RIDE 'EM COWBOY.

A while ago I posted about getting this 4'11 Mabile "White Pony" for those small days when the only other option would be to ride a longboard. You can see the post, and the red-hot comment thread it inspired HERE.

I took it out in waist to shoulder high waves last weekend and had an absolute blast on it. It went well frontside and, surprisingly, it worked really great on some speedy backside Gas Chambers rights as well. My wave of the day was backside actually, which is completely out of character for me. Well done, my trusty little steed.

When I brought it in on Father's Day evening/International Surf Day, I ran into Gaz and his gal who were scoping the waves. After we discovered a big gouge on the rail (from the leash) he gave the little pony approval and joked, "But Tony said these would never work in Oregon..."

Guess what Tony? It does. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

Backyard Beauty

Staying with this week's surfboard theme, engineer, Kiwi transplant, and witness to my largest wave ever, Mark "Hendo" Henderson completed his wooden fish last month and it's an absolute work of art. But you won't find this hanging on a wall unless it's green and glassy. He's gotten it out into some decent waves and is happy with the results.

I highly recommend visiting his blog for more photos and info. His little "shaping shack" looks more like the control room of the Starship Enterprise. The logo is pretty damn awesome too. Watch out Mr. Hess!

4'11" X 22 1/2" X 2 5/8"

Hey, here's my new board from Larry Mabile. It came in a couple weeks ago and let me tell you — there's nothing more frustrating than having a brand new surfboard that you can't get out and ride. My work situation has been double overhead since I got back from El Salvador. I gotta ride it out.

Anyway, I'd been hearing so many great things about these little Simfish that I pulled the trigger during one of the summer's agonizing flat spells. Larmo sold me on the "White Pony" when he assured me about the versatility of this shape. An email from the man himself:

"The best thing about the White Pony is you can ride it reaaaallly small. The board is very wide and full which allows it to paddle very well in the smaller sizes. I put a small swallow tail (about 4 inches) on it to make it turn better. I also have been putting a lot of effort into redesigning the fins, as the standard half-moon shaped fins which come on many Simmons-style boards, don't have enough drive. I have also added more curve in the outline, as well as belly towards the nose, making a very fun ride which works in punchy beach breaks as well as funky slop........."

Very small. Larry convinced me that these are the right dims for me: 4'11" X 22 1/2" X 2 5/8"

I got the board a couple weeks ago and took it to Shorties. The waves were a little sloppy, but with more punch than I'd seen in Oregon for awhile. It took me a little while to get used to it, but my first ride was pretty amazing. It rides almost exactly like I'd imagined. Paddles into waves really easy and then just squirts down the line once you stand up. I was flying around broken sections on it and just hauling ass, really. It feels almost disc-like under the feet. I'm definitely stoked on it. Skatey is a perfect description.

One of the things that I can tell will take some getting used to (besides not being able to carry it under my arm at it's wide point) is the shortness causing me to pop up with my back foot off the tail. That happened a couple times during the session, which had me doing the "water-splits" as I blew the drop-in on some decent waves. More than anything, I'm just hoping to get out again on it before the conditions dictate more predictable equipment. Fall's around the corner...

Oh yeah. Larry got the board to Seaside Surfshop quick. I think it took less than a month from when I ordered it. Thanks, guys!

Blame It on the Board (Again)

So I finally had the chance to read the article “The 40-year-old Barrel Virgin” on Surfline last week and was interested in the story on many levels:

1. Because at age 35 I haven’t gotten a legit, witnessed, in-n-out tube and...
2. Because I mostly ride what might be considered “retro” surfboards by the author.
3. Because three people have mentioned the article to me in the last week.

It’s no secret that I’ve only been surfing for 5 years and I’ve been chronicling my quest to get shacked on this blog, in the process getting comments from readers that I should try a tri-fin thruster to help me go slow enough to allow the lip to throw over my head. Someone even recently brought up the article in one of my blog posts a few weeks ago.

The story basically claims that “retro” boards are anything that diverges from the 3-fin potato chip-style surfboard professional surfers favor, stating that the design features of quads, keels, Bonzers and single fins are not only ill-suited to good waves (the kind that barrel), but are essentially just a passing fad.

Granted, it seems pretty obvious that this piece was written to ruffle feathers and instigate a war of words between “alternative” surf craft enthusiasts and “traditional” thruster advocates. Controversy equals traffic. Initially published in Water Magazine, Surfline's re-publication was definitely successful in that regard: They had to shut off comments on the story at over 200 responses, some of which were pretty inflammatory and others downright hilarious. The argument degenerated to jocks vs. hipsters, rockers vs. mods, Jets vs. Sharks.

Despite the fact that this kind of polarization of the surf community based on what people ride, or even wear, is one of the things I hate most about surf culture, I have a take on the sentiments expressed in the article and would be interested in hearing yours.

First, the classification of boards with resin tints and fin configurations that aren’t a thruster setup as simply “retro” is a complete generalization that is mostly wrong. In my understanding, recent iterations of alternative surfboards, whether quad-fin or twinny, bonzers or eggs, are shapes that have evolved over the last 20 years to incorporate new design philosophies into the mix. Certainly, templates, contours and fin configurations engineered for speed and early entry into waves will require that surfers figure out a way to get back to the curl, whether it be to “brake” or stall by applying backfoot pressure, dragging a hand, or simply delaying or extending a longer bottom turn to position yourself under the throwing lip.

But once under the lip, speed becomes your friend again and it helps to be able to quickly outrace the foamball. This is where you see guys on traditional thrusters having to pump like hell to get out of the tube.

My understanding of these techniques comes from watching experienced waveriders on video (and not just in Sprout) and also from a lesson taught to me by a guy a met in Nicaragua who was getting numerous barrels on his Pavel-shaped Speed Dialer. His advice for getting tubes boiled down to two methods:

1. Drop in late and get up into the wave's sweet-spot immediately.
2. Drop into a wave that you see is going to throw ahead, bottom turn back up the face, then jacknife the board back at a downward angle in a quick pivot motion under the lip as it is throwing. It almost looked like he was "hooking" himself in the wall under the curtain.

Seemed to work for him.

The article makes it sound like a tri-fin has the perfect amount of drag via a center fin to place you into the greenroom without much additional skill or technique. Just drop into a hollow wave, bend your knees, and enjoy that sick liquid tunnel until you miraculously shoot out in an explosion of spit, shaking shakas over your head.

Perhaps the funniest thing about the article is that the author claims that he's been surfing with his retro-loving friend for "decades" and that the guy has never been shacked. Seems strange that the equipment is to blame, since the whole "retro revolution" in surfing only started about 5 years ago. What was his friend, with 20 years surfing under his belt, riding before?

But then again, upon reading the story a second time, with it's artificial dialogue (e.g. the annoying Chuck Norris quips) and exaggerations (organic pine tar glassing?) it became obvious that this is a work of fiction anyway and meant to be taken as such. A satire, if you will, on the emergence of hipster surfers... He almost got me fired up.

Now where's my thruster?

Mexican Board Breaking Party

Hola from Baja Sur! We're two days into our first vacation to Mexico as a family: seven days at an all-inclusive resort in San Jose del Cabo. The accommodations are a bit cheesy, but the food is decent and the beers are cold and there's a punchy beachbreak right outside the hotel that has been very good since we arrived.

Above are some pictures I took yesterday morning, before the wind came up. A handful of local surfers charge this spot with almost suicidal enthusiasm. The beach is steep, which causes a pretty dramatic shorepound that has the potential to take its toll on body and board. Here's a story:

Yesterday while I was taking pictures, I met to a local guy who had been body surfing. He explained that he normally rides a surfboard, but that he'd snapped his and was waiting to get it fixed. He proceeded to point out that the left to the north was better for tubes, and that he surfed a "new style" that wasn't about doing too many tricks, but just flowing with the wave. Size wasn't important to him, shape was everything. "No cords," he said. No leashes. You can see the little left in my second photo. By the time I returned my camera to the hotel, fed the baby, taped up a ding (thanks to airline baggage) and waxed my board with warm water Zog's, the wind came up and blew the surf out. I caught a few, but it wasn't great.

This morning I was determined to do better, so I woke up early and headed up the beach. The south swell bump that was predicted (6 ft at 18 seconds) had finally hit and it looked more like 10-12 foot faces that held up in threatening walls until they finally exploded in the shallows. There were three guys charging on step-ups and I watched them with my trusty 5'8 under my arm. They were riding all the way inside and pulling out at the last second before things got hairy. I'll admit that I was a little gunshy, especially after one of the guys snapped the nose off his board on a somewhat benign cover-up.

Then, trotting down the beach in a black t-shirt with a skateboard under one arm, a sepia-toned, crusty old Rusty under the other, and a joint hanging out of his mouth was the guy I met yesterday. He was hooting and pointing up the beach at the same left he had been so enthusiastic about before. It didn't look that great to me, but every once in a while the wave would peel perfectly in a teardrop-shaped shoulder high barrel toward us. The guy asked me for wax and I asked him where he got the board. He said he got it for $30 bucks. Looking at the yellowed foam and patchwork of ding repairs, I thought he may have gotten ripped off, but I handed him my wax and watched him quickly lay it on the old deck. We stood there a minute longer and he re-lit his mota, asking, "You wanna try?" I said I was good, to which he said, "No, try the waves!" I said I'd watch a few more minutes and then join him. Next thing I knew he was running down the sandy slope to the waterline and yelling as he launched past the first wall of whitewater, no leash to tangle his feet.

It took him about five seconds to get his first wave and he did it with complete fluidity. Backlit by the sun, he carved a few turns, the trailing wake from his tail curling up behind him into the throwing lip, but kept things pretty compact and in the pocket until he got nearly to the dry sand, where he hopped of and grabbed the board in ankle-deep water. As he paddled back out, I watched the other three surfers who were still attacking the bigger bombs to the south. One attempted a 360 bunny hop on the open face and landed it. I turned back to watch my new friend and he had already latched himself into another picturesque left, doing graceful turns off the top, inside, the wave hit some backwash and it doubled up, causing the lip to throw out higher and farther than expected. The guy pulled in really deep with tons of speed but the lip came down ahead of him. I could see his dark figure sliding along behind the curtain for a few seconds before it turned into a big foamball. When he popped up, he was in waist-deep water and he made a funny gesture at me, pulling his two hands apart. I looked for his board and instantly knew what he was telling me: it was broken in half. That was two boards in about 10 minutes. I ran south to grab the fin side and he chased the nose. When we met back up, he was smiling. He looked at my shiny board and joked: "Maybe we should use yours now!" His name was Jose.

I did paddle out about 20 minutes later, after things settled down a little, and caught three really solid waves. They were exactly where Jose had been telling me to go the whole time. Then the cleanup sets came and washed me up the beach, dangerously close to the inside section (pictured in the last photo). I decided to call it a day. The wind was coming up anyway.

DOWNSTAIRS

velvet underground . ..... .... ..... sunday morning ..... ... ... .. .

PRESENTING... THE SISSY QUIVER 2007

Left to right:

1. Red Shred Sled (22x22)
2. KG Quad Fish (5.8)
3. Mandala Winged-D 2+1 (5.11)
4. Aleutian Juice Occ-ster (6.1)
5. McCoy/Pautsch Nugget (6.2)
6. North Pacific Rounded Pin (6.4)
7. Hammer Evo (6.6)
8. Plastic Banana (8.?)

(The McCoy and Hammer are for sale...)

Band of Horses - Is There a Ghost?

The Luckiest Surfboard in the World

When we were in Nicaragua, we made friends with a guy from SF named Walker who we surfed with daily for a week. He must've felt sorry for me because after two of my boards were knocked out of commission, he gave me his 6'6 and said that I could either keep it (and give it back to him next time I was in the Bay Area) or give it away, if I found somebody who might need it.

The last couple days of our trip we surfed with a local kid who charged every wave, no matter how unmakable, and seemed to be having much more fun than anybody else. He wore tattered boardshorts and a saggy rashguard, with curly black hair and a bright smile that seemed to pop from his dark complexion after every wave.

On our last day, after watching him get a nice little cover-up, I asked him in broken Spanish how long he'd been surfing. "Seis meses," he said, six months. The kid was already much better than me and I could tell that he was on his way to becoming a local hero, like the other older guys who shared the barreling beachbreak with me for the previous three weeks.

His board was an absolute disaster. It was old and yellow, with open dings and big delams. It had tiny sparkly star stickers that he'd applied to the deck, probably to emulate the pros that rolled through town. I knew that he was the right person for the stick that I'd just inherited, so I told him to stay there and that I'd be right back. I paddled in, ran back to the condo, grabbed the board and a couple bars of wax and headed back to the break. When I got back, the kid was standing on the shore with his old board laying it the sand. It was broken in half.

"What happened?" I asked. He gestured by arcing his arm over his head, smiling, "Grande!" At that, I handed him the new board and he looked it over proudly, running hands over the white deck.

As we paddled back out to the lineup together, I wondered how this coincidence could have occured . Had he been nursing his old board through waves, knowing that it was at the end of its life? Did he finally just put it in a more critical spot when he knew something better was on the way?

It didn't matter really. It took him two rides and he was back up to speed again, slotting himself under lips and doing celebratory flyaway kickouts after good waves. The boy was lucky, but maybe the board was luckier--having been given a chance at a second life where it could be ridden all the way into the ground.

The Sea and Cake - Crossing Line

Walker, if you're still reading this blog, this is where your board ended up. Sorry it took so long to give you the story.

RISK//////////V//////////REWARD

Yesterday I was the first guy out and I'll be damned if it wasn't double overhead again on the set waves. This is going to sound even wilder, but there were also an a bunch of beachcombers watching from the rocks and when I took off on my first one and they cheered as I made the drop. No pressure there...

My first three or four waves went really well, although I felt sort of immobilized by the speed and gravity of the situation as I skipped along on my 5'11. After a knee-buckling bottom turn, I'd go up and down the face of the wave, but wasn't too keen on trying anything more radical than that.

Then, spurred by some kind of lapse in judgement brought on by the "audience" I decided to scratch a little later and deeper into a set wave. I heard that initial "whoooooo!" as I went for it, then "ewwwwww!" as I felt myself free-falling with the lip, my hands still on the rails.

As intense as my first couple rides were, the payback was just as extreme. "Ragdolled" doesn't even begin to describe the tumble I took, arms and legs being twisted behind my torso, complete darkness surrounding me. I was dragged and dragged, at first in the lighter whitewater, then quickly sucked downward into the heavier turbine below. My mind just said "Relax. Don't fight it." I thought about fantasy football. Then the spinning lessened and I could see light behind my eyelids. A couple more strokes and I could finally suck wind.

My next few attempts were the same. I'd just get pitched and gobbled up. I thought I'd experienced heavy wipeouts in Nicaragua, but these were way worse. The good rides from earlier were already losing their crispness in my mind, replaced by the thumping darkness. I commented to OS that I seemed to be logging more time underwater than on waves.

After about 30 minutes, I finally locked into one a little earlier and made a drop, milking it to the end where the shoulder rounded off into the channel. Back outside, I talked to a guy who I'd surfed with before at that location, and he said he didn't trust anything under 7'0 on that wave. His normal board out there was a 7' x 3" thick Black Beauty.

It got me thinking that I might want something a little bigger for days like that. I started envisioning a 7' x 2.75" rounded pintail quad that would get me in earlier and have more edge in the wave as I dropped down the face.

It looks like I may have found a target for the next birthday board fund...

Danielson - Did I Step on Your Trumpet?

It's Coming...

"Hi there, remember me?"

Just got word from Manny that he picked up my board and is getting ready to ship it. Hopefully it will get here before the south swell rolls on by... Oh, it's already almost gone!

Mark Kozelek - Have You Forgotten?
(It's going to be this pretty.)

Wax On

Put some new wax on my stick tonight in anticipation of tomorrow's session. As you can see, I got a little carried away. Inspiration came from the wild wax jobs I've seen created by the guys down at Mollusk Surf Shop in SF. I'm sure one layer of mushy cold water wax will screw up the design, but it was nice to get artsy-fartsy for 20 minutes as the sun set on my front porch.

Stan Getz - One Note Samba

We've All Been There

Sitting at your desk. Landlocked. Dreaming of waves. Dreaming of vehicles to ride those waves. Now it's Gee who is fixating on a new stick.

Bongo Herman - Chairman of the Board

It's ALIVE!

Yesterday I got a phone call from Manny Caro, who informed me that he was going to start shaping my board. I marveled at the coincidence, having just posted about it a few days ago. After discussng a few more details about the board: Did I want bamboo side fins from 101 Fin Company? Yes. Definitely magenta for color? Um, no... I imagined myself doing a long cobblestone walk with a board the color of a doggie dick... Maybe something that I can ride at ALL of Oregon's breaks without drawing too much attention to myself? Blue then. Cool.

Then, last night, I received an email with photos of my 2+1 winged diamond tail. Dims: 5'11" x 20.5" x 2 3/8". Damn. It looks beautiful.

Check out the subtle fluted wings, which are supposed to add bite on turns. The board is made for steep down-the-line walls (I can think of a certain hike-in mysto spot that provides these kinds of hollow waves). I'll probably ride it in most conditions though. Now all I have to do is wait 2 more months for Moonlight to glass it!

A few more pics:







Low - California

Pick a Color, Any Color

I finally got around to sending Mandala a color chip for my new board. Manny told me that I could pretty much pick any color from the paint store and the fine folks at Moonlight Glassing would match it perfectly. I wanted something a little different, so I went with magenta. You might call it hot pink, but whatevs. As a painter, I've never feared color. As a matter of fact, I'm most drawn to complimentary colors that "vibrate" when placed next to eachother. We surf in turqouise water, mostly, so magenta seemed like a shade that would pop nicely. It also kind of reminds me of the images LeRoy Grannis and Jeff Divine took in the '60s and '70s with the super-saturated Kodachrome film. The resin tints looked like hard candy.

[Ammendment: I went with my second choice of blue (see above) instead of pink. Call me a Sissy, but I want to be able to use this board in the kinds of waves that it is made for - which unfortunately do not always welcome flashy colors. I'll save magenta for my long board.]

I sent Manny an email to ask if he received the chip and a few more questions about the board. His replies are in blue:

1. Did you receive my color chip?
Got the color chip...killer.

2. Do you know anything about these environmentally friendlier blanks from Homeblown?
Waiting on soy foam from Homeblown...sweet.

3. When you start shaping my board, can you send a pic or two for my blog? (No prob if that's a big hassle.)
Pics...always.

I also found a really good interview on nysurf.com with Manny Caro where he talks in detail about his whole approach and the history of Mandala. A good read, if anyone is interested. It definitley re-stoked me on my order (now a diamond tail), which I placed ages ago.

Alex Smoke - Jah Future

The (Bruised) Plantain

This is my quiver right now. I've decided to rack the Grean Bean and stick with the stick that has opened up my surfing the most since I started three years ago. It's a quad shaped by Stu Kenson. Not sure I can remember the dims: 5'8 X 2.75 X 20 (double wing) comes to mind.

Like I've said before, it rides really well. I think it has a little more nose rocker than traditional fish, so it can drop into some pretty decent waves without pearling. I think I also mentioned that this thing is a ding magnet. I just picked it up from the shop, where I had a huge gash from Mexican reef fixed on Saturday morning. As I got into the water and started paddling out, stoked to finally have my favorite board back, I came to a screaching halt and heard the sound of crunching fiberglass. I had just run over a barnacle-encrusted stone hiding inches below the surface.



Shit.

I hustled back to my gear as the other guys continued out into the rip, more mindful than I of the rocks. I asked everyone I saw if they had tape; nobody did. I grabbed a tube of Suncure and smeared some into the fissure, then I aimed it at the sun, which had creased the clouds near the horizon. 15 minutes later, I was on my way back to the rip, paddling wide of any submerged boulders.

You guys are all going to tell me to fix this ding myself, but I'm a little hesitant, as I don't want to screw it up. I also want to use the board this week... I'm not sure that the Suncure is completely sealing the cracks. What's the best quick-fix? Duct tape? Clear packing tape (as Slim assures me)? A "Life's a Beach" Sticker? More Suncure? How hard will it be to do a better repair if I throw another layer of crusty resin on it? Kenson assured me that this Surfblanks Australia blank has a more closed cell structure than other poly boards, so maybe shouldn't stress on it.

Anyway, some peeps asked to see my quad, and here it is!

Evangelicals - The Water Is Warm

(not)

Blame It on the Board

This is a picture of me waxing up my 6'6" hybrid swallow tail "Evo" model board from Hammersurf. I used to fondly refer to it as the Green Bean, having named all my previous boards after fruit (The Banana, The Blueberry). But after last weekend, I decided to rename this board The Banana Slug. When I first got this board two years ago, it seemed impossibly fast and squirrley - a far cry from my stable 7-foot and 8-foot fun boards. Now, after riding a quad that is almost a foot shorter than this, the board feels cumbersome and stiff. Like a raisin sliding through cold oatmeal.

Last weekend was the first time I'd ridden the Slug in months. The waves were big and fast all three days, requiring speed to make freight-training sections. The days where I surfed backside were the worst. I've never been incredibly comfortable with my back to the wave, but this was ridiculous: I watched other surfers generate speed backside, clearing sections and getting tubes, but when I dropped into the reeling rights, I would start my bottom turn and get hammered by the lip (did I mention that I'm riding a Hammer?).

Granted, I wasn't doing what I knew I should: grabbing my rail and twisting my torso (kinda like my position in the picture above), but I still wasn't making waves that I thought I might be able to on my quad (The Plantain). Even on the last day of our trip, when we were surfing the barrelling lefts of a certain mysto spot, I couldn't get in early enough and have time to pump down the line before the wave chewed me up and spat me out.

Is it the board?

Is it my wimpy arms?

Is it my lack of skill in technical waves?

How big a wave can I surf on my 5'8 quad?

One consolation was that almost all my other surf chums who I talked to about the surf last weekend were having similar issues. Maybe we were just all knocking off our collective rust. But I'm still claiming that this board could be a little big for me. Anybody want to make an offer? It's never been dinged!

New Pornographers - Use It