakech.

First up, the article: Back in April my friend Kyle and I set off on the train aiming for Morocco, lugging our boardbags with us and hoping for the best. I had a couple of cameras with me and the trip became more than just a mission for waves, with a mountain climbed, some cities explored and a few arguments with Spanish railway officials along the way. We got good good waves, but that's not the point.

Drift have been as encouraging and supportive as ever and have put it out there for people to see so please click any of these jumps to see The Train To Taghazoute in full. I'd also like to push out a big thanks to the team at Finisterre for their encouragement and for keeping us warm when it was cold, and cool when it was hot.

Then on Friday night James Otter and I spent a lot longer than anticipated carefully hanging our Storyboard exhibition in the Tubestation in Polzeath, Cornwall. We finished up at midnight surrounded by pizza boxes and an assortment of tape measures and hanging wire but we're really pleased with the results. The Storyboard is being exhibited "open" alongside two finished surfboards and a set of twelve images documenting the process, all framed in timber from the same tree as the surfboard.

James starting to carefully shape the rails of The Storyboard.

The Storyboard is for sale (it will be fully finished and ready to surf, including in the package the entire set of framed images for a total of £2995), as are framed or mounted prints (£75 and £25) and signed and numbered handmade coffee table books (£25).

If you're interested in the board, prints or book then leave a comment on this post at the bottom with your contact details and I'll get in touch, or hit up James through his website.

The board really is a beautiful piece of craftsmanship and we believe that the "one tree" lifecycle angle makes this an exhibition worth making a detour for. If you do get a chance to eyeball it any time over the next six weeks, please let me know what you thought.

I love it when a plan comes together.

6'10" Mini-Magic against the workshop wall.