A Clearly Winding Path

8' x 22" x X"

v.Bowls

The composition of a surfboard is a pretty special thing to me. The minute details that create the whole feel of the board in the water, in your hands, in your eyes, all of it. It gets me every time, when everything converges.

The most satisfying part for me is not planning too much...let it flow and when all of the elements come together organically, then you have a truly special board. This is unquestionably one of those boards.

Every year around my birthday I take some time to build myself a board to pay a little homage to why and when I started shaping (my 19th birthday)...I turn 25 here in a week or so and this board's evolution has been rattling around and consequently morphing over and over in my brain since late January.

I used to jump at the chance to build a new board for myself but I'm finding a lot of peace and satisfaction in letting something marinate in my head for a while before I even draw on the blank.

The inlayed pages are of a favorite book of mine, Siddartha. It holds a pretty special place in my heart that marks the time where I feel I truly started to find myself and my own path; My early twenties have been anything but a normal experience and I'm appreciating that fact exponentially more every day.

While in australia, a board that mr.Jordan Nobel had in his quiver sparked a little fire in my mind; it was a 7'6 torn out of an older longboard, inspired by Wayne Lynch and the Evolution time-period.

Widepoint back, thin, flat foil, light (extremely.) belly; and thin, down, refined rails. The thing was so much fun, even in the crap waves we got. Trimmy, with a little flick in it's step, it felt more than confidence inspiring with my recently un-casted broken ankle. You could feel it's potential when the wave picked up off the bottom of the ocean and gave you a nice little pocket to work with.

After spending time on Jordan's board and a few other mid-lengths that I shaped pre-australia, I knew the direction I wanted to take this one and began thinking the finer points of it's shape over; the rocker curve, template and foil being that major deviations to what I 'normally' shape. A common theme while this one was on the racks was to shape until I felt uncomfortable and thought it ugly, then go farther.

Instead of writing the extremely-fine details of the board and it's purpose, I first wanted to write about the motivation and reason, and provide the details in a more natural form...The pages of my journal. I guess it's a clear and transparent view into how I build a board and the things I tend to pay attention to while shaping it: