Shaper Gary Swanson of Hammer Surf believes that a great surfboard is designed off solid fundamentals; outline, rocker, thickness, vee, concave, and rail shape. He also believes in a fluid and clean outline where transitions are smooth from the nose to the tail. In sticking with solid shaping fundamentals, Swanson cautiously avoids fads and gimmicks typical in today’s overly hyped and marketed surfboards.

Gary Swanson has been in the surfing industry long enough to see the longboard/shortboard transition, single fin ear of the 70’s, thruster revolution of the 80’s, and the performance longboard exodus in the 90’s. He believes that each of these critical eras has brought new ideas and views on classic fundamental surfboard design and plans to keep Hammer Surf board designs state of the art yet deep in tradition.

 

Ted Kearns first started shaping in 1986 under the supervision of Outer Banks hero Murray Ross. He started out cutting fin patches and sanding rails for Ross and a year later both moved to Mickey McCarthy’s Sun Surfboards shop. Ted polished and glassed boards with Rascoe Hunt and the two started Gale Force Glassing in 1992 and soon their shop became a surfboard label with growing demand of Ted’s shapes. Kearns has been influence by Murray Ross, Lynn Shell, Mickey Mcarthy, Scott Busbey, Matt Kinoshita , Donald Takayama, and Greg Loehr.

Ted’s shaping philosophy is in understanding what the customer needs in his or her surfboard(s) as every surfer is unique with their own style, ability, grace, and athleticism. He also believes that every shaper should know how to shape all styles of boards in demand and shaping only one style board is boring. TK Performance Shapes offers custom surfboards from 5’2″ grom blades to 10’0″+ tankers and everything in between and is based on the Outer Banks of North Carolina.

While we’re still talking on the topic of safety, I feel the need to recommend Surfco noseguards. The great thing about this product is that it does not affect performance in any way, yet can greatly reduce the risk of losing an eye. The pointy tip on shortboards creates an extremely dangerous hazard especially when getting rolled around in turbulent whitewash or when the leash causes the board to spring back toward the unsuspecting surfer.

Surfers have shared their horror stories with Surfco and all of them explain that if only they had used noseguards, they would have avoided major injury. If you visit the Surfco shop in Pearl City, Hawaii, there’s a book with testimonials complete with uncensored photos of surfboard doing plenty of damage. A California surfing rep pulled into a closeout barrel one day and as he was getting rag dolled, the surfboard snapped back towards him and the tip punctured through the side of his jaw all the way through his tongue! You could see all the stitches required to sew his jaw closed and the sickening image of a tongue resembling a shredded doughnut.

I wish more people used noseguards for the safety of themselves but more importantly for the safety of others. I recall one incident when a shortboarder snaked a wave from me by dropping in behind me and as he was flying down the uncontrollably and ended up colliding with me full speed. The tip of his shortboard stabbed my butt but miraculously I didn’t surfer any gashes. A few inches to the left and we would have been talking about a slightly different version of Gerry Lopez’s colon bag story. If that guy who collided with me had a noseguard it would have substantially decreased the risk of serious injury…kamikaze surfers like that should be required to use noseguards in all of their boards.

If you’re one of the macho types and don’t like people knowing that you use noseguards, Surfco offers noseguards in white or clear colors to help match your board and they also come in a Super Slick formula which doesn’t stick in your surf bag. Noseguards are available for the following types of boards:

Shortboards (Flip nose boards)
All other Shortboards (Retro/Older style boards)
Longboards
Funboards

This week we tried Surfco’s Proteck X-Foil regular flex fins. The Hawaii based company offers high performance fins which feature urethane edges providing surfers with fluid flow and more importantly, reduce fin-related injuries. These are not cheapo fins for beginners and while the trailing edges are flexible, they provide a loose and forgiving ride for advanced surfers.

Proteck fins thruster fins come in both 4.25″ and the standard 4.5″ templates. Surfco also offers fins in a variety of colors and fin systems including FCS, Future, Lok Box, O’Fishl, and NSP. The fins also come in three flexes: regular, stiff, and carbon flex.

We tried both the 4.25″ and 4.5″ templates with great results. What we found was that the 4.25″ fins work well with a smaller board (we tested it with a 5’9 TORE Rocket Fish). These smaller templated fins can help loosen your board up in smaller weaker surf (head high and under). Just remember, it wouldn’t make sense to use 4.25″ fins in your 7’6 funboard. On the other hand, the 4.5″ Protecks worked great in a standard 6’2 shortboard and felt just as good if not better than stock FCS fins. The Protecks provided a lot more confidence in hitting the lip without worrying about putting a gash in your head with a mis-timed lip smack.

The stiff flex fins work best in overhead and larger surf and also work well for the larger/heavier surfer. The Proteck Carbon Fins are extremely stiff and provide the least amount of forgiveness but work well in larger surf (overhead plus) and are designed for the better surfer.

Overall, we highly recommend Proteck fins. They provide surprisingly great performance and even more importantly, reduce the risk of fin-related injuries. With an unprecedented number of surfers crowding line-ups these days, we wish that every surfer would use these fins and improve their surfing and make it safer for everyone else.

I tested my friend Bruce’s 9’4 Joel Tudor Classic Pin. The board measured 9’4 x 22.125″ x 3.125″ with slight concave under the nose, smooth 50/50 rails, and 10″ classic fin. This was the first time I’ve ridden one of these ‘Cali-type’ longboards with it’s ultra flat rocker and even rails. Hawaii doesn’t really have slow point break style waves like those found in CA and because our waves are often shorter, steeper, and packed with more punch, our longboards tend to utilize a lot more nose and tail rocker to keep from pearling and provide quicker turning ability. The Tudor Classic Pin provided excellent paddling power and its wave catching ability was effortless. The overall flatter deck and rocker combined with soft rails proved to be something that I’ll need to get used to but I did manage a few smooth and arcing turns.

Unfortunately, due to the poor shape of wave faces today, I wasn’t able to noseride this board. However, I’ll get a chance to ride the Classic Pin a few more times soon and report on its nose riding ability. Stay tuned for the update.

The June 2007 issue of Surfer Magazine has shed light on one of the negative points of Clark Foam’s closure. While Clark’s closure has opened the doors for a variety of foam producers and pushed experimentation with new composite materials, old barriers are now gone and imported surfboards have an easier entry into the U.S. surfing market. Costco has been selling cheapo beginner type surfboards in California and Hawaii since 2001.� The Realm� established itself as a cheap Costco brand after selling out by mass-distributing their boards throughout various Costco warehouses and even Gordan & Smith boards have made it through the aisles.

Costco predicts that it will sell between 7,000-8000 surfboards this summer and sheds an even greater problem in the surfboard industry; the invasion of cheaply made Chinese surfboards. China, which was once the ‘Sleeping Giant’ has obviously awakened with their economy growing at full steam. The Chinese have taken notice of surfing’s recent popularity explosion and there are now more than 60 Chinese shapers in the communist country. These shapers are currently being trained by some of the best surfboard production names and while none of the 60 Chinese shapers have ever surfed before let alone seen an ocean before, all of their shaping is done by hand. It seems as though the quality of their shapes is getting better and even Rusty Preisendorfer was impressed by what he saw.

It would be hard for surf shops to reject these cheap Chinese imports because they have the potential to finally give shops greater margins on surfboard sales. On the flip side, these cheaply made import boards take away business from local surfboard shapers and manufacturers who form the backbone of the surfboard industry as a whole.

I can see how these cheap imports help beginner or budget surfers by providing them with a functional board that doesn’t break their pocket. But I also know how difficult it is for surfboard� shapers and glassers who work off of razor thin margins. There will always be a need for custom surfboards and if you’re thinking of spending a few dollars on a Costco board, think twice, because it would really suck to see a line-up littered with surfboards sporting ‘Made in China’ stickers. Support your local shaper, you’ll be happy you did:

Hawaii Shapers

California Shapers

Rest of Shapers�

Mandala Custom Shapes which is based in San Francisco, CA, specializes in vintage, retro, and alternative surfboards. Shaper Manuel Caro offers a variety of fish with a vast number of fin templates and combinations. Caro believes that having a custom surfboard shaped is a great way to develop a personal connection between surfer and shaper. Custom orders usually involve finding out the surfer’s personal information like height, weight, surfing experiences, waves surfed, etc. which helps in shaping a board most suited for that particular surfer.

All custom surfboard glassing is done by Moonlight Glassing in San Marcos for the best quality lamination and boards are normally glassed 6oz+6oz deck, 6oz bottom. Other glassing options are available depending on preference and or weight. Several models offered by Mandala Custom Shapes include:

Double-wing Quad Fish
Round Pin Quad
Bat-tail Quad

Marine-Ply Twin Keel
Marine-Ply Canard Quad
Marine-Ply AK2

Single fins
Mandala Five

Caro has been influenced by Rich Pavel, Thomas Campbell, and Alex Knopps to name a few.

In the 1960’s, Dewey Weber influenced both surfboard design and the surfing lifestyle that still has influence to this day. Dewey quickly garnered the reputation of being one of surfing’s top businessmen and soon he was recognized as the largest and most innovative surfboard manufacturer in the entire surfing industry. During that span, Weber contributed many surfboard design and manufacturing innovations and opened up surfing’s reach by introducing skateboard and apparel line to his surfboard business.

Currently, Dewey Weber is focused on making top notch custom surfboards which are all hand made in the U.S. All Dewey Weber surfboards are manufactured in Southern California and glassing is done by Kaysen Surf Designs. Being that the company has always embraced change and innovation, it is no surprise that the company utilizes a state of the art shaping machine and has experimented with epoxy resin over the past few years.

The company specializes in high quality retro and traditional longboard shapes and Dewey Weber’s San Clemente Surf Shop provides surfers with a wide variety of quality stock boards in their showroom. If you aren’t able to find exactly what you’re looking for, the Weber shaping team can design a board to your exact specifications.

This is by no means a recent trend, but the growing popularity of surfing has lead to the introduction of a various surfboards specifically designed for beginner type surfers made with softer and more forgiving materials. One of the companies producing beginner surfboards is Liquid Shredder, a company based in Peru, where their soft tops are both manufactured and tested.

The unique part about this company is that they claim their boards have entry level prices with professional performance. Their soft top surfboards feature Peruvian hard wood stringers to help stabilize the board and a soft (but not spongy soft) deck to minimize injuries.

The company also claims that their soft tops look and perform like a traditional fiberglass board. That may be an overstatement but with a starting price of only $129, these boards may be good for kids and rank beginners on a tight budget who are looking to get into surfing.

Neal Norris, of Valley Isle Surfboards in Maui, has been shaping custom surfboards since 1969. Throughout the years, he has been designing functional and innovative surfboards custom built for each individual surfer. No surfboard is made the same and a surfer’s height, weight, and experience are all factors which contribute to subtle differences in each of his boards. All surfboards produced by Norris are hand shaped of the highest quality fiberglass resin and materials.

Valley Isle Surfboards offers the following surfboard designs:

Shortboards – These boards are designed for small to moderate surf with a curvey outline for maximum maneuverability.

Big Boy Boards – These boards are enlarged shortboards for surfers who weigh between 180-200 lbs which make surfing fun for bigger and heavier surfers.

Funboards – These designs consist of hybrids and mini tankers and offer the paddling power of a longboard with the responsiveness of a shortboard.

Big Wave Boards – These surfboards are built with gun outlines and stronger “S” cloth fiberglass and suited for large hollow surf.

Longboards – Valley Isle specializes in modern high performance longboards that are quick and manueverable. These boards narrow the gap between modern day shortboards and the heavy “log type” longboards of the past.