Volume Control

Surfboards are incredibly complicated works of craftsmanship, of that there is no doubt.  They're three dimensional shapes comprised of varying and complex parabolic curves which are meant to carry a human being across the face of a curved fluid surface and change direction on a whim.  They have to provide optimum hydrodynamic performance in a range of conditions.  We’re all different, our surfboards are all different, and the waves that we surf are all different, every single last one of them.

So why, when it comes to measuring the dimensions of these non-comformist sculptures, do we still revert to the incredibly basic dimensional equation of length x width x thickness?  Is there not more to it than that?

This week I had a piece published by The Inertia which examines the language of surfboard design and presents an argument for adding a fourth dimension onto the scribbled pencil statistics that straddle the stringer of our surfboards: volume.  The piece features incredibly insightful contributions on the topic from the coaches at the Surf Simply resort in Costa Rica and from Nick Blair of Joistik Surfboards in Sydney, Australia, for which I'm incredibly grateful.

If you've got even a passing interest in how your surfboard works and the thought processes and design principles that went into it, then hopefully you will find this article of some interest.  As far as I'm concerned, the more that we all know about our surfboards, the better.

Click here to check it out.  I hope that you like it.

A Finger on the Pulse, A Surform on the Foam

At some point, sooner or later, I was bound to miss a weekly blog post. I apologise but I also fully blame the Spanish rail network, a French rugby derby and Arabic keyboards for my inability to throw something up last Sunday. Anyways, this one has been in the pipeline for quite some time but its out there now [this arabic keyboard has no apostrophes its killing me] so rather than me trying to type up some mispelt rambling with bad punctuation, go ahead and read an interview that I conducted with Nick Blair a while back. The man is a damn fine craftsman and knows more about the intricacies of high performance surfboard design and shaping and where its headed than most of us can ever dream of. Definitely one for all of you surfboard geeks out there. Its been published by Drift Surf Magazine so all youve gotta do is hit the jump. Im off on the hunt for some right hand pointbreaks tomorrow, the story of how Ive fully earnt a splash in the sea will no doubt follow in a few weeks once Ive got home and developed the mountains of film that Ive been shooting this past week. http://www.driftsurfing.eu/ http://joistiksurfboards.com/ http://nickblairshapes.blogspot.com/

Mowing Foam

My friend Nick Blair shapes beautiful surfboards. Aside from being permanently stuck under the feet of top WCT stylist Dean Morrison I keep seeing his joistik logo in magazine spreads and adverts being ridden by a whole host of the worlds top surfers throwing buckets of spray all over the world. It's good to see that the good will out, and that out of the cut-throat competitive world of surfboard design is emerging a shaper with international pedigree and an eye for perfection. On ya Nicko.

I shot a study of him mowing foam a few years back whilst I was living on the Goldie, and since then he's gone from strength to strength, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer bloke.

There's a shipment UK bound in time for Crimbo, so check the website http://www.joistiksurfboards.com/ and get on board.