Alberzzzz

Going to surf Malibu first thing in the morning tomorrow (sunday), meeting up with Alberz, Gilda, Erin and Graham...Bringing some luggage for Albers with me also:

7' Vampire Hull, which I'm pretty sure doesn't actually have rails...its more like two foiled halves of a board glue together at the rail line; and his first self-shaped d-fin log (we glassed it together..awwww) as well!

Prepare...

...For greatness.

The White Buffalo [Jake Smith] is coming back to town...Friday night at Soho.

Last time I saw him, it changed my perspective on music forever...

Words cannot express my excitement.

White Buffalo fever is about to break loose all over this poor, unexpecting town.

Anyone within earshot will be stopped dead in their tracks.

She Pickle

Tyler Warren and She hull seem to be getting along pretty well in Oz from the photos that Morgan sent me this morning; Tyler, Morgan and John Smart are driving around the greater part of Australia on a month long surf assault.  

She hull made the flight over with Morg and from what I hear they're getting some fun waves out there!

Be sure to check out both Pickle's and Morgan's blogs for more Oz photos!

Shelterific

If anyone in LA and/or Orange County is curious about these bladed little hulls that have been appearing in the lineups and the blogosphere lately, and want to see one in the flesh (or glass?), Graham down at Shelter Surf Shop in Long Beach now has a 6'9 in his hands (the Black Diamond).

The BD will be terrorizing the local lineups down south under some very talented feet. I'm REALLY stoked to work with Graham and can't wait to go back down and spend some time in the water and hang out with everyone!  

We've had a series of conversations about my boards and my philosophies within shaping so I'm confident that he can help answer any questions you've got while checkin' the boards out!

H.

A dear friend of mine sent me this email a little while back, I stumbled upon it today and thought it was still very pertinent to my own life as well as some very close friends of mine at the moment.

Enthusiasm and a Little Faith.

A lot of people think that Michaelangelo and Da Vinci were peers, compadres, even friends. The truth is that they were not...

When Michelangelo was a young stonecarver, toiling in relative obscurity, only known to a few ardent supporters, Da Vinci was a much adored, well established, widely known and incredibly affluent figure. The stories say when Da Vinci would galantly (and meticuliously)walk down the streets of Italy, surrounded by his throngs of admirers and hangers on, the roads would be closed by the sheer magnitude and pagentry of the occasion. Onlookers would state that his countenance almost charged for each noble step he took, for each brush stroke he laid down....Michelangelo, on the other hand, was an ever hard working,
commoner...covered in dust from his stones and a shuck of disshelved hair -- a tribute to his reckless abandon. Yet his foward looking nature kept his feet on the ground, married to the idea that someday, he too would be known as a great artist. He was 20 when he began his true career with his sculptures of BACCHUS and the PIETA...

By 25 he had surpassed all the sculptors of his day....

In a fresco at the Sistine I, in the Last Judgement, (an old man of 60, at this point) Michelangelo painted St. Batholomew and his well know hide of human skin, resting in his hands... but instead of the Saint's face Michelangelo painted his own face...

...to me, this was a tribute to his undying belief that suffering was vital
for true faith...real belief.
Keep the faith.
Plan for the future.
H.

Flex Me Cap'n

I'm always down for a good experiment :)

Photo: Alberzzz

A lot of glass panel flextails are built with what seems (to me) like very little thought about actual function and flex dynamic, and more with 'coolness' in mind.  When a glass panel is used, you're trying to create a variable tail rocker that has an accelerating curve when you lay into it; decreasing your turning radius and creating a really smooth, springy, tight and FAST reaction...

Most glass panel tails I've seen lately are not integrated into the board at all, they are more like a glass lip around the tail, which creates a hinge-type flex, which can actually cavitate and produce a whole lot of drag...THEN spring.  Including the panel into the board itself is essential to making a flextail work well...thats where you begin to integrate the panel into the board's design, instead of creating the panel as an afterthought.

The tail on Nick's 6'3 (in the photo above) is foiled out using the finbox as a central twisting point.  Twist in a board is not usually a good thing, but in this case it is exactly what we are going for, twist creates smooth rocker curves and uses the other side of the board to un-twist it and project you quickly out of a bottom turn, or tighten your arc.  The tail is foiled about 12" from the end of the board, just past the finbox; and thins all the way down to 8 layers of glass at the tips of the tail (watch your ankles!).  

Killer Bees

Graham's 6'9 She, in black.
Nick's 6'3 Glass Panel Gull in white.

April's Bro-tastic deal

Keeping it with the hulls this month for the board of the month...after the recent obsessive behaviors of numerous riders, April is the month of the She hull.

$450 through the end of the month for custom orders; she hulls are best from 6'9-7'6...7' is the classic :)

Clear wetsanded finish with a 1/16" stringer is standard, colors are a tad extra but add cool-points, its all up to you!

email me at ryan@pointconceptsurf.com for answers to ANY questions you've got.

-Ryan

mini write-up HERE

and a little bit from Albers, THERE

Absence

Hey Everyone!
I'm really sorry for the absence as of late; My computer crashed (still in the shop...) late last week and I ran away to the great rocky north for a secret surf/camping assault.
For anyone with a board on order at the moment, I'm really sorry that communication has slowed; Boards are going to be pushed back a tad because of some recent family events, I'll be in Texas for the next week taking care of a few things, but shaping will resume very very very shortly when I get back to the shack and start foiling out all these hulls :).

in the meantime ill try to post a few new photos from the weekend up north, and maybe Morgan will send some photos (and/or video??? hint hint...) of She Hull in Oz!
-Ryan

Malnourished

On average it takes me twice as long to shape one of these as any other board because of the amount of volume I take out of them...the rails are thinned out to just a little less than the point of an index finger (not a sausage shaped finger either...). I'm not sure how to fully express how bladed these boards are, but most people that have seen them have remarked on their similarity to an alaia...(also note the fin placement compared to other hulls).
Its up to you to decide how you like it, but so far a whole lot of perspectives have been warped...

Albers... Photo: Bogus