Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Blast Off

Since joining up with Grass is Greener, and after some new friend poking through my um...eclectic...quiver, a few boards were called into question.
In particular, a 5'6 flextail kneeboard that I built for myself two summers ago and rode pretty much exclusively through all of last winter; it was so fun I hadn't realized I had not stood up on a surfboard in almost 4 months.




The board was built in a day, the ultimate in "function over form" thinking; the template was handed down to me from an old local friend who got it from G.G. back in the day.
It went as follows:
Shape the bottom, glass it.
Take a grinder and a 50 grit disc to the deck to remove tons of volume...then remove all but 3/16" to 1/16" of the foam in the back 1/3 of the board to create a big 'ol flex panel...then finish glassing the deck:






This one has gotten a lot of interest from lookers-on in the recent past, and slowly faded into obscurity in my quiver...With a few fond memories of 15+ ft faces and full railed bottom turns left seared into my brain.
Heres a shot from her debut with the ocean, in itty-bitty beachbreak, setting up for one of the beautiful mini cover-ups from that day:





Change the way you see a wave peeling in front of you...a new perspective from down low may sound funny or look goofy; but try it and you'll see why Kyle and Theo both had the silliest grins on their faces today...
Thanks for bringing this one back to life, guys...

2 comments:

unidentified said...

very cool.
fin?
med/wide base greenough copy?
size?
interesting how the weight distribution of being on knee vs on foot effects the fin positioning.
i'm still messin' with sutho.
thanks

Ryan said...

fin is 10", foiled out of a big old noserider fin i found kickin around...
If i remember correctly i took the greenough 4a template and added a bit of tip volume to it.