Turning On

'da boyz ripping it up, I was particularly impressed with the stylings of mr.Will Adler on this day...steeeeeeeez!

Hype

sandspit surf check.

Capt. Lingcod!

Trevor and Johnny made a friend one evening while surfing a spot that we stumbled upon in the wilds.
Just as it fell dark the guys got out of the water and we hopped into the car to go head off the Captain at the launch ramp a few miles down the coast. He told us his name was Captain Lingcod and he just had to share a few waves with the guys before he went home for the evening. We bought a few live black Cod off of him and brought them back to the campsite for dinner!
Pretty nice little evening :)

Music by The White Buffalo [How the West Was Won]

Old Forgotten Thrill

Part of a series of photos taken while flying into Santa Barbara at new year's time. The plane took off in San Francisco just at sunset and we landed about 10 minutes after dark...The entire trip was one long sunset that had my undivided attention.

m.Mesa

Some recent polaroids from visits to the shop. Greenhouse shot by one of the raddest people I've ever had the pleasure of spending copious amounts of time with, Kabir Cardenas.

Thru

photo | Jeremy Koreski

Ultra Viiiiiiiiiiibez

ms.L Ross. Thank you for sending this along.

So much.

Escape

got out of town for a few days last weekend with 'da boyz and our girls.

Here's some random shots from the weekend :)

Dippin'

Kyle Albers + v.Bowls, sent along by mr.Kew.

Kyle has the best karate hands in the business, though I've heard his dad has a mean pair also.

#3

One funkafied project for an esteemed colleague, Ryan Burch.

I feel like my brain is being torn in 3 by totally different designs/genres right now...more ideas blasting around my head than I know what to do with so I bought a pile of blanks today to start getting deeper.

Experiments

Pretty darn cool and an interesting build; reminded me a lot of the kevlar/paulownia hull I did a while back but upside down!

Very Happy Medium

photos courtesy of Jeff Johnson

Jeff Johnson and I got a little fire lit under our butts yesterday afternoon and whipped out a new 7'2 for him. Lately I've been wanting to shape a more pinned out version of my 7'4 pocket pleaser, and he was looking for something along the lines of what mr.Alex Knost is riding these days. We had a little chat about the plus' and minus' of each design and the intentions/realities behind them and decided to get mowing. I used 4 extremely different templates to find the curves we were after, then gave it a funkadelic foil and bottom shape much like my current v.Bowls'. A lot of the current boards have three very distinct areas of the template curve and that's the thorn in my paw with them, so I smoothed it into a more flowing arc but left just enough hips and straights to get the speed and turning that we were after.

I have some reservations about the current theory that's being put to use in these types of designs right now; everyone seems very anti-concave and I think that's pretty ridiculous...it's great to be 'oldschool' but why totally ignore the benefits of 40+ years of trial and error if its going to give your board a more responsive feel? To me its the difference between stop-and-start surfing (within these types of designs) and powerful, connected lines. I'm not talking an entirely concave bottom, just hints in specific areas to transform the design into a modern vehicle.

All confused ranting aside, I'm really stoked on how Jeff's board came out and even more excited to see it glide!

Drilled

Be Explosive

Found trevor and a mini-monster tube from last week all up on ESPN.com, sweet shot!

I do remember this wave...and I do remember counting 5 shacks. And video does exist :)

:: Lack of recent bloggage due to removal from civilization...Will resume promptly ::

Finless Function

Silence is golden...

..but I'm about to explode.

zippy framegrab via mr.Michael Kew!

TG fo' REEEEEEEEE

..then he was all FWAP under the lip and made the wave. It was radical.

36 Hours

5'6 Piggyback for Thomas Cravarezza in Italy.

This one is 2" shorter in length and about 1" wider in the tail than Trevor's original version, with two extra fins hitching a ride also:

Heeeeere piggypiggypigy..

DraggleMe

One mr.Johnny McCann ripping his squash-taily 5'7" t.Rev last week, yew!

Rabbit's Foot

Somewhere in the neighborhood of 4'10 and rips 'da pit. I seen it wit' my own two eyez.

My finless design ideas just got re-routed pretty severely and we're on to much greener pastures! Two very talented surfriders were blowing my mind last night on this thing. Pulling the closest thing to a cutback I've seen yet, accelerating back into the whitewater. I'm sure with a couple of slight modifications and a bit more riding we'll get it there and solve that nasty little problem.

The rule book that was thrown out the window just got booted off the lawn it landed on.

Surf Check

:

76'67

Stringeress SilkyLove...One smooth operatOr...

Recently...

Deja Vu

By the time we got to woodstock, we were half a million strong.

Tangerine Dream

With a bit of inspiration from Ryan Burch's outrageous work, Kew and I dreamed up this 5'2"understated asym:

Intuition and Reassurance

Around the New Year I usually write a little bit about the past and coming months; I was curious last night what I had written last year so I dug it up and read through. It was reassuring [as I read] to feel that I've stuck to my path and done justice to the hopes that I had set for myself in 2011. In fact, the last year has tested me a thousand times beyond what I had ever thought possible, and I'm proud that I've held up my end of the bargain.

Leaving Point Concept behind was a big deal to me. It was a choice based on honesty to myself and my chosen path as much as it was a choice to boil down the important parts of my 'job'... To make sure that I'm keeping myself true to my passions and curiosities so as to stay inspired and on an honest path and not one run by glossy marketing schemes, machine shapes and t-shirt lines. I may be naive, but I'm living for honesty right now over monetary profit.

I asked myself to trust in people's goodness and give them the benefit of the doubt as long as I hold up my end of the bargain; take out what I put in and trust that others will do the same. I have most definitely been shown that this kind of action is not always reciprocated, and has revealed some true ugliness in the past year; but it's also brought me the most surreal of opportunities and friends. Its like an automatic sifter of good and bad...You learn about yourself and about other people, then make an informed decision on what to do with the information from there. And thats exactly what I wanted to do when I started building surfboards for other people: Learn. About friends, surfing, myself, and about my path in life through surfboards.

As 2012 starts, I'm poised in front of as many new opportunities as ever. I am humbled and grateful to everyone who continues laying down the challenges in front of me, and flattered that somehow week after week I just have to keep building honest, good surfboards and everything will work out. I'm more than happy to do that. I want to be transparent, and I want what is inside of that to be honest and grateful. Thank you for supporting my ambitions, publicly or silently, I truly appreciate what my life has become.

So with all of that said and my slate clean, I want to share a short edit that I put together of some clips taken by mr.Kew. I've been holding this one in my back pocket for a couple of months for some reason, waiting for the right time to let it go...This feels as good of time as any. Trevor draws some beautifully clean and effortless lines on his v.bowls; Full-screen it and turn up the volume a little; it'll increase your mellow.