Surf season has been in full swing on the coast as the Indian summer trades blows with Old Man winter in a losing battle in which surfers are the opportunistic beneficiaries.  Onshore wind flows begin to clock around from the south in advance of storm fronts, and then switch to the northwest in their wake. Finally they swing to the northeast or, more rarely, due east – in piercing blue offshore perfection that mends tortured lumps of water into shapely waves, the shroud of summer fog lifts and reveals the coastside in all her glory.

This familiar seasonal change is met with great anticipation by surfers around these parts, but the vibe seems just a little more electric this year. Hollywood has made itself at home this fall as a battalion of moving vans sets up camp at various locations along the coast for “Of Men and Mavericks,” the movie paying homage to Maverick’s surf legend Jay Moriarity. Producer and star Gerard Butler got a firsthand welcome to the break with a legit 2-wave hold-down and flush through the rocks. The World Surfing Tour also decided to pay a visit, stopping over “Somewhere in San Francisco” en route from Portugal to Hawaii, spending just enough time to crown Ke11y Slater with his 11th championship…twice.

Yet with all the celebrities under foot the past couple months, the real star has yet to show up after skipping town last year – the Maverick’s Invitational 2011/12. While “The Jay at Mavericks” never ran, Jay’s outgoing spirit will still be in ample evidence, as a new local grass roots organization takes shape with the community and surfers as the driving force behind the event. A five-member board has been put in place for the contest composed of a group of surfers, local businessmen and leaders to ensure that the event stays true to its new manifesto. Reappointed as Contest Director, Jeff Clark aims to “get back to a great event showcasing the world’s best big wave surfers.”

Slater is negotiating with his sponsors to again challenge the infamous break. Kelly took second place back in 2000 behind eventual three-time winner Darryl “Flea” Virostko when his sponsor Quiksilver was still lending its name to the event, narrowly pipping Jay Moriarity in an earlier heat that many thought the young Santa Cruz charger had won. The rest of the Invitee list of 24 surfers will likely remain essentially the same one that was decided by peer vote of the athletes themselves last year (see Bruce Jenkins’ revealing profiles). The caliber of international big wave athlete is such that there will be not one easy heat, though there was a fresh heat draw at the opening ceremonies on January 6 a week into the revised January 1- March 31 contest window. Even the alternates list reads like a veritable “Who’s Who” of hell men. Talk is that Flea will be on water patrol this year — replaced by Ben Wilkinson. Josh Loya is first alternate, with Tyler Fox and Colin Dwyer next in line.

Board member Brian Overfelt is the owner of Old Princeton Landing and a community activist, which informs his perspective on the contest’s mandate and structure. A 20-person panel reports to the board, delegated responsibilities ranging from rescue to beach marshals. The aim is to build a stable structure for years to come based on three central pillars: “community, athletes and environment.”  Tight coordination with over 14 government agencies, ranging from the Sheriff to the NOAA, has gone exceptionally well, but may ultimately be assigned to an event planning company in the future.

As Brian puts it, “It is important to water the roots of the local business community, which is always at the front of my mind on any decision the board makes.” In terms of tourism, contest day is one of the biggest of the year for Half Moon Bay and it’s important that the stakeholders in the community benefit from the contest. He foresees a day when local pride in the event runs deep and everyone celebrates it, rather than ducking and running for cover when the show comes to town.  Indeed, all will be welcome to a Maverick’s Festival during the contest, which will take place in the Oceano parking lot to help minimize environmental damage to the sensitive cliffs of the Fitzgerald Marine Reserve. Details about tickets are available on: http://mavericksinvitational.com/

Access to the bluffs will be severely curtailed after previous incidents of rock slides and spectators being flushed into the harbor during the epic 2009/2010 event won by Chris Bertish.  Land-based judges, photographers and journalists have in the past been granted access to the Air Force radar station at Pillar Point, but the new commander has been tightening security rather than offering access to witness the extraordinary natural events at the base of its cliffs. After recent productive meetings, however, the Air Force may relent on access and even provide “air support” for the event, allowing in some contest apparatus including judging, photography and officiating.

Jeff Clark has always been in sync with Maverick’s and a little Clark luck could well be in order when cherry picking a contest day, requiring full use of the tighter contest window. Mark Sponsler of Stormsurf forecasting doesn’t like the way the weather gods are conspiring this season, which has already slashed viable days for the Invitational.  He accurately anticipated “high pressure taking firm control of the North Pacific amid remnants of what was a moderate-plus inactive La Nina weather pattern that he expects to hold well into the spring of 2012. That is not to say there will be no storms, in fact there could be short periods of intense activity when the ‘Active Phase’ gets an opportunity to come to fruition, but that will be the exception rather than the rule.”

Yet there is a refreshing sense of earnestness, renewal and hope about the new contest organization and Overfelt emphasizes that the board has gravitated toward volunteers with a genuine love for the sport of big wave surfing and the community. Indeed, pending a key long-term sponsorship deal or two, which are expected to be imminent, start-up funding is tight and the new group is leery of making big promises and coming up short. It will take a lot of hard work, coordination and a little luck to pull it off and, as usual, Mother Nature will not be rushed by any official time table.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Mike Wallace has surfed for over two decades on the East and West Coasts, Hawaii, Europe and NorCal. Currently a resident of Moss Beach with his family of four, Mike has been spearheading an effort by The Surfrider Foundation to reopen Martin’s Beach to the public. He helps coach the HMB High and Cunha Intermediate School Surf Teams, and in his spare time is dedicated to surf journalism and surfboard design under his “Iconoclast” label.

Related posts:

12th Annual Kahuna Kupuna Contest in Pacifica on Saturday, August 6, 2011
SurfPulse Coverage of 2009-10 Maverick’s Contest on Saturday, February 13, 2010
“THE 24” SELECTED FOR 2006 MAVERICKS SURF CONTEST

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Montara wetsuit upstart Isurus has teamed up with coastside charger Tim West to develop an innovative new line of high-end, buoyant, light and flexible wetsuits targeting hardcore watermen and women who tend to spend as many as 200 days in the water per year. Named after the Latin genus for the sleek Mako shark and inspired by suits developed for hyper-competitive triathletes, Isurus has leapt right off the starting line in an audacious attempt to marry superior materials with a tighter tolerance fit and high quality manufacturing geared toward NorCal surfer-athletes.

Wetsuits have come a long way since 1951 when waterman and physicist Hugh Bradner invented the first wetsuit (see A Waterman’s Tale: The True Inventor of the Wetsuit). Driven by a bygone ethic of invention for the greater good, and sponsored by the Defense Department, Bradner didn’t patent the idea that a person donning such a rubber garment didn’t have to stay dry to stay warm. As Bradner put it, “I don’t give a damn who thought of it first, as long as I’m not going around making a false claim.” Bradner died on May 5, 2008, at the age of 92 without ever receiving full credit for his creation. But his legacy lives on in those with the character to innovate and charge just for the love of it.

John S. Foster in Bradner wet suit prototype, ca. 1953

Flash forward to the present: the wetsuit has evolved from a stiff, ill-fitting, leaky strait jacket into a refined garment with warmth and flexibility as its main function. In the pursuit of those sometimes competing attributes, many wetsuit manufacturers have sacrificed durability and quality in the process. By infusing more nitrogen bubbles in the neoprene that is sandwiched between layers of nylon or Lycra, such suits are prone to deterioration and saturation within a couple of months of hard use, despite industry claims and warranties. The more durable 5-mm suits retain their thermal properties longer, but tend to be more restrictive, and even 4-mm suits can add pounds in water retention, equivalent to dragging around a bottle of water or small dumbbell in the line-up.

Isurus Wetsuits (http://www.surfisurus.com/)

Any hardcore surfer on the North Coast will tell you that the older a wetsuit gets, the heavier it feels, the less it insulates, and the longer it takes to dry, reaching a terminal point of diminishing returns at some stage in its finite lifecycle. There is nothing more irritating than pulling on a damp, clammy wetsuit, only made tolerable by the knowledge that you’ll soon be getting wet again and chasing down some more “tasty waves.” In fact, most watermen use at least two wetsuits in rotation to avoid just that chilly scenario.

Isurus = form + function

Isurus Founder-Innovator Jim Brateris’ concept was to design wetsuits “for surfing by surfers.” After blowing through two to three wetsuits a year himself, Jim realized that wetsuit quality was being sacrificed with the corporatization of the wetsuit industry. In 2003 he figured there had to be a better way to bring the wetsuit back to its core values and re-engineer it for more discerning and demanding surfers. As Jim says, “We were looking for a different design concept, more suited to the muscular structure of the human body in order to get a better free range of motion,” like that illustrated in the archetypal illustration of ideal human proportions, “Vitruvian Man” by Leonardo Da Vinci.

Isurus, Fit for a Vitruvian Man!

Isurus took their inspiration from triathletes, who have long demanded better-fitting, lightweight, and more buoyant wetsuits from their suppliers—all of which add up to shortened swim times and quicker muscle recovery in later stages of the competition. Such a performance wetsuit provides a clear competitive advantage for triathletes and surfers alike. Like only a couple of other manufacturers, Isurus starts with the gold standard of Yamamoto “closed-cell” neoprene, fused between “hydrophobic linings.” This allows for a much thinner and 50% lighter wetsuit that retains significantly less water than conventional versions. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rpqivbsGI-4&feature=PlayList&p=250CC809413E3062&index=2)

Yamamoto rubber is the best.

As Brateris explains, “The main difference between the mass-produced and -marketed wetsuits is right here (fingering the wetsuit rubber); Yamamoto has a proprietary process in which they inject nitrogen to get the prime part of the rubber to have a closed-cell neoprene, and that’s all they use, the best part of the rubber. Unlike an open-cell kitchen sponge-like material used in many conventional suits, the stitching will hold much better in a closed-cell structure.”

In terms of materials, Isurus wetsuits also integrate “Aerodome” panels in the front, from the chest all the way down the thighs, and on the back. These are the rubberized air-cell panels adopted by a few manufacturers that not only increase floatation, but heat retention as well. The slick skin surface of Aerodome helps resist wind chill (most of any suit) and actually adds to board traction, as well, when paddling prone. Rounding out the ensemble is a feature adopted from tri-athlete versions, called a “Forward Propulsion System” (FPS). FPS is basically textured rubberized strips on the inside of the forearms that add water traction and adherence with each stroke and, in theory, greater power.

Details, details

The high-end materials choice will only get you so far, and Isurus has taken it a step further, pairing the best in Japanese neoprene with the highest-quality Chinese (ISO 9002-certified) manufacturer. The suits are designed with the panels specifically anatomically structured to mirror body contours, rather than resist them, by taking 20 points of measure compared to the standard 15 points. Isurus suits can generally be worn about one mm thinner year round than comparable suits. That results in a wetsuit that fits much more snugly than conventional suits, ideal for heat retention, blood flow, and dynamic functionality in the water —much more like a custom suit.

Starting a local wetsuit company from scratch with the ambition of taking it to “a higher level” and creating a superior product for the demanding Northern Californian marketplace is a daunting task. But Isurus has found something that has been nearly lost – quality. By using the best materials available, they have dramatically cut the weight without sacrificing warmth and flexibility.

A demanding customer base: Maverick’s Contest Opening Ceremony

The I-Elite 343 version is the lightest and highest performance model in the stable and comes with a removable hood. The I-Evade 434 model feels like wearing thermal underwear and sheds wind and water with ease. It has an integral 2-mm front-zip pull-over hood with a buttery yellow lining that just steams when pulled up and is designed to not be restrictive when rolled down, which is nearly anytime the sun comes out (when was the last time you were almost too warm in your 4-3?). The hydrophobic jersey material sandwiched around the closed-cell neoprene also dries extremely fast and retains 80% less water, making double-sesh a breeze.

Maverick’s journeyman Grant Washburn has taken the suit out to his favorite haunts and reported back that he’s used a number of different wetsuit brands and this one “feels totally different and is built really well.” Grant has even taken out the thinnest 3 mil I-Elite version of the suit to Maverick’s without a hood and been quite comfortable. Not only does the cut of the suit aid in paddle recovery, but the improved warmth is the key, as “the biggest enemy out there is the cold, which more than any other single factor burns calories and increases fatigue.”

Grant Washburn

In addition to the superior thermal properties and fit of the suit, Washburn was particularly pleased with the thin, warm hood. “Back in November of 2008 I was nominated for the XXL Wipeout of the Year for a wave at Mav’s that I didn’t make. My wipeout didn’t win, but I did tweak my neck on that fall and it has been sensitive ever since. The ‘slippery stuff’ (slick skin) on the hood helps penetrate the water during spills and the turbulence just doesn’t get the same grip on your head. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if this became the new standard for hoods out at Maverick’s.”

Grant also chuckles that friend and former champion Grant “Twiggy” Baker hauls around a battery-powered blower hanger to dry his wetsuits, which is not needed for the quick-drying Isurus. The whole package works: the lighter weight, the warmth, the flexibility and fit. He even feels “something going on” with the Forward Propulsion System (FPS) on the forearms, aiding in paddle power over numerous strokes, just as with competitive swimmers.

Washburn has known Tim West and his family since he was a little kid and was really stoked when he found out about Tim’s ambition to surf Maverick’s, since there were few locals doing so. Though crowds of elite international surfers mob the line-up now compared to the early days, Grant says he tries to keep it fun and light out there, sharing waves especially on the busiest days. He sees Tim as also keen to have a good time at the break, having a certain “Jay vibe” (Jay Moriarity) about him that transcends the “us vs. them localism” that can infect any spot.

Like most other wetsuits, the Isurus suits occasionally flush through the yoke on the shoulder when you take an awkward fall, but as Grant notes this is almost a relief after you’ve been steaming along and the suit warms up fast. They are also a little more challenging to remove than enter due to that near-custom fit, which feels like a vacuum seal on your body once wet. But this is a “small and acceptable price to pay for the performance advantages, and you quickly figure it out,” says Washburn.

Grant Washburn, cruising on coldest day in 40 years at Ocean Beach, San Francisco

The high-quality Yamamoto rubber is also initially stiffer, but soon begins to mold to your body after a session or two. Isurus is so focused on quality materials and fit that any initial minor issues have already been ironed out in subsequent versions about to be released. Getting the right size with such a tight-tolerance suit is also key, and Isurus offers a wider range of sizes for this reason.

Test Pilot Tim West

Tim West rides a bomb

Tim West grew up in Montara and has been a fixture in serious surf along the San Mateo coast for much of his young career. His stocky build and tenacious attitude have kept the goofy footer firmly planted to his board in frequently heaving and hollow beach break conditions that few others would dare to attempt. More recently he has taken that finely- tuned act to Maverick’s after “doing his homework” on big waves. Montara neighbor and renowned sports/surf writer Bruce Jenkins noted in his recent 3 Dot Blog that “the best of the up-and-coming generation from the Half Moon Bay coastside, West is confident, level-headed and a regular whenever Maverick’s is going off.” His commitment to the spot in all conditions and hard-charging backside attack earned him underground recognition and a slot in the Maverick’s contest as one of only two local invitees. The other is his tow partner Ion Banner. Here is some Powerlines footage of their breakthrough tow session on a mean west swell on December 4, 2007: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imArpSkBPDE

West out the back

For Tim, “Maverick’s is just something I’ve always since day one been dreaming of– just paddling out there, let alone being in the contest” following years of diligent preparation at other spots. He remembers as a grom working his way up into double-overhead conditions at Ross’s: “Then it was like closed-out Cove, yah. Then it was just CRAZY closed out Cove. Then I’d go out by myself on my Mav’s gun just to practice, and then I’d go out to Scott’s Creek and practice there too. And finally I got geared up and went to Mav’s. I didn’t have anybody to go out with; nobody wanted to go out with me in my generation. I just did it all on my own. I didn’t have that push…”

In turn, Tim has been an incredible role model for younger surfers in the area, especially members of the Half Moon Bay Middle School Surf Team, who he has encouraged and mentored along with Wyatt Fields and others. In his formative years he vividly recalls examples of good and bad eggs in the line-up, and says he drew motivation and determination to succeed from both.

Tim mentors Half Moon Bay grom

Among his most influential surf mentors he credits Ion Banner and Curt Meyers, while Jay Moriarity of Santa Cruz also embodied the positive spirit that he embraces. His dad, Tim Senior, got him started surfing and still keeps him on track in their day jobs as fire sprinkler fitters, setting the bar high as Tim’s number one role model. As a result, nothing could give him more pride that seeing the “local line-ups loaded with local kid-rippers.” The ocean has been his teacher too, of course, keeping him “grounded and clean” and having a huge impact on his performance, attitude, and life.

Tim, Sr. and Tim, Jr.

It’s clear that he sees a lot of himself in the local kids searching for their places in the line-up. He can regularly be found stopping by Sunday team practices, generously handing out surf stickers and advice—checking in on “Tim’s groms,” as his proud mother calls them. Tim went to some lengths to formally invite the entire team to the 2009 Maverick’s opening ceremonies back in October to give the kids “a chance to see how the contest works, meet the competitors, and expand [their] horizons.” The event included the paddle out, heat selections, and dinner, which was a thumping success thanks to the consummate hosting skills of Katherine Clark.

Brateris of Isurus was in touch with Tim West as far back as 2003-4 and broached the idea of a locally-grown wetsuit of superior design. Tim was in on the ground floor and contributed ideas for key features at an early stage for a near-custom suit that was ideal for harsh local conditions in the region. As Brateris recalls, after trading ideas and drawings with Tim before heading off to China, “Tim put on an old wetsuit and he stood there as I traced the new lines with a magic marker on his body to get the design just right and have an accurate prototype to send out.”

Tim grabs rail at Todos

Of the symbiotic relationship, West was stoked to help out a friend and “water the roots locally,” while Brateris felt there really couldn’t be a better test pilot. Tim has tested out the suit this season at Maverick’s and has noted no problems despite numerous beatings. Much like Tim’s polished surfing, “the suit speaks for itself.” Tim is in it to test himself and have fun in big waves, not for photo ops.

He once paddled out with friend Chris Loeswick, only to be vaulted several feet in the air by a ballistic attack from below by a Great White shark. Several TV networks including the Today Show, Good Morning America, and National Geographic were all clamoring for an interview, but Tim refused them all because he wanted to be known for his surfing, not some freak attack. As Tim recalls:

“The only insight I want anyone to get out of that incident is to live each and every day to the fullest. When the shark hit it was unexpected and out of the ordinary. My attention was focused on an epic sunset with one guy out at small Maverick’s and I wanted to get one more good one. Then BOOM. I know anyone can relate-driving a car, walking in a lightning storm, etc. How about the guy who took a meteorite through his chest! One second everything may be perfect and content in your life, and at a moment without notice your one life on this earth can be taken. I’m lucky. I’m lucky to be alive. I’m lucky to walk, shake hands, talk. I’m lucky to be able to surf still at the same place I almost had my life taken. I’m lucky to hug my family and sit down with them at holiday dinner. I’m lucky to experience the next phase of my life, and one day to experience bringing another life into this world. Don’t take it for granted. It is inevitable that one day each of us will wake up and that day will be our last. I’m so thankful that Nov 2, 2005 wasn’t that day for me. So when you see me gone for months at a time in the tropics or off to ‘spot x’ for the weekend, its cuz I know life is short, especially our youth. Live in the now.”

Tim moonlights as a barrel miner in Puerto Escondido

As the first Isurus team rider, West is among a vanguard of five participants in the Maverick’s contest using the suit, with others impressed enough to be willing to plunk down cash for a superior wetsuit in the most challenging proving ground on the planet. Tim has taken to the road as well to hone his skills in the hollow waves of the Southern Hemisphere at Puerto Escondido and Todos Santos in Mexico—prep work for big winter surf at home. He published some insightful “Puerto Journal” entries on his adventures south of the border on the Maverick’s contest website, giving a unique glimpse into the big wave fraternity: http://maverickssurf.com/buzz/press/2009/aug/TimPuerto.php

Here’s an excerpt from his final journal entry on August 26, 2009:

“This was my first trip to the area and definitely not my last. It’s a true test of a waterman to surf this beach, because it is like no other beach break in the world. The local crew has the place wired and gets much respect, not only for surfing well, but for their kindness and good vibes. My two month trip had more of everything than I ever expected—waves, friends, food, culture, landscape and juice smoothies, ha. Thank God for the smoothie bar; couldn’t have pulled it off without that place.

Tim tows into a keg

Thursday was the day pulse #3 showed up. Around lunch time you could hear it from wherever you were on the beach. Thunder-like sets rolling through with a little bit of cloud cover, which meant a possibility of clean evening conditions. During the next 6 hours the swell jumped up dramatically- nobody out. Sure enough the winds shifted offshore as 40 foot waves marched in like a brigade of soldiers, back-to-back-to-back with 10 to 20 wave sets. So I’m sitting on the roof, watching this macking swell flood into town with the most unforgiving close out sets I’ve ever seen, and all of a sudden out of the corner of my vision I see Greg Long running down the street with his Puerto gun ready as ever to tackle one. He, Jaime Sterling, Rusty Long, and Will Dillon were on it. It looked scary, not fun, so I opted out. Big props to those guys for getting out there that evening.

Sunset at Todos

On Saturday, the next day after the big swell (that peaked and A-framed at 40 foot top-to-bottom, no joke) it was still 15-20 foot. So I launched the ski and all morning towed in a few friends that I had met during my stay with a few waves for each and most of them for the first time on a tow board. They all said they got the biggest tubes of their lives and I was more than happy to provide the assist. In fact, it’s just as fun towing people into big waves as surfing them sometimes, especially when you witness how stoked they are at the end of their ride. After towing them for a couple of hours I packed my rig, attached the ski, and B-lined it straight back to Half Moon Bay with an adrenaline rush that still hasn’t gotten out of my system. Livin’ it to the fullest!” –Tim West.

Tim drops in at Todos

It was in Puerto that Tim met and traded waves with Mexican charger Coco Nogales, another well-traveled surfer whose pursuit of bone-crushing waves occasionally finds him outside of his tropical element. Tim put Coco on to the Isurus program and his positive feedback from Northern sessions in Todos Santos and Maverick’s has been invaluable. As Jim Brateris said, “our challenge was to keep him toasty and flexible in Todos and Mav’s this winter.”

Tim doesn’t take big wave surfing lightly and has been methodical in his approach to excelling at Maverick’s. Like others, West cites “Powerlines” videos by Curt Meyers and Eric Nelson (http://www.mavfilm.com/) as providing a library of essential study materials chronicling the break. He has examined the videos backwards and forwards as part of his preparations, and credits them with helping him understand the wave. He has also listened very carefully to interviews of surf legends for any hints or tips on how to handle different risky situations, testing and adding their techniques to his own survival program.

When in the impact zone, one technique is to slip off his board and point it toward the beach, take a couple pencil dives down. Then he will adopt a specific fetal position when closed out in the impact zone, tucking his head and limbs into a cannonball ahead of detonation. Then there are no surprises when it happens and only relief if he pops up sooner. “You always want to go into a comfort zone, because in big waves if your arms are flapp’n around, and you go limp, it’ll rip your arm off. It’ll tear your sockets up for sure.”

West cuts back at Nelscott Reef

It is his mental preparation as well that keeps him calm and alive. On any wipeout he is ready to have his wind knocked out and assumes he will be facing a two-wave hold-down. “Every time I go down I automatically assess in my head that I will have a two-wave hold-down, because if you don’t and you expect that air, your mind is just going to be bummed and you’re going to panic. Even if you broke your arm, even if you’re gashed wide open, it’s survival mode and it’s the instinct that we all have, but most just don’t know it.”

As Tim says, “The suit makes me feel that much more ‘on it’ when I’m in heavy surf. It’s comfortable; it keeps me warm when the air/water temp is really cold; the propulsion system on my forearms improves paddle power. All these factors give me more confidence being out there, knowing I have the best wetsuit pretty much ever made for surfing.”

Maverick’s Contest, 02/13/2010

West paddles out for Heat 3 during Heat 2

West had ample opportunity to put his survival training to the test during Heat 3 of the Maverick’s contest on February 13. His first drop was a long, steep one, nearly making the corner before being devoured and taken down deep. He remarked, “I nearly split my wig open,” and when he came up managed to “get one big gulp of air and one pencil dive before the next hold-down.” Taken through the rinse cycle three times before Garrett McNamara swooped in on a PWC, Tim was so drained and confused that he couldn’t hang on for more than 20-30 feet splayed across the sled sideways before getting flushed again.

West courting the wave on Valentine’s weekend

Amazingly, his leash didn’t break and his board was still attached, providing a life line to the surface each time. Finally, Santa Cruz’s Vince Broglio found Tim “gone-fried,” grabbed him, and pulled him through the rocks into the lagoon before swinging back around and taking him back out into the line-up for his second wave. And that one was even less friendly, flipping him on his back and skipping him down the face like a wayward sled at a snow park. Tow partner Banner described Tim’s spill as “one of his worst ‘ragdollifications’ ever.”

Tough date

Warmth and flexibility breeds the confidence to thrive, not just survive, in the unforgiving littoral zone of NorCal. Unlike body armor (and apparently surfers like Tim, who have survived both shark attacks and semi-consciousness) a wetsuit is not indestructible. But made without compromise in terms of materials and fit, it does have the ability to boost your game. Like a new custom board, that thin layer of neoprene, once you get a feel for it, may become the single most important piece of equipment you’ll own.

More photos of Tim West at Maverick’s Contest, 2010:

Heat 3 wave, shot 1

Heat 3 wave, shot 2

Heat 3 wave, shot 3

Heat 3 wave, shot 4

Afterburner time

Mike Wallace has surfed for over two decades on the East and West coasts, Hawaii, Europe, and NorCal. Currently a resident of Moss Beach with his family of four, he can often be found haunting the beaches south of Devil’s Slide in search of the perfect sandbar with his blind dog, Moose.

Related posts:

Maverick’s Contest Locals Trial Heat Held on Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Cold Water Chronicles, No. 2: 7 Seconds
Maverick’s 2008 Surf Contest Report: Notes from the Channel

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29 Comments

Izzy

Posted February 21, 2010 at 7:34 PM
Tim West = SELLOUT!!!!!!!

Will

Posted February 21, 2010 at 9:43 PM
You must not know Tim very well.

matter

Posted February 22, 2010 at 5:31 AM
What!? Tim sold out of the wetsuits already! Must be a good product.

Sea Clearly

Posted February 22, 2010 at 10:08 AM
From what I hear Tim West is a soldier who’s odds are not in his favor, he has fought in many battles and has the scars to prove it. He sold me one of those suits and it is by far the lightest, warmest and best wetsuit I’ve had. Thanks Tim!

Kris

Posted February 22, 2010 at 12:12 PM
Way to charge, Tim. I am enjoying my Isurus wetsuit too. I surfed a bitter cold offshore day at Coxos and was toasty while another guy was wearing two suits…

j-man

Posted February 22, 2010 at 4:35 PM
Sellout? … because he is trying to innovate and maybe make a buck?

Why not check it out and try be supportive? Get the facts before you flame.

Paddle Surfer

Posted February 22, 2010 at 7:34 PM
I have seen lots of guys wearing those out at Mavericks!

BVB

Posted February 24, 2010 at 12:38 PM
Letʻs face the facts shall we:

1. Surfing is now a sport.

2. It can be sold marketed and exploited as a sport.

This dude and all this info about him is the new norm. Sellout = money, and who doesnʻt like money?

As the sport moves into this new territory it will be exploited to fit the full neosurfingyuppieness of our times.

Nothing new here. In fact, if he needs a rep, I am available for part time work. Tell me where to send my bio and picʻs.

Aloha to the art.

The Dude

Posted February 24, 2010 at 3:18 PM
Would someone please tell blue vagina bob to shut up and turn in his wetsuit. As a Surfpulse regular whiny, carping ninny, he has to surf OB without a wetsuit or aid of any new products or gear.

He is required to pick out his own tree and cut down and shape his own Alaia. Then he has to sacrifice his left nut to Maui, Pele, Mikey Dora, Phil Edwards, Gerry Lopez, Mark Richards, Ian Anderson, the Duke, Queen Lily and Kamehameha III. He owes his right one soley to Jack O’Neill.

He must reject resin, fiberglass, foam, EPS, fins, leashes, no slip decking and wax. No getting stoked on videos, mags or photos…NO MORE INANE LAST PAGE SURFERS JOURNAL PUSSY BIO ARTICLES, no bullfrog, no booties, earplugs, squid lids or rash guards. No T-shirts, baggies, slaps, slippahs or boardshorts.

Once Bobbie has rejected all of he innovations and cultural and societal creations he has deemed belong only to him, only then will his body be as miserable as his pathetic selfish attitude.

Sarcasm intended, Hypocrite!

BVBBSFF

Posted February 25, 2010 at 9:15 AM
Me thinks The Dood is a chix got a real chix tone to it donchathink?

Your Bitch is about as good as BVB, your not there yet but varry crose grasshopper.

You two should start a daytime talk show or go on tour and and do this stuff on da road.

SELLOUT every nite man!

I can be your soundman if you need one.

Hey Bob, I think you pushed his Buttons.

Nice

I wanna be Bobbies girl doo-doo-doodoo-doo-doo – yeah

SING IT EVERYONE

Come on I need to see more Jazz Hands pleeze

Gboy

Posted February 25, 2010 at 5:06 PM
Cutting edge material, flexibility & warmth is a pretty hard combination to beat. Those a characteristics of an Isurus wetsuit whose core message is take your surfing to a “higher level.” My feeling is if you don’t want to take “your” surfing to a higher level buy an O’Neill.

Mad Max

Posted February 25, 2010 at 10:12 PM
As far as my knowledge and experience goes, Tim is a thoughtful, generous, hard-working man that does not deserve a stereotype such as “sell-out.” Even if Tim was a sell-out, he’d be endorsing shitty, mass produced wetsuits. However, these wetsuits are of genuine quality and his testimonies are far from sell-out bullshit. It is usually intelligent to think before you speak, and I recommend anyone who wants to label Tim as a sell-out to use their brain a bit more. Thanks

BVB

Posted February 26, 2010 at 9:52 AM
Thanks for the props man. Check that story out in The Surfers Journal – last page indeed…

My board is made of recycled chopsticks and smells like Chinese food. I run my Audi 2000

on veggie juice and organic brown eggs. My wetsuit is a sewn together with pieces from recycled

suits I worn over the years.

I need a nanny or manny this month if any of you girls are available. 20.00 per hour.

Laughing Sal

Posted February 27, 2010 at 11:35 PM
“Check that story out in The Surfers Journal – last page indeed…”

I read that story, the one about the skinny dipping 74 year old old lady named Carol who composts her own poo.

B.V.B. Inc.

Posted February 28, 2010 at 9:26 AM
Last night I began working on my latest project. I am forming a company called, “Bay Area Professional Surfing Amateurs.” We take men and women (under 30) who “surf” or think they can surf – whatever – and then we make them over to look like actual professional surfers. We have connections to Hollywood and the porn industry. Top models can make up to $300.00 a day depending. You, as a potential client – actor – model – porn star will only be responsible for a one time initiation fee of 1,000.00.

Please send recent pictures of you surfing, and preferably a shot involving you preening and flexing your

muscles and tats somewhere along Ocean Beach along with a professional head shot.

There is no limit to your surfing success. This is not “selling out!” Good Luck.

TSJ Volume 18. #5

Monterrorist

Posted March 1, 2010 at 7:53 PM
Great article, great wetsuit. Get the new i-Evade for the warmest winter suit you’ve ever had, 3-4 hour sessions not a problem. Once you get used to the tighter tolerances (i.e. taking the suit on and off) the suit is the warmest and most flexible I’ve ever had.

hawaii da kine

Posted March 1, 2010 at 8:33 PM
bro dude, did you hear a crazy freakin’ tsunami almost creamed hawaii???? a huge earthquake hit chile and sent massive waves across da pacific! luckily it didn’t happen. but, anyways, there’s young gun big wave chargers from hawaii. check it out….. aloha!

Jetty_Jim

Posted March 2, 2010 at 6:59 AM
Dude, dat sheet sent bowlz 2 da jetty!

Alexis

Posted March 13, 2010 at 7:38 PM
Hi – thanks for the post. I never know what I will come across when I scroll these blogs. But just wanted to let you know I really liked yours. Keep it up.

Alexis

MD

Posted March 15, 2010 at 9:04 AM
Tim West is a good guy that is now getting respect that is deserved. “Sellout” is pretty derogatory in these circles-shame on you BVB.

MD

Posted March 15, 2010 at 9:06 AM
Sorry, my previous post was directed at IZZY.

B.V.B.

Posted March 16, 2010 at 8:19 AM
No man. “Selling out” is the new norm and totally ok. Surfing Culture needs a facelift. And by that I mean

lose the square knob.

jesusnightlight

Posted March 18, 2010 at 7:56 AM
you are the square knob, bob. surfing culture needs nothing but for stale creeps like you to get lost.

B.V.B.

Posted March 18, 2010 at 9:28 PM
In as much as maybe you believe there Jesus.

Nunya Bizness

Posted March 28, 2010 at 7:57 AM
How much is this suit? I’m not paying $500 or more for a suit that blows out the seams, elbows, knees in 6 months! I’ll just continue with a couple Xcel I find on sale for $150 each, buy two of them for less than 1 of a lot of the new technology suits. I’m tired of pros only prices. Sure the pros wear these they can afford them because they don’t have to buy them! Their sponsors give them gear!

B.V.B.

Posted March 28, 2010 at 11:15 AM
Carp.

SurferGirl650

Posted March 28, 2010 at 12:58 PM
All you need to know is TIM WEST IS HOT!

Chistopher DeLuca

Posted February 14, 2012 at 4:36 PM
I am a 100% disabled vet, age 65, screw in my left hip, and two screws in my right shoulder, cancer some time ago, anemia still. I am thinking about taking up mellow surfing in the future but for right now, because of cancer and going from 190 lbs of mostly muscle afterdecades of working out to 150 as an almost skinny old guezzer, I get cold real easy with hardly any body fat. I am not a great swimmer but I am thinking about taking lessons and swimming in the river that comes in from the ocean in Mendocino. (I can’t run any more- I bike, kayak, walk but I want to push harder so swimming might be it. Would you recommend this suit, or some other, for swimming in cold water. Or is this suit mostly for surfing and maybe some other suit would be better for swimming, often, weekly. Thanks for any suggestions PO BOX 1234 Mendocino CA

Mike

Posted February 18, 2012 at 10:39 AM
Hey Chris – the latest version of these wetsuits are warmer and more durable than other brands, also very tightly fitted; like a custom suit. The design was based on triathlete suits, so probably a good cross-over suit between swimming and surfing, since there’s good flexibility in the shoulders. You might want to get one with a removable hood for swimming though. You’ll want it for duck-diving up there and we find that our hair its often mostly dry even after a long session, the hoods are sooo good. Go on the website and give Jim a call, he’ll set you up.

Ghost Shaper in the Machine

The very same computer-aided (CAD) technology that helped globalize and liberate the surfboard industry from its cottage roots has provided niche shapers, and I dare say ambitious individuals, with a disruptively powerful design and cutting tool. These systems afford a level of precision, repeatability, and efficiency to allow anyone with a computer, some gumption, and a few hand tools to carve out a fairly respectable finished blank. Be forewarned, however, that you will NOT save money taking this route and cutting out an experienced shaper from the process by making a couple quick knock-off boards. If you want to surf better, buy a reputable board off-the-rack or have the patience to order a custom board from a local shaper familiar with the region where you surf.

Minimum hand tools

Not counting your time, labor and tools, each finished board may save you $100–250 after paying a good glasser to finish it properly, but even the pros will take a small handful of boards to get the system dialed—quickly eating up the apparent “savings” for a novice. And the pros have the advantage of a mental snapshot of templates, rockers, rails, tails, foils and bottom contours and how these elements flow together to make a board that works.

Fish takes shape

If you have any delusions of grandeur, find a copy of “Shaping 101” by iconic Hawaiian shaper John Carper (http://www.surfingvideos.com/index.html) on how to mow a blank from scratch to gain a deeper appreciation for the art of shaping. Or check out Todd Proctor’s short musical tribute to the dying art of start-to-finish hand shaping: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MszIatGlccc). If these videos still make your pulse race and your head swell, then read on, my friend—there are easier ways of doing it for someone committed to the process and with true love in their heart for boards and board-making. Contrast this with how long it takes to cut a blank on a machine: (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM-eHjp_tWs) and then hand-finish it (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MdrCciYKMk).

A New Quiver

My personal shaping odyssey started simply enough with the burning desire to create a functional beach break Fish under 6’-0” that would float my 185-pound mass and perform well in bouncy, windswept bowls that are endemic to most San Mateo County shorelines in the summer. Inspiration for the outline came from the Christiansen Fishes that I long-admired, but could ill-afford. With a nickname contrived by my good friend Bruce, my private label became the “Iconoclast,” due to my tendency to break from the pack and camp on my own peak, whether real or imaginary.

Nose view of new fish

But for my first board I wanted to put a little more rocker in the nose and tail, with a modern concave bottom and pulled-in quarter-moon tail that would still accommodate a quad-fin set-up. In the end, I settled on overall dimensions of 5’-8” length, 21” width, and 2-5/8” thickness. The board turned out surprisingly well for a first attempt, getting up to speed quickly, turning on a dime and punching above its weight and holding in well in bigger, more hollow surf. It has become the fun mainstay of my summer quiver.

New quiver

On subsequent boards (five in all), with professional feedback from Matt Ambrose, Rick Eastman, and especially Vince Broglio, I gained greater understanding over foiling out the nose and tails, trimming down the stringer properly, and improving my rails. All these components were the greatest stumbling blocks to my success, but through variance and instant feedback in the water I learned more than I would have without making minor mistakes.

Quiver, top view

My second board was a 6’-6,” 19-1/2”, 2-5/8” shortboard with a staged rocker, somewhat flat in the middle for speed and soft rails up front that proved a bit clumsy in smaller surf, but actually works better as a forgiving semi-gun in larger surf. The third board was a 6’-0”, 20”, 2-5/8” roundtail, five-fin shortboard with sharp down-rails and very flat entry rocker. This experiment in speed requires some finesse at the take-off, but generates blinding speed and high lines in clean surf—not so much fun in the junk. One skilled local test pilot, Brian Inch, managed to pull a 360 on his first ride, proving what I already intuitively suspected: it’s not always the board, but the rider. Experiments with Alaia planks at Sunset and Waimea in Thomas Campbell’s film “The Present” visually argue that point.

Broglio and 5′-10″ Frei-Fish

The final two boards were the first ones to be inflicted on my surf crew, with a full-outlined 6’-10”, 20”, 2-1/2” semi-Fish for Scott and a 5’-10”, 20”, 2-3/8” Fishy shortboard for Jochen—two very different boards for totally different surfers. Feedback has been good and the experiment continues. So, how did I do it?

Virtual Board Design for Budding Scrubbers

Be forewarned that this section provides only a loose outline of the steps required to design a blank worthy of being machine cut, and is not a comprehensive blueprint. It took a fair bit of trial and error, along with patient tips from Matt Ambrose and company to get to that point. However, a few simple suggestions could save budding “scrubbers” or hand shapers some time and avoid rookie mistakes. Having a strong sense first of what kind of wave you want to surf with your design, and how you want to surf it, is critical in dictating its shape.

The Aku Shaper provided the free software I used to design my boards, with tutorials on its main website making it relatively easy to grasp the fundamentals. If I, as a computer illiterati, can figure it out with a little advice, then it’s user-friendly. Simply follow the instructions by downloading a recent copy of Java and the software, and then you’re ready to start. Functions such as opening a new board, redesigning it, and “ghosting” an existing shape for comparison are available, along with viewing it all in a virtual shaping room (complete with a classic pin-up photo of Brooke Burke in the corner).

Screen shot: virtual shaping bay

The first step is to pull up a new board and enter its basic dimensions, including length and thickness, while nose and tail rockers can be adjusted as you go. The next move is to create a top-down “outline” of your shape using a minimal number of control points to construct a natural, flowing template for your board that will be the main building block for the rest of the curves. It is here that you will adjust the location of the wide point on the outline, nose volume, and tail shape.

Screen shot: board outline

The next tab over on the screen is the “slices” function, which allows you to literally view a cross-section in several places along the board in order to hone the slope of the deck, form the rails, and contour the bottom. Slices get a bit trickier and, for the purposes of flow and simplicity, Ambrose recommends using three of them all copied from an original slice to avoid waves in the cut, as the software blends the area in between. It is here that some of the shaper’s alchemy comes into play as the rail hardness migrates from nose to tail. Concaves or “vee” can be built in at this stage as well, and also change from end to end, possibly requiring an extra slice at the deepest point on bottom.

Screen shot: board slices

Then come the “top” and “bottom” tabs where the rocker, or curve profile, is refined: a side view of the board, if you will. This is another fundamental step that will determine how a board flows; how fast or loose; how it takes the drop; how it holds off the bottom. Design a banana and it may handle hollow surf, but be a pig in softer waves. Make flat plank and it could be a dream in the mush, but pearl badly in larger surf. Finding the sweet spot for a board’s rocker and foil between the nose and tail can be one of the most challenging and vital factors contributing to its performance. One starting point is to simply pull the fins from a favorite board, put it on a flat surface and simply measure the distance from the floor to the nose and tail. But that will not get you very far.

Screen shot: board rocker

How did it go? Now is the time to check the new stick back in “The Bay” —your virtual shaping room. With a click and drag, the board can be viewed from all angles, top, bottom, nose and tail, and checked for its overall esthetic. Striking the ALT key while toggling “V” and “L” will change both the “view” of the board and its “lighting” for some surprising and exciting additional visual inputs.

Once satisfied with the results, the final step is simply to save the file to a drive and/or disk and forward it as an e-mail attachment to a shaping operation like Ambrose Industrial, who will select the best fitting blank, run it through the APS3000, and call you when its ready. The intersection between the software and machine will produce a rough cut surprisingly close to the design viewed in the virtual shaping room, warts and all. Go ahead and lovingly fondle the result, but at this point you’re only about halfway there.

Prepare to “Scrub”

Your design acumen will have a tangible result at this stage. Just how well the design stage went will determine how much work will be required to hand-finish the blank. In a perfect world, a little sandpaper and elbow grease would do the trick from here, but, alas, it’s not a perfect world. A minimum set of tools is required, along with some ingenuity for more complex tail shapes, like swallows, bats, or quarter-moons. Among the basics are wire sanding screens of 80–120 grits and a foam pad for backing, essential for smoothing out the machine tool cuts. You will also need a straight edge to measure concaves and “vees,” along with sandpaper grits 50–250.

Quarter-moon tail

Another vital hand tool is a surform for quickly taking thickness out of the deck, ends, and rails. At least three types of hand planes may be necessary to get the wood stringer shaved flat: a small block plane, a master planer, trim plane or even a small spokeshave for cleaning up the fine nose rocker area. Along with handsaws, a small round surform and micro rasp can also be useful for those of you determined to cut a swallowtail. Note that the majority of blanks that I got back from Matt did not have the bottom rail cut, though he has since upgraded his software to eliminate this problem. That means you have to be prepared to do some shaping on that important contact point with the wave. One tool that makes that roughly 30-degree cut with greater precision is the Fred Tool, invented by John Carper, that is essentially two back-to-back surform blades mounted and angled on sanding block.

More tools

Checking out www.foamez.com and shapers’ forum www.swaylocks.com can also provide some valuable insight from other hobby shapers, who may have faced similar problems.

More work in progress

Veteran hand shapers recommend you keep a loose count of the strokes you make on each side of the deck and rails as you go from the more coarse tools, such as the surform, to the finer sanding screens and papers. My approach was less disciplined and more tactile and done in my garage in late afternoon light to help see the texture and scratches. Ideally, access to a shaping room coated with blue paint and low louvered fluorescent lighting on the sides will allow a more refined finishing of the blank, but it is not as critical to the performance of the board, so much as the esthetics. In the end, a good glasser will be the one to make or break your board and give it the smooth protective coating that transforms it from a delicate sponge into a flexible precision wave tool.

Color: Do You Dare?

Mixing tints

One of Ambrose’s machine operators, Don, offered some invaluable advice on hand painting color on blanks. The winning combination of green Frogtape and diluted water-based Acrylic arts-and-craft paint can be applied to create a relatively professional color scheme directly to the finished blank without the use of an airbrush. Resin tinting can also be done by a professional glasser, but will cost more. Let your imagination be your guide, but be doubly careful at this final stage after all that hard work. Any logos can be printed out on an inkjet, but need to be done on translucent rice paper, which disappears when saturated by resin.

Shapers with Skill

Having gone through the steps of imagining a new board and how it might surf, to designing it online, hand finishing it, and then surfing it has been an extremely satisfying journey. For me, it has been the beginning of a new learning curve, an opening of a Pandora’s Box of questions and lines of inquiry, rather than an end in itself. It has given me even greater appreciation for what it takes to become a shaper, a better understanding of the shaper’s craft and skill, and how to better communicate with a shaper. Thanks go to Ward Coffey at Ward Coffey Shapes, Randy Cone at Randy Cone Surfboards, and Geoff Rashe at M10, who have all made me a better surfer and inspired me to become a design addict. Matt Ambrose especially deserves praise for patiently guiding me to make my first board.

Mike Wallace has surfed for over two decades on the East and West coasts, Hawaii, Europe and NorCal. Currently a resident of Moss Beach with his family of four, he can often be found haunting the beaches south of Devil’s Slide in search of the perfect sandbar with his blind dog, Moose. Comments? Mike(at)surfpulse.com

Tags: Alaia, Ambrose Industrial Surfboards, APS3000, blank, CAD, Christiansen Surfboards, fish, Geoffe Rashe, M10, randy cone, Rick Eastman, Skil, The Present, Thomas Campbell, tints, Vince Broglio, Ward Coffey

Over the course of the past few months I have computer-designed and hand-finished five new surfboards and, despite minor character flaws, they have all been functional and fun. Let me make it abundantly clear up front that I do not own the traditional shaper’s plow horse, a “Skil 100” power planer; I have not paid my dues. Nor have I earned the right through curvature of the spine, inhalation of pounds of toxic polyester dust and resin fumes, and hand creation of thousands of boards, to call myself a “shaper.”

Shaping room dust

True shapers are a justifiably stubborn, quirky, masochistic and self-righteous breed who have honed their craft to the point of attracting a following. It is an increasingly narrow group of high-volume foam messiahs who make some serious coin. Others eke out a living, doing it for the love and satisfaction of creating functional art in what is one of the lower-margin business models in the surf business. Those with bigger ambitions and deeper pockets have created global manufacturing and distribution networks with which to supply both team riders and the masses. Many of the rest of us are just board “scrubbers,” perhaps a solitary craftsman whittling away and sanding relatively pre-formed blanks into something resembling a rideable surfboard…until now with the advent of computer-aided design.

APS3000 trims a blank

Board Design Cracked Wide Open

Surfing savants like Tom Curren, Joel Tudor, Kelly Slater and Rob Machado have always pushed the style envelope in the water. Accordingly, they have been very influential in experimenting with and pushing alternative design as their surfing has matured. Searching for new challenges and placement on waves, they have helped revive retro shapes, push the boundaries on what can be surfed in bigger waves, and opened us up to the alternatives.

Most recently, Slater turned the Pipeline contest on its head, winning the event this year on a 5’-11” Fish hybrid that he designed on computer by combining the nose of a K-board with the tail of a semi-gun. Al Merrick finished the board out and the result was a ride that gave him paddle speed, dexterity in the tube, and purchase on the steeps. He broke a 5’-3” version of the board in Indo; otherwise he would have ridden that one – almost unheard of in big, hollow surf. The board is now called the “Deep Six” and undoubtedly will become available at a surf retailer near you soon.

In lulls between contests, Curren was notorious for prowling vintage board shops for interesting shapes, which he then would test in challenging conditions just for fun, hacking off and reshaping fins on the spot if the board didn’t go right. In the Sonny Miller film “Chasing Curren,” the shy guru was captured riding a short Fish in solid double overhead Indo. In his appraisal of the experiment, Curren remarked, “You couldn’t go as deep in the barrel, ‘cause the width of the tail would draw you up the face. Sometimes when things aren’t going the way you want, you have to break out of it… break the pattern. If you focus and think about it, it’s best to act on that feeling. Part of surfing I think is experimental; with so many different boards, getting involved in what you’re actually designing and what its function is.” It would seem that Slater finished off Curren’s Fish experiment by narrowing the tail to great effect.

For more “alternative” ideas, see Rusty Preisendorfer’s informative Surfline blog “Talking Design”: http://www.surfline.com/blog/entry.cfm?id=26651. Joel Tudor’s retro shapes can be admired on http://www.joeltudor.com/, while Rob Machado’s latest projects can be found on http://www.robmachado.com/thelatest.asp. Even more interesting is a snapshot of Machado’s current working quiver on http://www.surfline.com/surfnews/photo_bamp_900_v03.cfm?id=26114&ad=1.

Steve Coletta, Designer-Shaper

Mr. Coletta of Natural Curves Surfboards of Santa Cruz had a long history with a Skil planer before adopting computer shaping as his mainstay. Far from killing off the skilled board builder, Steve argues that it has refined his capabilities, with technology allowing a level of accuracy and repetition that greatly enhances the process and the end-product. Translating the experienced shaper’s tactile memory into computer files and breathing life into a virtual board all take a high level of skill, not to mention the hand finishing and tweaks that put the “magic” into the final shape.

APS3000, half-way there

Steve himself has written several very insightful articles on digital shaping and is living proof that the computer and hand can coexist and drive the boundaries of performance. As he says, “Machine or computer shapes by a master shaper totally involved in every nuance of the final shape can indeed have magic and soul. Shaping great surfboards requires imagination, observation, and skill to translate designs into reality. Master shapers are part scientist, artist, and craftsman. Hand shaping great surfboards takes years to master. Combine the experience of decades of hand shaping with current technology and the results are awesome.”

CAD software fine tunes cut

Coletta dismisses the view that the computer destroys the artistry of shaping, convinced that the more efficient process affords the shaper more energy to apply to the design process. “Hand shaping surfboards with planers, grinders, and the other tools of the trade is very physically and mentally demanding. Computer technology allows an abundance of this energy to be focused on design. Now, more than at any time in the history of shaping surfboards, technology offers surfers the benefit of accelerated design evolution, relevant custom design, and accuracy in the never-ending pursuit of perfection.”

Top and bottom finished

The next step in the evolution is designing remotely, creating a database of shapes and forwarding the board file directly to a cutting machine or center via e-mail. The shape is then machined and hand-finished locally. Coletta has been an avid user of the APS3000 system since December, 2005. “We have produced thousands of functional, relevant, and ‘magic’ surfboards in the brief time we’ve been using the system. The system also allows us to provide greater service than ever for our surfer/clients. We regard it as a great tool in the evolution of surfboard design and production.”

Creative Destruction of Board Building

From rough-hewn redwood planks, to chambered balsa logs and foam blanks, each quantum leap in the surfboard’s development has come at the callused hands of individuals who were convinced there had to be a better way. One central figure in the CAD process is Miki Langenbach (www.aps3000miki.com), a German engineer and mathematician with a passion for sailboarding who, beginning in 1984, made some rudimentary attempts to mechanize shaping of larger windsurfer blanks. By 1997 he constructed a low-maintenance machine that would kick out up to 12 blanks an hour, but his vision of a digitized and air-conditioned clean room for cutting all kinds of board blanks from 5-foot “glass slippers” to 12-foot “stand-ups” culminated in the APS3000 machine by 2003. Miki says the acronym stands for the Australia colloquialism “Ants in Pants,” roughly translating as “hot stuff,” or “da kine” if you favor Island pidgin.

Top and bottom finished

Nev Hyman of Australia received a $30,000 grant from Queensland in 1999 and partnered with Miki to develop the machine and fine-tuned software needed to maximize its functionality. They contracted with Emmanuel Vilmin, who spun off to create Shape3D (http://www.shape3d.com/). Other competitors are Digital Surf Design’s Surf CAD, masterminded by Brazilian surgeon Luciano Leao, while still others include the Aku Shaper (http://www.aps3000.com/) and KKL Machine (http://www.allaboutsurf.com/articles/kkl)

The dirty little industry truth is that the foam “blanks” that are sculpted into the core of the surfboard under a fiberglass skin have been mainly pre-manufactured ever since Dave Sweet perfected the first polyurethane foam blank in 1956 and Hobie Alter sold his blank business to his glasser Gordon “Grubby” Clark. Clark refined that process to such an extent that close-tolerance blanks were created very near to marquee shapers’ specifications, requiring minimal planing of foam or adjustments to the key basic rocker.

After dominating with nearly 90% the industry, Clark’s abrupt exit from that business in December 5, 2005, shifted the balance of power to CAD machines, which were just beginning to find favor among foresighted shapers like Jeff Rache of M10, Bill “Stretch” Reidel, Jeff “Doc” Lausch of SurfRx, among others. Board manufacturer Randy French of Surftech also crossed over from the windsurfing industry that had been at the forefront of molded materials and technology advancements.

Ambrose Industrial Surfboards

Matt Ambrose enlightens shaper

One enlightened early adopter of this technology was Maverick’s veteran Matt Ambrose, who ordered an APS3000 machine in late 2003 from Miki. One of the first three on the mainland, he received the machine in March of 2004 just before Clark’s demise, and set himself up in the computer-shaping and blank distribution business in Pacifica, forged into a company aptly named “Ambrose Industrial Surfboards: http://www.ambroseindustrialsurfboards.com/contact.php.

Ambrose selects a blank

As Matt says, “AIS is a Northern California cutting center designed to help shapers get what they need to manufacture surfboards. AIS is a one-stop shop, specializing in design assistance and milling boards to exact specifications, as well as supplying blanks, resins, cloth and special order items.” He literally stocks hundreds of blanks from only top producers: Surfblanks America (polyester) and Marko (EPS). In his choice of blanks, machinery and shaping supplies, “quality” is his calling card of choice.

Ambrose’s blank check

Realistically, he says, “If you don’t have experience riding boards and intimate familiarity with their performance characteristics, you won’t be able to shape a board remotely anything like an experienced master shaper like Dick Keating.” He agrees wholeheartedly with Steve Coletta that computer shaping has refined board design to such an extent that, for most, there is little point in hand shaping boards end-to-end. Such is the system’s capacity to refine the process.

Ambrose dials it in

Without Ambrose there would truly be no story here on SurfPulse. While he doesn’t gladly suffer fools and has a hard business-like edge, he also has an infectious enthusiasm for offering design and shaping tips to those alert enough to pick up on his invaluable rapid-fire insights and sharp wit. The same qualities of focus and ruthless efficiency that he exhibits in the water apply on land: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1w0BDO4Txk. Matt is a waterman in the purest sense of the word: his business is boards, his sport is surfing the heaviest peaks, and even his recreation is scuba diving.

He charges off on trips with friends to dive for abs and lobster in remote areas off the California coast and its islands. Matt once even helped investigate the craggy underwater topography of the Maverick’s bowl with divers for a Surfer’s Journal article on a rare day that was barely clear enough. He’s dived the spot several times—with and without tanks—advising against lingering too long anywhere but the bottom, then making a beeline for the boat. Few other Maverick’s chargers have demonstrated that depth of commitment.

Ambrose slicing through a boil

He lets his skills do the talking in the water and his business acumen on land. More than one surfer has respectfully noted, “If you find yourself sitting deeper than Matt at the peak, you’re positioned way too deep.” In a testament to his experience and persistence, his Maverick’s contest bio notes, “Once known as an underground warrior, Ambrose has become an established name after reaching the Mavericks finals in 4 of the past 6 contests” against increasingly youthful competition: http://www.maverickssurf.com/Surfers/SurferBio.aspx?id=598.

Matt’s father, John, was a veteran hardware engineer from the early days of computing at RCA and IBM, who transferred from the East Coast to Silicon Valley. He settled with his family in 1973 in Pacifica, and currently runs a software consulting business. Effectively acting as Matt’s chief technology advisor, John was a key resource to draw upon when Matt first imagined his business plan. Another luminary who mentored the young surfer-shaper was Pacifica legend Dick Keating, who still actively contributes his design experience and co-shaping skills on big wave and specialty boards. A truly spectacular history of surfing in Northern California, traced to its Hawaiian roots and the aqua-exploits of the Keating family in Pacifica, can be found in the Surfer’s Journal (Volume 10, Number 4) and on http://www.surfingoods.com/articles/article2_2.html

WanderInn with Eastman

Rick Eastman of WanderInn Surfboards is another prolific shaper who actually houses his well-equipped shaping room on-site upstairs at Ambrose’s shop. Soft-spoken Rick showed me the ropes, always ready with a few well-timed insights, from tricks to planing down nose stringers to advice on smoothing out concaves and how to make an inexpensive and solid set of adjustable shaping racks.

Work in progress

Rick vividly recalls getting the word about the very first murmurs of the shortboard revolution directly from Dick Keating, fresh from the inaugural Duke Kahanamoku Invitational contest in Hawaii. In 1968, Australian Bob McTavish introduced deep “V” bottoms on the Greenough-inspired 8’-8” “Plastic Machine,” which he rode at the Duke at Sunset, but left an indelible impression at Haliewa and then later Honolua Bay in Maui.

Hand-finishing a modern shortboard

With the design imprinted only in his mind, Keating was the only one in Northern California to see the new shorter shape first hand. Picturing how well it would work in less forgiving beach breaks in Pacifica and Rockaway, the local crew immediately went to work stripping and chopping down their longboards and buying factory second blanks from Grubby Clarke for $10 apiece. This was truly the genesis of the garage shaper. Surfboard factories like Noll, G&S, and Hobie recognized the threat clearly, trying to keep Clark blanks from being liberally distributed to lower-volume guys, especially in Southern California. So there is a strong, local precedent for individual craftsmen to shake up the board-building industry with the right know-how and tools.

Garage shaping, circa 2009

According to Eastman, that gave “creative and resourceful underground Northern California shapers a head start on the shortboard revolution.” The “paradigm shift” was settled once and for all by the epic duels between David Nuuhiwa and Nat Young, he said. Not only did Rick take part in the shortboard revolution firsthand, but he is also helping shepherd the next generation of rippin’ local groms—his grandkids Kadin and Brogie Panesi, who already have amassed an enviable competitive resume on the NSSA circuit.

Mach 10 with Geoff Rashe and the DSD

As Geoff Rashe of M10 tells it, he was introduced to Dr. Luciano Leao shortly after visiting Eric Arakawa on the North Shore in the summer of 2000. Arakawa had acquired one of the first dozen of Leao’s Digital Surf Designs (DSD) machines in operation since 1998-99. The earliest versions reportedly went to shapers Jeff Bushman and Bill Barnfield in Hawaii. Arakawa had invited Rashe over to design and cut a test board; he was immediately hooked after the painfully honest Hawaiian shaper swore it was the real McCoy. Rashe received his own machine in January 2001. Prior to that, Channel Islands had been getting boards scanned by the KKL Motion Master and Procam CNC (computer numerical control) machines, which were essentially large surf blank Xerox machines. Unlike the DSD, these machines didn’t allow the shaper to design and cut individually-tailored boards.

That’s where Dr. Leao came in—as a genius former surgeon from Brazil, he had shaped some boards in college and began tinkering at night with the design for a computerized shaping machine in 1995. SurfCAD was the software developed to provide the brains behind the machine and make it so smart. Rashe quickly realized the potential of being able to “tweak and replicate” any shape in a database in order to customize it with a high degree of precision, then save the result for future custom boards. As he says: “I vary, sometimes I have a bad day or get tired, but the machine is always consistent.” He had tried to outsource machine cutting at one stage, but found it was more efficient when shaping 1000 or more boards per year to have his own, which he upgraded in November, 2007.

Unlike the APS3000, the DSD doesn’t anchor the blank with suction cups, but rather it grabs the board by the wooden stringer down the middle, which requires a little more hand planing when all is said and done. The cutting tool on the APS is an 8- to 10-inch circular blade that runs perpendicular to the blank, while the DSD is “essentially a large standard router” that runs on tracks the length of the board.

Vince Broglio Glassworks and “Solarez”

Glasser-surfer Vince Broglio

One of the top independent production fiberglass laminators on the North Coast is Vince Broglio, who got his start in the business working as a volume glasser for Pearson-Arrow in Santa Cruz. Working like a dust-covered ghost from horse stables a few miles north of town, Broglio has a very professional work ethic and a unique operation that keeps custom boards churning out of his shop like hot loaves of bread. Vince knows what it is like to be a valued customer, and says he just treats others like he expects to be, remembering being a grom and jonesing for that long-overdue promised board.

VB, a man of his word

As he says, “Never believe a shaper when he says the glasser still has it,” which I can vouch for after he once turned a board around for me in two days. The range of services run the gamut, from polyester and epoxy glassing to in-demand resin tints, all the more remarkable as he is color blind and consults his wife Nancy to help with special customer requests. His new pup, “Roxie,” supervises the whole operation.

Guard dog Roxie

Everyone starts somewhere in the board building business and Broglio vividly recalls glassing his very first three boards for Pearson back in the day. He had two polished up and sitting in the racks and had just one to go when the surf Jones struck the young apprentice bad. As sponsored competitive surfers, Vince and a friend planned to bolt for a session just as he polished off the last board, but there was just one catch: the board had glassed-on fins. When he hit them with the 5000-rpm polisher, the board flew off the rack like a scalded cat, pinged off a couple walls and then slammed into the rack with the two finished boards. All the boards were damaged, and even after repairing them he wasn’t paid for his handiwork. Broglio did “gloss and polish” work for both Pearson and Haut through the late 1980s and credits Tony Mikus and Mike Walsh for showing him the ropes. He went into business for himself in 1991 at his home and then took over the space of West Cliff Glassing, after his wife kicked the smelly operation out of the garage.

Juggling boards

Years after his inauspicious start, Broglio today has the formula down pat for juggling multiple boards at a time (and not dinging them). The secret ingredient is powdered “Sun Cure” that replaces the usual toxic MEKP resin catalyst or hardener that normally sets within 10–20 minutes. “Sun Cure” is triggered by ultraviolet light either from a florescent light box or directly from the sun. Created as a class project at Flagler College in St. Augustine Florida by Dale Christenson, this much more environmentally-safe product has been employed by Vince for years, even as other pros are just coming around to its benefits. Namely, the hardening process can be controlled by the glasser: slowed or sped up. Excess resin can be filtered, reused, and not wasted, “going off” only when hit by UV rays. This allows more time to squeegee off the fiberglass perfectly during lamination and kick off the hardening of the resin in stages for a stronger board, as well as keeping multiple boards in motion. Added strength comes from eliminating the “guesswork” of adding the catalyst. Vince has branded this as “Solarez.”

Polyester vs Epoxy

Poly resin with this UV process is pretty efficient and controllable, allowing Vince to laminate and sand a couple of finished boards in a day, but epoxy glassing is a more drawn out affair altogether and will cost you an additional $50 as a result. Epoxy resin is much more temperature-sensitive and the “prime” curing range is precisely 72–80ºF, more often than not requiring a hot box to control the reaction. This is less of a problem during lamination on hotter days, but the resin bucket can kick off unexpectedly. This happened once mid-job on an Iverson stand-up board he was working on, and he nearly scalded himself while working in the resin out to the rails. Epoxy has a “better flex memory; like I always try to explain the difference, it’s like the old fiberglass fishin’ rod compared to a newer graphite or epoxy rod. It’s like you cast that thing and it has that dead feel and you cast the epoxy rod and it just flies. And the memory lasts longer—you get double the amount of time out the boards.”

Checking the laps

With Broglio’s method he “really likes to pull his laps,” as the fiberglass is stretched like a drum on the overlapping rails as the next best technique to vacuum bagging. He tries to avoid working “wet” with lots of resin that gets absorbed into the blank and adding weight, following closely behind a stiff plastic squeegee with the bucket for a light coat before going back over the area.

Kiteboards awaiting their turn

With a poly board you just laminate the bottom, file the rail, then “lam” the top, but with epoxy you have to sand the lap on the rails in addition for adherence. If the epoxy job sits too long, you have to sand again and wipe, so you really have to stage it carefully with roughly a step a day to ensure a really strong bond. An epoxy board done right can take up to 6–7 days, though unlike the poly finish, you don’t have to add a surfacing agent for the final coat since it’s already in the epoxy finish. The “pop-out” manufactured boards are vacuum-sealed in a bag then placed in a mold that “sucks all the air out and all the excess resin” leaving a pure, thin lamination that would be flat without a rocker jig. Yet he sees a world in which the market got flooded by pop-outs and is now recoiling, a backlash over cheaper boards as surfers move up the food chain and become more discriminating again.

Shaping with an Original, “Da Bull”

Pioneer shaper, film maker and surf explorer Greg Noll recently visited Half Moon Bay for the first annual Maverick’s Film Festival to host a compilation of the his best “Search for Surf” film series, narrated with Bruce Brown. Like a profane Santa Claus of surfing, the gregarious icon traced his early hot dog years, along with pioneering breaks on the North Shore, mainland Mexico, and California. One scene about the early days of shaping solid balsa boards shows a mechanical router-jig set up to cut the top and bottom rockers of the cumbersome balsa blanks. There on celluloid was an early version of the shaping machines of today. As Noll quipped, “All the new stuff you’re trying today, we did it long ago.” From this vintage example, it would appear the shaping machine has really been in the works since the 1950s.

Mike Wallace has surfed for over two decades on the East and West coasts, Hawaii, Europe and NorCal. Currently a resident of Moss Beach with his family of four, he can often be found haunting the beaches south of Devil’s Slide in search of the perfect sandbar with his blind dog, Moose. Comments? Mike(at)surfpulse.com

Tags: Ambrose Industrial Surfboards, APS3000, blank, CAD, Dick Keating, Geoff Rashe, Greg Noll, Luciano Leao, M10, Matt Ambrose, Miki Langenbach, Rick Eastman, Skil, Steve Coletta, surfboard shaping, Vince Broglio

In a marriage of opposites, nimble designer-surfer Thomas Meyerhoffer of Montara has joined forces with distribution and manufacturing powerhouse Global Surf Industries (GSI) to unleash his latest design breakthrough on the surfing world:

http://www.surfindustries.com/surfboards/modern_meyerhoffer.php

Meyerhoffer has reinvented the wheel multiple times over during his storied career, but his latest project is one close to his own heart—reinventing the longboard. Developed and tested over the past few years, this new equipment represents a radical departure from the incremental design evolution of the past and potential quantum leap forward in form and function.

The “Modern Meyerhoffer” was sculpted around the principle that longboarders turn off the tail and noseride up front, with the middle of the board an excessive transition zone in between that could be reduced. Accordingly, the board has a relatively traditional nose up front, leading to a tapered waist in the middle, a dynamic, wider rear end and elongated tail for stability and drive. This gives the Meyerhoffer its distinctive organic “parabolic” shape. Meyerhoffer is quick to point out that “the negative curve is only there so that I could shape a more positive curve … as on a surfboard you turn around the positive curve.”

Meyerhoffer and the Modern Quiver

Rails are soft up front along with a gentle hull-shaped bottom contour that allows for easy paddling and nose-riding, getting the board quickly up to speed. But the wider rear of the board has sharper rails and a deep double-concave, which along with the rudder-like tail creates a unique shortboard-like turning radius and feel.

Based in Manly Beach, Australia, Global Surf Industries is the largest surfboard distributor in the world with 11 distinct brands, aimed mostly at recreational surfers. GSI’s shapers have included Greg Webber, Steve Walden, Bob McTavish, and Al Merrick. With the Meyerhoffer longboard now in its quiver, however, it has for the first time added a unique and innovative design that could well prove to be a game-changer in longboarding.

Noosa Bottom Turn

The breakout design had its debut at the GSI Noosa Festival of Surfing on March 15–22 and clearly won over even the crustiest Australian longboarding veterans, while the younger surfers adapted even more readily to the board in the perfect small peeling surf. Cross-stepping, switch-stance, floaters, nose-riding and cut-backs all a familiar look, but the whole exhibition seemed to draw fresh dynamism and energy from the experience.

The board appeared to levitate on the wave faces with the front section easily lifting out of the water for faster trim speed, while a step back on the tail yielded a snappy turn and redirection. Yet the board “locked in” tight against the curl when ridden from the nose. More than one dripping wet, ruddy, and stoked Aussie remarked that they couldn’t wait to try the board in larger surf. After exiting the water with knowing grins, it looked like they had just been let in on a well-kept secret—in truth they had.

But the secret’s out now. Prototypes have been produced in the firm’s proprietary SLX (Super Lightweight Epoxy) and are beautifully glassed and finished with white tinted epoxy resin and a gloss polish that gives them an art gallery-quality resonant finish. In no way does the new design resemble the “pop-outs” of the past; this is a light, superbly designed and well-engineered wave tool.

Don’t be surprised if these boards appear like UFOs in a line-up or contest near you, ripping where others have plodded before them. Stand-up-paddle surfers beware: in the near future, that glowing and flowing longboard surfing circles around you and your awkward balancing act may just be a Modern Meyerhoffer.

Board sizes will range from 7’6”–9’6” and will come with 6” or 8” center fins along with FCS side fins, depending on the length of the board. Look for demos and boards to be made available in Northern California in the coming weeks at the following shops: Wise in San Francisco, NorCal and Sonlight in Pacifica, and Freeline in Santa Cruz.

Modern Meyerhoffer at Bells Beach

Mike Wallace has surfed for over two decades on the East and West coasts, Hawaii, Europe and NorCal. Currently a resident of Moss Beach with his family of four, he can often be found haunting the beaches south of Devil’s Slide in search of the perfect sandbar with his blind dog, Moose. Comments? Mike(at)surfpulse.com

Tags: Australia, Global Surf Industries, longboard, Montara, Noosa, parabolic, shaper, Thomas Meyerhoffer

With spring and summer comes increased downtime for surfers as Mother Ocean becomes more mean-spirited and quality waves harder to find (see Ode to Spring”). It would be an unwitting mistake to sink into apathy as a result, with a chain reaction of boredom, moroseness and depression lurking close behind. Between bouts of relief during viable swells, when the adrenalin rush subsides and reality sets in, that’s when a land-training program can bridge the gap and break you out of your surfless funk.

There’s no single solution for keeping fit and motivated when not surfing, with obvious cardio benefits from swimming, mountain biking and running for disciplined athletes, stimulating missing endorphins triggered by exercising in the surf. For many surfers, though, these more linear activities lack variety and don’t come close to mimicking the multidimensional stop-and-go patterns of prowling the impact zone, bursting into a dynamic wave face, gunning it down the line and punching through a defenseless lip.

The addictive pull of surfing and satisfaction of complete immersion in the elements spoils surfers for other activities; surfers for the most part don’t make good gym rats. As in life, finding balance is the key, a missing element in many fitness regimes. One surfer who simply sought to keep himself tuned up between swells in Florida turned that desire (and over 30 years of tinkering) into a fulltime crusade for balance. Known to friends and colleagues as the “Balance Sensei, Balance Whisperer and even Indo Man,” Hunter Joslin developed the “Indo Board” from a single balance trainer in 1998 into a full range of indoor core fitness products.

Dry Land Surfing

Hunter basically taught himself to surf by using a balance board back in 1966: “I was a swimmer and not able to go to the beach very often. I did my homework standing on the balance board and rode it constantly. I learned to cross-step and surf better than most of my friends. Now that I’m 56 and running a business, water time is hard to find. The Indo Board has kept me ready to surf at a consistent level regardless of how infrequently I get to surf. It is invaluable, especially in cross-stepping, which on the Indo Board translates directly into smooth footwork.”

In its first incarnation, the balance trainer was basically a combination of a small plywood plank with back-stops on the bottom that perched atop a heavy plastic tube, hopefully with rider attached. Joslin discovered the apparatus as a competitive swimmer in his youth, a primitive version used by his coach to add variety, balance and strength to training regimes. An avid surfer and skateboarder since the 60’s, Hunter originally refined the deceptively simple tool by placing an oval skimboard on a roller. He ran with the concept from there, fully loading his stable of products with over 22 different offerings tailored to athletes of different sizes, skill levels and sporting activities.

The variety of Indo Boards includes the “Original, Mini Original, Pro Deck, Mini Kick Tail and Mini Kick Tail Pro.” That range runs from larger boards for beginners and longboarders to smaller boards designed for skaters and wake boarders aiming to perfect their bag of tricks. The “IndoFlo Cushion” also offers stand-up paddlers and others a means to improve their skills, with an inflatable 14-inch diameter cushion placed under the board, designed to simulate 360 degrees of gimbaled instability, rather than plain old lateral fun.

Going with the IndoFlo

Hunter reckons the IndoFlo set-up is the closest simulation to stand-up surfing on dry land, being very targeted at core balance skills. He even advocates holding a paddle or broomstick while balancing on the board and cushion. For the truly advanced, the cushion can be placed on a small step stool to keep the board from touching the floor. And among the most respected watermen in the world is the C4 Waterman group, who actively use the Indo Board for their land training. Joining forces to refine and develop the stand-up tradition and equipment are Hawaii’s Brian Keaulana, Todd Bradley and Mike Fox who formed C4, along with respected shaper-journalist Dave Parmenter. They are aiming to bring the original beach boy tradition together with a range of modern high-performance equipment to broaden the appeal of the sport. (For more information, visit www.surfline.com.)

Joslin has seen the C4 team in action and marveled at their skills, feathering the paddle either side of the board in the wave face and changing directions as if they were on much smaller equipment. For a glimpse at who’s having all the fun in soft surf, check out this YouTube video of the C4 Watermen in action in April, 2007, at Val’s Reef on the North Shore. Even tow-in pioneers Laird Hamilton and Darrick Doerner have employed the Indo trainer as part of their bag of training tricks in preparation for balancing on the very unstable hydrofoil board in XXL surf, as has Kauai legend Titus Nihi Kinimaka. (See www.hawaiianschoolofsurfing.com)

Indo Therapy

My landlocked surfing brother-in-law gave me a classic version of the Indo Board several Christmases back and I have incorporated it into my intra-swell routine ever since. After suffering a minor meniscus tear in my right knee, strengthening the muscles around my knees became a high priority. Rather than just tipping it back and forth, riding the nose, etc., I added a twist: doing squats while balancing to simulate pumping down-the-line and toning the very same muscles (just add a little hand jive for style points). Likewise, “Indo” push-ups can imitate the technique of popping up to the standing position on a board. Simply place your hands at both ends of the roller and grip the sides of the board as if you are about to push to your feet, or place them perpendicular… and feel the burn! This is just scratching the surface of the tool’s versatility.

In fact, the tube itself can be used like a jumbo rolling pin to iron out post-surf kinks in your back. Place it under your spine on the floor, exhale and gently pull forward on your neck as you slowly work your way down your back and even roll your hips. Your vertebrae will thank you. Releasing tension has become part of my daily routine, alleviating rigor mortis from being chained to the computer desk before getting in the water. Incorporated into a regular stretching routine, the roller can even be applied under tight lats and triceps après-surf to loosen up small muscle tears in that typically overdeveloped area of the surfer’s anatomy. Posture and ergonomics are critical to the longevity of older athletes, especially in our increasingly desk-bound society.

Hunter Joslin made that discovery after lugging 60 pounds of luggage on his back through the Heathrow airport in London one year, when one side of his body went completely numb. Being in the balance business, he researched his options and found that incorporating an IndoFlow cushion and balance board into a standing position at his desk was the solution. To do that, however, he had to order an adjustable desk that levitates into position at the flip of a switch, keeping him mobile and his spinal discs floppy, not hard. Joslin swears by the work routine and even when doing paperwork he balances on a backless stool with a flexible shaft that keeps his spine limber as well. Comical-but-effective, a video of the set-up can be found on his website:

www.indoboard.com.

Outdo Skills

When you consider the hours surfers spend in the water paddling and just waiting for waves, compared to the mere seconds of unbridled joy actually riding, anything that skews that ratio toward vertical time is of benefit. Frankly, in addition to improving balance and therapeutic effects from regular use of the Indo Board, the tool can improve your surfing. More precise footwork, dynamic lower body positioning, tucked-in hips and relaxed upper body can all be practiced and learned. Envision your favorite pro surfers; even their highly individualistic styles have many such elements in common.

Short-boarders can strengthen surf-specific muscle groups and simulate crouching in the tube, switching stance and popping to their feet. Even small foot placement changes have a big place in new school maneuvers—forward for speed, back for shedding it quickly, widening your stance before an aerial. A training video that comes with the package also holds a trove of tips on maneuvers and techniques, such as flipping the board up on the roller, 50-50s, round-the-worlds. Hanging 10, cheater 5s and cross-stepping, on the other hand, are of obvious value to the longboarder. Why not practice that elusive move on land first, before attempting it in the water?

Land Training

Personal trainers have jumped on board the Indo trend as well, and it just depends how much effort you want to put into your land program to take it to the next level. If you are going to put in the time, you may as well make your routine surf-specific. Pumping light free weights in lifts, curls and presses while balancing on the board prime the body and mind for the impact zone and poise on the wave face. The video even features a pair of Indo riders facing each other and tossing a small medicine ball back and forth while balancing. That other rider can represent the wave throwing sections at you and the ball a lip or chandelier falling in front of you. The best surfing is reactive and instinctual—anticipating what’s just ahead while maintaining balance, and with practice comes precision.

Pros like current ASP World Champion Mick Fanning proved last year that core fitness can make all the difference in consistency of results and performance. Often discovered as part of rehabilitating an injury, balance training in combination with cardio work, speed, and strength work, all make eminent sense for those who genuinely want to improve their skills and wave count in the water. Surfing three times a day on multiple boards like Mick, along with gym and balance training, may not be an option for us working stiffs; nor is bronco busting a large Swiss Ball a safe maneuver for other than the most nimble among us. While we all don’t have the time to “Train like the Champ” (Surfer Magazine Surf Tip, May 2008), we can clearly spice up our regimes on a more stable platform like the Indo board. The only downside is the risk of falling off, which is boldly stamped into the non-skid deck grip: “Warning: Use at your own risk.” Staying on carpet and away from furniture will help avoid injuries.

The Sultan of Smooth, Rob Machado, says his personal trainer has him stand on the Indo Board with his eyes closed at the end of his workout session. Lasting only 10–20 seconds per attempt initially, after two months Machado was able to sustain his position for over three minutes—that equates to a lot of tube time with salt water in your eyes. Pros C.J. Hobgood, Shea Lopez and Sunny Garcia all used the Indo Board as a serious part of their knee rehab routines over the past few years.

Olympian Ideals

Hunter Joslin has donated equipment to several Olympic training centers and formed a close bond of friendship with backstroke Olympic gold medalist and world champion swimmer Aaron Peirsol. Originally from Newport Beach, California, Peirsol is not only a world class swimmer, but more importantly a surfer. As a swimmer-surfer himself, Hunter could relate on many levels to the gifted athlete and recommended the Indo Board to Peirsol’s trainer. Peirsol found it made his kick-turns more explosive in a sport where hundredths of a second separate gold from silver and bronze.

Even the elite CrossFit training craze for hardened athletes has adopted the Indo Board as part of their non-regime. Variety is the name of the game for this ultra-intense combat-style training program, which relies on strength and conditioning at its core to challenge participants at all levels and scrupulously avoid the routine. If you care to try inverted push-ups, the clean-and-jerk, or truck tire hoist on an Indo Board, watch this video (These people clearly have a lot of time on their hands and probably no children.).

Wiindo into the Future

The electronics and gaming industry is taking notice of the balance trend, with Nintendo offering a highly in-demand Fit and Balance Board trainer version of its popular Wii game, designed to entertain players and get them moving at the same time.

Early reviews have been mixed, with the set-up aimed at a weight-loss program of body mass indices and charting goals, along with a limited game selection outside of imitating your personal Mii trainer in a cyber gym or yoga studio. Sure you can virtual hula-hoop, snowboard or head soccer balls… if you like that sort of thing. These exercises may have spawned a whole new genre of YouTube demonstration videos that may improve your Internet surfing, but won’t get you more cred in the line-up.

For the great hoards of the landlocked unfit, the Wii may be an ideal solution, but for more serious athletes and surfers the flat balance pad that resembles a bathroom weight scale doesn’t seem to offer sufficient challenge. With that in mind, perhaps Nintendo will enlist “Balance Sensei Joslin” to help develop the next-generation Kelly Slater Pro Surfer version of the Wii series? Can you picture a Wii board floating on top of an IndoFlow cushion or roller, while riding a simulation of the world’s best breaks? Some Indo fans can and have already taken a small step that direction by playing video games while balancing on the Indo Board.

Until that time, take your land training to the next level with surf-specific exercises that emphasize core fitness, explosive strength, flexibility, and the most important and often overlooked element in surfing… balance.

Mike Wallace has surfed for over two decades on the East and West coasts, Hawaii, Europe and NorCal. Currently a resident of Moss Beach with his family of four, he can often be found haunting the beaches south of Devil’s Slide in search of the perfect sandbar with his blind dog, Moose. Comments? Mike(at)surfpulse.com

For NorCal surfers, spring is a frozen curse, arriving with all the subtlety of a claw hammer. Winds in winter swing back and forth between the north and south with each passing front, offering shelter for the opportunistic surfer. But the “great spring blow” takes on a more sinister and persistent westerly tack, leaving nowhere to hide. With the consistency of a cheese grater, it shreds the last vestiges of north ground swells without a trace of remorse.

The resulting upwelling of icy water from the depths of the Farallon Escarpment sends local water temperatures diving below the 50 degree comfort zone. Even the most trusty and durable 4/3 wetsuit is taxed to its limits to make the transition into spring without revealing a catastrophically weak seam or pinhole. No, can’t stress over dropping close to four bills on a new one. Perhaps it’s time for that 5-mil beauty with a hood—well worth the price to stay in the water for more than forty-five minutes without losing any valuable appendages. Kiss “goodbye” to that new summer shortboard now.

Like income taxes, spring arrives each year with crushing certainty. Make the most of it; hope for a big refund or an early season south swell to keep your salt water spirit from shriveling up. You repeatedly check the SurfPulse report page each morning like a pale desk-bound creature—perhaps there will be a window today when the wind backs off, my precious, the tide doesn’t drain, and a few workable bowls magically appear?

Instead you read: “If you like doubled-up close-outs in freezing winds with a possible corner or two, today’s the day for you!” The Wise report confirms pretty much the same bleak scenario (without the sarcasm) and the O’Neill report in Capitola is only marginally better. Now, if you can only scrounge up that $70 for a tank of gas for the round trip?

Maybe it’s time for some long-deferred maintenance on the house instead, or an extra-long walk for the pup (pacing back and forth at the beach, of course). Little league games seem to take on all the passion of the majors—or is that just you cheering a little louder to mask your dry, wave-empty soul?

Elective surgery starts to sound like a viable option to quell boredom, judging by the well-timed convalescence of your surf crew. Time to get those ear canals drilled out (Jochen), rehab that pesky rotator cuff (Bruce), fully heal from that malicious strep infection (Scott), or luck out and avoid it all (Phil).

Conspiring against you, those fire hose gusts help Mother Nature reclaim your yard and spread native flora among your cultivated plants and lawn. Those dandelions and clover patches spread like a late-season flu and aren’t going to weed themselves, you know! Too old to skateboard, so maybe it’s time to dust off those Calloways and replace the missing cleats on your golf shoes? Nah, not that desperate yet…

Friends with the time and means plot to escape to more exotic and offshore locales, preferably with Southern Hemi exposure. Names like Punta Leone, Hanalei, Scorpion Bay, Nias and Tavarua are whispered in hushed, reverent tones. No point in bragging openly to those inmates left behind. Mental note: work harder this year, save more dinero, or marry into money.

Fortune smiles and a spontaneous mission to San Diego on a family retreat scores two days of bliss at Black’s. Not exotic, but 4–6 feet, light offshores, and fast, super-clean walls are like liquid antibiotics for spring fever. The quad is really moving now—a pump here, a hack there; let’s just flow into a backside layback as that next section throws, now I remember.

Surreal, instead of scowls and “stink eye,” locals greet you with smiles, nods, and friendly banter even as you hungrily devour every wave scrap in sight. It gets crowded as the sun rises above the skyscraper-like cliffs, but it seems that not only is the water warmer in SoCal, so are the water men and women. Figures, it must get good here a lot; plenty to go around. Suck down some gulps of air after that last set, let the heart rate settle, best not to be too greedy. A few hardy longboarders even deign to trunk it as a heat wave rounds out the week and the residual windswell drops, petering out in time for the brittle, arid return trip north, back up the I-5. No regrets.

A pilgrimage down to Windansea, the wellspring of surfing’s youthful irreverence, reveals a shapely reef that can handle both north and south swells indiscriminately. Inviting Baja-blue water and small sloping walls hint at the potential of the place, especially for longboarding, if the locals let any through. Very likely it was precisely the spring doldrums in evidence that drove founding club members, like the late Woody Brown and Mickey Dora, Greg Noll, Skip Fry and Mike Hynson, to set sail for adrenal-pumping shores of Hawaii and beyond.

In 1968 author Tom Wolfe prophetically captured the ethos of the juvenile California surf counter-culture, which, inevitably, has been absorbed back into the mainstream: “The Pump House Gang lived as though age segregation were a permanent state, as if it were inconceivable that any of them would ever grow old, i.e., 25. I foresaw the day when the California coastline would be littered with the bodies of aged and abandoned Surferkinder, like so many beached whales.” A palm-covered palapa still stands as a tattered monument to their pioneering and mischievous spirit, if not the millions of their more conformist descendants.

Time to head home, knock out a few chores, melt the grey winter wax from the quiver and start fresh. Maybe unload a couple of boards on SurfPulse classifieds or craigslist, and order that new little Christenson fish after all, just in time for “Dubya’s” tax rebates to arrive? If all else fails, cash it all in for a stand-up board and paddle off to Cabo. No, still not that desperate…

You truly know its spring when no fewer than four Maverick’s regulars show up at the Princeton Jetty (aka “Little Mavs”) for that last meager south swell. Armed with an arsenal of longboards and discs, they knife hungrily and shamelessly through the confused crowd on the hunt for the familiar plum little peaks of their gromdom. No names mentioned… but, Ion, dude, that seated take-off and 360-butt spin rates special mention.

This surfing addiction of ours has both karmic and physical facets, a spiritual connection with nature that distinguishes it from most other sports. But that clearly leaves a deep void for many water men and women when the Pacific stops giving, turning moody and spiteful.

Sometimes the best you can hope for in spring is to get a windswell fix often enough to rinse out the tree pollen from your itchy-dry sinuses and keep your wetsuit from contorting into a stiff straitjacket. Or, pray for a flurry of early-season south swells not to be ironed flat by the relentless and cruel onshores.

Embrace spring, don’t fight it. With some inspired creativity, convalescence, or a well-timed trip and a heap of patience we can all get through it together before the dense summer fog obscures the surf altogether.

Mike Wallace has surfed for over two decades on the East and West coasts, Hawaii, Europe and NorCal. Currently a resident of Moss Beach with his family of four, he can often be found haunting the beaches south of Devil’s Slide in search of the perfect sandbar with his one-eyed dog, Moose. Comments? Mike(at)surfpulse.com

Needless to say, SurfPulse was preaching to the choir when they asked me to review SurfCo Hawaii’s product line. If you haven’t yet been injured by your board, just give it time. Ever notice the hybrids and longboards flying around like Sikorsky rotor blades at your favorite spot? And even if you are a young gun, full of testosterone and attitude, pushing each session to the edge, you’re just as vulnerable. You are mortal…you just don’t know it yet. In NorCal, if you think you are protected by your wetsuit, think again. Modern, aqua-dynamically shaped fins can slice right through you while leaving the neoprene material intact. Two surfing icons who have sacrificed an eye to their beloved sport are Santa Cruz wetsuit tycoon Jack O’Neill and North Shore big wave legend Peter Cole.

Over the course of a 21-year surfing career, let’s just say that I have left some skin on the reef, both proverbial and actual. Relying mostly on a spartan medical kit of duct tape, Advil and iodine to patch myself up, regular visits to a physio and my chiropractor have also helped keep me in the water. Plagued by fin cuts, reef wounds, hamstring tears, broken toes, surfer’s elbow, a pinched meniscus, a scapula tear, a butt gouge and a cracked septum (twice)—no, it ain’t easy getting old.

This parade of injuries was not sustained from deep water heroics, far from it. Most of them simply occurred during the odd routine session of shallow water antics at average beach or reef breaks, or even just mistimed entries and exits from the water. In fact, my favorite stunt is simply to pop up after a close-out during a breezy offshore session only to find my board pin-wheeling straight toward me as I blindly struggle to blink the salt water from my eyes. Inevitably, some sharp extremity of the board will take a maniacal aim at my head, apparently seeking vengeance for the indignity of being my aquatic beast of burden, blocked only by a last-ditch sleight of hand.

“Surf Smart” with SurfCo

SurfCo Hawaii was founded in 1986, established to market and distribute the company’s first product, the “Nose Guard.” Entrepreneur and CEO David Skedeleski of SurfCo co-invented the protective rubber device with renowned shaper Eric Arakawa, currently with Hawaiian Island Creations (HIC) Surfboards. After several well-publicized incidents, the two first distributed their new product on the North Shore free to surfers. David’s own son, Michael, was cut off early in his promising competitive surfing career at age 14 by a wicked slice to his leg from a fiberglass fin that took 125 stitches to repair. Traumatized, he has only just returned to surfing 16 years later at age 30 and was one of the prime inspirations behind SurfCo’s second major product, “Pro Teck” fins.

David recalls learning to surf in placid Waikiki, sharing a rental board with his sister as a child and knowing from that first ride that it was the sport of kings. His first board was a used Velzy that his dad carefully re-glassed for him. Later, tragically blown off the roof of their car after a session, the Velzy was run over by a drunk driver and had its fin unceremoniously lopped off. David remembers always tinkering with his boards, repairing and even shaping a few. He even taught Craig Sugihara to surf, who later became the CEO of Town & Country Surfboards.

David almost died in fast-rising surf at Haliewa in the pre-surf report days at age 16, when that beach break became one with the raging “Avalanches” next door—the very same thing that happened to me as youth. That formative event taught him to value life and respect the power of the ocean. Today, as SurfCo CEO, he’s a busy guy, but he still finds time to longboard 2–3 times a week at his favorite haunts, like Ewa Beach and Barber’s Point on the South Shore, and Mokule’ia and Chun’s Reef on the North Shore.

A Painful Education

SurfCo has won many fans over its 22-year history and continues to attract unsolicited testimonials from amateurs and pros alike. Considering that the company does not sponsor any surfers or pay to have them use their products, that’s quite a compliment. In fact, the company has a deliciously gory “testimonials” section on its website below. Just like the Driver’s Education movies of our teens, with footage of mangled drunks and their victims, this hall of surfing horrors makes for sobering viewing:

http://surfcohawaii.com/shop_content.php?coID=32

Even the pros get unlucky from time to time. Hawaii’s Pancho Sullivan, World Tour rookie in 2006 and #7 in 2007, recalls an incident during the Pipeline Masters at Ehukai Beach on the North Shore in which he was struck in his face with the tip of his board. “If I did not have a Diamond Tip on the nose, I would have been seriously injured! I think it’s foolish for a surfer not to use a Diamond Tip or Nose Guard on their board,” he said. Pancho, who favors red for all his accessories, is an easy sell for the entire product line.

Other surfers who have gravitated to the SurfCo products after close encounters with their equipment include Pipeline Master Gerry Lopez, who tried Pro Teck fins after an incident in Indo. Tow-in specialist and WCT commentator Mike Parsons has used them as well, along with Buzzy Kerbox. Hawaii’s big wave free surfer Shane Dorian has also tested the fins at the urging of his shaper, John “JC” Carper, who uses them on his own boards. Charger Jamie Sterling’s Maverick’s gun this year had a black nose guard, which came in especially handy when the board was tipped over on stage at the contest awards ceremony. Most have learned the hard way and sought SurfCo products after the fact.

Tube documentarian Brian “My Eyes Won’t Dry” Connelly falls neatly into that category, and should consider SurfCo’s product line after a horrific and deep gash in the back of his left calf, inflicted while filming in mainland Mexico. Towing and paddling into double overhead hurricane surf, Connelly’s group had been going deep and coming out clean. He got caught a little high after exiting a tube, was clipped and sucked over the falls with his board. He was “squirting blood” out of a 3-inch fin slice and knew when he came up this was unlike other incidental contacts with his board. Quick actions by his friends, who applied a tourniquet and rushed him to the local hospital, were followed with deep internal sutures to close the wound. Graphic footage can be seen at the end of the following video…not for those of weak constitution:

http://www.surfline.com/video/video_player/video_player.cfm?id=12138&mv;=ncl

Another Brillo Production

The unofficial spokesmodel for the SurfCo line is Huntington-based Darrin Brilhart, who as the Director of Brillo Productions makes his livelihood organizing high-profile WQS surfing events like the Cold Water Classic in Santa Cruz. At the Maverick’s contest, when Surfer Editor Chris Mauro comically couldn’t find the results sheet at the awards ceremony, it was Darrin who handed him a back-up copy. While you may not have heard of him, in all likelihood you’ve seen a gruesome image of him in the major surf mags. Darrin impaled the nose of his board right into his face, tongue and roof of his mouth. Ironically, Darrin had been with Brian Connelly a year before his accident and had offered Nose Guards and Pro Teck fins to the film maker in Pasquales, Mexico, which he said would be well suited to “going down the line” in the barrel with a helmet cam.

As Darrin describes his own episode back in September 2003: “I pulled into a close-out barrel, as I was under the water my board shot through my jaw into my tongue and punctured the roof of my mouth. If I would have had a Nose Guard, I don’t think it would have done so much damage and if it punctured my throat or eye, I could have been done for good. I actually got very lucky!” Images of his jaw scar and his repaired tongue sticking out at the camera offer a cautionary tale horrific enough to send a chill down the spine of even the most hardened veteran.

Reflecting on that event today, Darrin says he healed pretty well and was lucky to miss the main nerves, but he still has no feeling on the right side of his face. Two months later he was again speared by his board, this time in the arm, but had learned his lesson well: a Nose Guard protected him from further insult and injury. With little prodding, he says that David (SurfCo CEO) “is an unreal guy with a great product.” As a result, he distributes the products gratis as an emissary for the SurfCo line to budding amateurs and professionals on the tour. While the pros can be a bit more finicky due to relations with their sponsors, he’s pleased to report that the groms have been more sensible and open to the devices.

Local Knowledge

Hawk: Former Surfer Editor Steve Hawk has used Nose Guards and soft-edge fins for years—almost since they first came out. “I’m a puss about that stuff,” he said. Like others, he has not been immune to fin cuts or other board-related injuries, having been stitched up numerous times, but he’s been fortunate enough to not have suffered any catastrophic hits. In his time at Surfer, Hawk said he heard many scary stories about people losing eyes, getting deep facial scars or nearly bleeding to death as a result of fin wounds. He recalled one particularly disturbing letter from a reader who took a fin shot to the family jewels and, upon peeling down his wetsuit to take inventory, had to spool in a dangling testicle before shuffling to the emergency room.

Tjogas: Local charger Jim Tjogas of Montara suffered a kidney stab from a board fin at a state beach along the San Mateo coast a couple of years back. In hollow and dredgy head-high surf, he took off on a left and lost his footing after a characteristically hard vertical frontside snap on a suck out. He felt icy water rushing into his warm wetsuit after his board knifed him in the back. Built like a linebacker and with the balance of an alley cat, Tjogas knew something was wrong after the wound, and friends who examined him said he was very lucky with the near miss. His vital organ was badly bruised, but fortunately not destroyed. He recalls excruciating pain for a week, urinating blood for longer, and sleeping uncomfortably for over a month, though he still didn’t miss many sessions in the process. Jim admits that Pro Teck fins would have significantly reduced the damage.

Alfaro: Like it was yesterday, Mark Alfaro recalls the time he nearly lost his eye and his life in playful conditions at Ocean Beach in San Francisco several years back. He was taking full advantage of small, clean, shoulder-high surf when he still lived in the city. Going fast on a right, the wave closed out and shut him down. Mark ducked under the lip and made the exit out the back, but his board didn’t, snapping back up under his body underwater. It grazed his eyelid and hit the socket so hard that he nearly passed out. Ironically, at the tip of the board was a hard plastic early-model guard (not from SurfCo) and yet the board was still crushed some three inches back from the nose, stringer and all. Mark uses the softer rubber Diamond Tips on all his boards now.

No stranger to hard blows from martial arts competitions, he is convinced that even a slightly different trajectory could have driven the board through his eye and easily killed him. His surf buddies were over a hundred yards away and couldn’t hear his call for help, so he had to get to shore under his own power. Blinded by the blood, he inquired from a friend on land, “Is my eye okay?” His friend replied that his eyeball was intact, but he “looked like crap!” Emergency room nurses and doctors’ jaws dropped and eyes widened at the sight of Mark’s injury, all the more alarming given the trauma they were accustomed to in the E.R. on any given day.

In the end, he was patched up with several stitches on the side of his nose and was very lucky. Alfaro knows first hand that it’s easy to let your guard down in small, shallow conditions, and personally knows two guys who have lost an eye in tiny surf, including Mark Froke (below), who didn’t get a second chance. He has even used rubberized Pro Teck fins for the past nine years on his Maverick’s guns. After several fin impacts in various conditions, Mark has only received minor welts from Pro Tecks, rather than cuts or a potential loss of limb.

Marshall: Mike Marshall of Performance Surfing Products distributes the SurfCo product line along with other surf product lines to shops on the mainland from his Half Moon Bay office. An irrepressible surfer and businessman, Mike uses Nose Guards on all his boards, though he has a bad habit of jamming them nose-first in the sand while suiting up. A wealth of information, he notes dryly that about 30% of new boards are sold with Nose Guards, but somewhere between the surf shop register and the beach he sees far fewer than that in the line-up. He infers that buyers must be having second thoughts about the “coolness” factor somewhere along the line. With the tone of someone who has seen and heard it all, however, he chides, “It’s not when or if, but how bad you will be hurt.”

Of course, it’s not without some first hand experience that he makes that claim. While surfing, Mike has broken his leg, injured his wrist and elbow, lost teeth and had over 100 stitches at last count. He recalls one particularly harrowing incident at Sunset Beach on the North Shore when he managed to catch his thruster fin cluster in the crotch, somehow narrowly saved from that truly gruesome fate by the middle fin snaring him in one cheek, which stopped the other two from pursuing their primary objective. In another close call, he was stabbed in his facial cheek bone with a board protected by a Nose Guard, suffering only a bad bruise as a result.

Nose Guards

The range of Nose Guards runs from the “Diamond Tip” for the short board to larger nose and tail guards for longer equipment. There are even categories for sailboards and snowboards, as well as a “Paddle Guard Kit” for those who stand-up paddle. I have used these guards for years on most of my boards, though I have admittedly been less conscientious of late. It’s kind of like Russian roulette: you’re probably fine most of the time, but you never know when your number is up.

As documented, gouges from the nose of a board to any part of the body can inflict serious injury, and a surprising number of talented surfers have made contact this way with dire consequences, especially after misadventures in the barrel. Other than ego or the bravado factor, there is little justification for not placing one of these gems on the tip of your board; there is no drag or other impediment from the guard. I was a little more skeptical about the “Tail Guards,” which seemed likely to alter performance by redirecting water flow off the back, but in order to give the product a fair shake I modified one to fit the pointy tips of the swallow tail on my 6′-4″ Fish. To my surprise, if anything, it gave the board a tad more projection and lift, like a small bump wing or step in the rail.

Pro Teck Fins

These fins have a rubber compound that surrounds the perimeter of a flexible, hard plastic or stiff carbon core fin. Skedeleski says he found his inspiration for these from Dolphin fins, which are flexible on their outer edges, as well, much like the Tuna fin that provided the template for the flexible skeg invented by pioneering kneeboarder George Greenough. Two-time world champ Tom Carroll once infamously impaled his trailing thruster fin “where the sun don’t shine” during a competition in small shorebreak in Japan, requiring stitches to repair an unnaturally large hole that mother nature never intended.

According to Matt Warshaw’s The Encyclopedia of Surfing, a Surfing Medical Association (SMA) study found that 60% of injuries were board-related. 55% of these injuries are from being struck by one’s own board, and 40% of these are lacerations from fins. Most injuries sustained from other surfers come from the nose of a loose board. Another study found that 70% of surf-related injuries take place in waves under head high. So the eye or thigh you save may not just be your own.

SurfCo offers a variety of highly engineered fin set-ups, for thrusters and longboards alike. The orange “Super Flex” fins are designed with the beginner in mind and have the greatest flex range for more forgiving and fluid turns. Both the core fin and rubber compound on the perimeter offer the most pliability for the greatest safety. From a liability and ethical standpoint there is no reason that any surf school worth their salt water wouldn’t have these fins as mandatory on all equipment. The same goes for any shops renting Soft Top boards to novices.

One well-known big wave warrior started up a surf school and bought a handful of Soft Top boards for that purpose. David Skedeleski was the distributor for those boards in the Islands and recommended the instructor install Pro Teck fins on all the boards, but the guy said he couldn’t afford to at the time. His very first clients were a husband and wife who paddled out single file into the surf. The husband lost control of the board in the shore-break, and it squirted straight back into his wife’s face, gashing her in the forehead with its stock plastic fins. After a trip to the emergency room at the school’s expense, fortunate to not be sued out of existence, the chastened proprietor retrofitted the rubberized fins on all his boards.

The next step up is the “Power Flex” series, offering a clear core fin with colored outside edges and a medium flex characteristic, designed more for intermediate surfers or those who wish to loosen up their board with a more springy snap-back acceleration out of the turns. SurfCo’s “Performance” fin series has a stiffer core flex that creates more drive from bottom turns and off-the-top cutbacks, but still combined with a soft outer edge for safety and fluidity. Another innovation at this level is the option of a regular (75A) and stiff (85A) flex for the edges of the fin, with the former providing a looser feel and tighter turning arc over the latter which creates more drive and projection. “Performance” fins are designed with the intermediate to professional surfer in mind. The ones I tested were cleanly finished and all fit tolerances with other manufacturers’ fin boxes were appropriately snug.

At the apex of the SurfCo fin pyramid are its “Carbon-X” fins, created for expert to professional surfers, with an “extra rigid” core, maximum lightness and the stiffer 85A outer edge for the greatest combination of speed, drive, projection and fluidity. These fins have a carbon-grey core and black trailing edge. I tested out a pair of Carbon-X fins on two very familiar boards and found them to be a respectably responsive alternative to the Vector II and Scimitar Futures fins that I tend to favor.

The Carbon-X fins surf very similar to the FCS G-5s and generally offer comparable control to their counterparts, with little sacrifice of speed or projection. One area that SurfCo is looking into is the foiled side fins, similar to Futures, which offer extra traction and lift in top and bottom turns. The popularity of quad (4-fin) clusters also suggest another avenue for SurfCo down the road, along with new materials choices and other innovations pending that would nicely round out the high end of their product line.

I have often imagined that in the event of a shark attack I’d jam the tail and sharp fins of my board in the gaping mouth of the animal to teach him a lesson and buy some time as I bolted to the beach. Of course, with rubberized Pro Teck fins that would be more like flossing his teeth squeaky-clean if he hasn’t already done so with the leash. But the very real statistical truth is that you are infinitely more likely to be chewed up by your own board than any grumpy cartilaginous creature.

Hot Grip Traction Pads

These are brand spanking new clear and tinted one-piece traction tail pads, first of their kind on the market. In a slight departure for the SurfCo product line, they take aim at performance and esthetics, rather than safety per se. Beautifully designed with integral air pockets and channels that direct water flow out the back, these pads also have structural ribbing that gives them more positive feel. Rider feedback during early tests has revealed that under the increased G-forces of turns in larger surf, the more rigid design and air cushions really spring to life underfoot, increasing grip at speed.

My colorful Fish got a transparent Hot Grip deck pad and the integrated traction device responded willingly to my spurs and seemed pretty lively under foot. In 51º water temperature and with booties on, however, it was less cushy than I expected when installed, but still very positive and solid—like upgrading to a Nike Air or Reebok Pump training shoe and going for a jog at high altitude. I would imagine in more tropical climes, where the Hot Grip was developed, the ride would be more noticeably dynamic.

The company also claims that the more rubbery compound reduces chafing on the legs when surfing in board shorts. Considering I’ve had other top-of-the-line tail pads pull up and come apart with regular use, the single piece of the Hot Grip pad with the same primer-adhesive system as bullet-proof Nose Guards would seem a distinct advantage. Not having to wait 24 hours before entering the water until after the adhesive has bonded, like some other traction pads, is also a bonus—who’s really going to want to do that with a new board anyway? One disadvantage is the pad’s weight, which is a tad heavier than the competition’s. In addition, the ribs could possibly use some detuning for cold water action.

Quick Fix Repair Kits

SurfCo also offers a full product range of ding repair kits suited to just about every board material and repair possible, including UV cure, putty and rubberized solutions for both poly and epoxy boards. The company also distributes ergonomic wax scrapers, board-mounted key holders, sunblock, adhesive leash plugs, and leashes. I have used the economical repair kits successfully over the years, but would highly recommend seeking professional help for anything other than small dings. EPS board cores, for example, soak up water like a sponge even from small leaks and need to be thoroughly dried and sealed, or else they will become quickly waterlogged and ultimately drown.

Paranoia Sets In

Researching this piece and documenting the injuries of other surfers has given me renewed appreciation for being more proactive about my equipment, if not a little paranoid. A good board can be your best friend or your worst enemy, if it catches you unawares. Recently, even as I was putting the finishing touches on this article, I took off too deep, went over the falls and hit the deck hard at a shallow and turbulent local reef break. While the Nose Guard and Pro Teck fins I was testing didn’t save my ass or ego from a deep purple bruising, the incident sure could have been much worse…

While balancing safety against performance is a very personal matter, especially for fins, there’s the hard way and then there’s the SurfCo way.

For more information on SurfCo Hawaii’s product line, visit
www.surfcohawaii.com.

Mike Wallace has surfed for over two decades on the East and West coasts, Hawaii, Europe and NorCal. Currently a resident of Moss Beach with his family of four, he can often be found haunting the beaches south of Devil’s Slide in search of the perfect sandbar with his one-eyed dog, Moose. Comments? Mike(at)surfpulse.com

Like the shaping industry itself, Randy Cone is at a crossroads. His passion for surfing big waves and hand-crafting precision surfboards drew him to the heavy water Mecca of Maverick’s at Half Moon Bay. But his young and growing business in Pacifica is competing for his attention and energy, even as he strives to provide for his new family.

Randy’s experience is not all that different from of the rest of us. Enslaved by the siren call of waves, attempting to juggle careers, family, friends and the daily grind, we try to find an all-too-brief window of recreation that aligns with Mother Nature’s fickle moods. But only for a rare few do all those competing demands intersect in the dynamic and hyper-competitive business of board-making, which has inevitably become globally industrialized.

In Randy’s case, that trend has profound implications for his future; marquee shapers are evolving more into board designers, with production outsourced overseas. Yet, the infinite three-dimensional curves of the surfboard remain a wide-open canvas for innovation and experimentation, both in materials and shape, as never before in the post-Clark Foam era.

Shaper-Rider

Honed by a quarter century of annual pilgrimages to the North Shore of Oahu, and several years of getting Maverick’s dialed, Randy has a rare and potent bond of big wave and expert shaping experience. He has paid his dues in the water and behind the planer, having cranked out 7000–8000 boards in his career, working at the rate of 20–25 per month and 4 to 5 a week, translating into 70–80 hour workweeks. For those in the know— experienced surfers who can appreciate his obsessive craftsmanship—his boards are lethally effective equipment that can sharpen anyone’s performance level. Randy will shape you exactly what you want, but has found his niche with traveling boards, semi-guns, guns and Maverick’s big-game chasers.

Raised in Goleta, California, just north of Santa Barbara, Cone keenly remembers riding his BMX bicycle across the railroad tracks to the beach as a grom and smelling the tropical scents wafting from the Sex Wax factory before it was uprooted to a larger facility down the road in Carpenteria. Perhaps that formative experience cast a cartoon-like olfactory spell over him, drawing the young man with a vaporous crooked finger toward his destiny with surfing and shaping.

Among others, he credits Kirk Bjerke as his principle mentor in terms of “big wave surfing knowledge and a lot of big wave gun knowledge.” But when he was 14 years old, he apprenticed for Haakenson Fiberglassing in Goleta, which brought him close to a unique band of shaping legends: Rich Reed, David Puu, Al Merrick, George Greenough, Malcom Cambell, Kirk Bjerke, John Bradbury, Bob Krause, Jeff Bushman and Steve Huerta. Channeling these gurus, Randy shaped his first board (a stout little quad) at age 16 and then shaped and surfed for David Puu of Morning Star Surfboards for the next few years. After a couple decades shaping and competing around the world, all currents eventually drew him to Maverick’s, which he began to surf in 1998 before settling in the area in 2000.

Downsizing the Gun

While quick to pay tribute to the master shapers of the past, Cone has taken a different approach to applying their cumulative knowledge and his unique talents. In a counter-intuitive and deceptively deft stroke of shaping alchemy, he has downsized the Maverick’s gun. As he succinctly puts it: “giving a shorter board a bigger board outline.” As a result, his boards look familiar, but somehow vaguely different. You can’t quite put your finger on it, but the first time you ride one the performance gap becomes clear. “If you do that, naturally, the nose and everything is going to look a little wider, because you’re holding your curve of the bigger board in a smaller board,” says Cone. As a symbol of this evolution, Randy recycled a large geriatric gun with the new smaller shape rising out of its back to create a new masthead over his shop, a literal sign of the times.

And forget the nose-flip fad of the past as well—he’s over it. A shallower entry rocker is an integral part of this design progression, allowing the rider to get up to speed faster. As he notes with a twinkle of irony over all the focus on the front of the gun, “Once you’re up, the nose of the board doesn’t even come into play, since you’re riding on the back third of the board.” Otherwise, “If you’re gonna pearl, you’re gonna pearl.”

While he’s been applying this theory to his guns for years, and other shapers have been comparing notes and adopting this progression, too, Randy sees these elements creeping back into the short-board evolution as well. The “potato chip” competition thruster has started to put some carbs back into its diet and it’s livelier and more fun to surf as a result. Cone religiously watches all the ASP WCT “Dream Tour” events via the Internet and he has witnessed board outlines of the pros becoming straighter and flatter. “Now they’ve gone wider, too, and word gets around, like, ‘Hey, what are your measurements?'”

Twiggy Borrows a Board

In paddle-in big wave surfing, those specs may be the difference between standing up on a mountain-sized wave and actually surfing it. Cutting the gun back down to size—by over a foot—to 9′ 0″ made all the difference for Grant “Twiggy” Baker, who came over from South Africa and rode one of Randy’s boards to victory at the Maverick’s contest on February 6, 2006. Baker came to the contest after securing a controversial write-in nomination—thanks to the energetic voting of his countrymen— and having borrowed a 10’+ gun from his friends, and fellow contestants, the Long brothers. In an early pre-contest warm-up he pearled badly several times and fell flat on his face.

Shaken, Baker asked what went wrong. Maverick’s charger and film-maker Grant Washburn quickly diagnosed the problem: not the rider, but the board. Having witnessed Baker’s heroics first hand in equally gnarly Dungeons in South Africa, Washburn said with conviction of a fellow charger: “That kind of big wave rider can surf anything, so Long’s board clearly wasn’t right for the wave” at Maverick’s. He warned the rattled Baker that he would “get killed” if he continued to attempt waves on Long’s board.

Wandering back to the drawing board in search of a replacement, the pair stumbled upon the dark forest-green 9′ 0″ gun in the shop that had been earmarked as a “wall hanger” for Randy’s folks. Baker had his doubts about the relatively dwarfed size of the board. Despite being competitors in the same contest, Maverick’s devotees Washburn and Cone prevailed on Baker to try it out. The gun was cut from a blank with a thick half-inch stringer with a strange evil twist in it; hence the dark color choice to cover the flaw. But that twisted board changed the fate of the three and may as well have been a lightning bolt stringer struck from the hammer of Thor (or the hand of Gerry Lopez, for that matter). Baker’s confidence grew exponentially as the board went “insane,” and he fully admits that “I would never have won that event without Randy’s help.”

As Baker recounts, “It all started with the fact that I don’t like to travel with big boards. Anything over 8’0″ is a major hassle and I find it much easier to beg and borrow big boards, when and if I need them.” He used Rusty Long’s “big yellow guy and it just didn’t seem to fit in the bowl and I had some crazy wipe-outs on the thing. Then for a while I tried using a really short board that was 7’6″ and, even though I could catch the waves, I kept spinning out at the bottom and had some even crazier wipe-outs because of it.”

Washburn then convinced Randy to lend him a board. Baker recalls, “When I first looked at the Green machine, I thought ‘here we go again.’ It was like nothing I had surfed on before, with it being super narrow and thin with the two-plus-one ‘widow maker’ fin setup and super heavy for a 9’0″, not to mention the fact that it had been made as a display board for behind a bar! But after my first wave on the board, I knew we had something special. It was really fast to paddle for how small it was, and dropped to the bottom like a stone and turned like a short-board…basically everything you look for in a big wave gun.”

In addition to the board, Baker suggests, “I do feel that one of the biggest factors in winning the event on that board was how much we surfed Maverick’s leading up to the contest, and the fact that I only had one board and that really helped me get a feel for how the board went and I got so used to it in all conditions.”

While the board is still leaning in Randy’s shaping room for inspiration, Baker has been riding a Cone 8’0″ that’s “one of the best boards I have ever had” and a 9’2″ he surfed all winter in Cape Town “that goes even better than the Green machine.” The bottom line is that “his boards are amazing and I definitely feel that’s because he is one of the few shapers that surfs the waves he makes his boards for. It helps with the end product and I can’t wait to see what he has lined up for me to ride this winter.”

Randy Gets it Dialed

Randy himself has been a regular invitee to the Maverick’s contest and team riders consider his shapes at least two years ahead of the curve, both for guns and their natural extension to everyday boards. Reflecting on that fateful green 9′ 0″ that Baker rode as an example, Randy notes that his guns are becoming shorter, glassed heavier, with lower-volume rails, less than 3 inches thick, and wider at the nose and tail than a traditional rapier-like gun. Cone says this alters the “swing weight” of the board and, in combination with the critical glassing that is still done in-house, fine-tuning of the edges, fin placement, and glass weight, it all adds up to a board that can ride radically better in the water than any mass-produced plank. And his latest creations have moved even further along that continuum from the “Green machine.”

The confidence that breeds when you stand up on the edge of the abyss on a ledging peak at Maverick’s can make all the difference. The only disadvantage he sees with a smaller, heavier board is in being held down deep after a fall in big surf, where less floatation can make it harder to get back to the surface if you’re used to climbing your leash. On the other hand, if you prefer spending more time on the surface, you’re more likely to make the wave in the first place if your board is killer.

Randy confirms that a variety of tail shapes are functional finishing touches on his Maverick’s guns, mainly by achieving “a longer water line” and allowing for a margin of extra purchase on the wave face. Shapes he has favored include small swallows and diamond tails on the guns and rounded pins on more multipurpose semi-guns for the heavier Northern California surf. He expects tail shapes will keep evolving amid experimentation on smaller equipment, along with fin set-ups.

Intrigued by the quad (4) fin cluster, a futuristic throwback gaining popularity over the more functional and established thruster (3) fin group, Cone has doubts about the performance of quads in beefier surf. They have cropped up on the professional tour and at Pipeline on the North Shore, but tend to “stick” on bottom turns, not as loose and drivey as the thruster. Peering at the Monster Energy Pro on his computer in January, Randy watched an otherwise masterful Danny Fuller seem to hit a hitch as the two inside fins grabbed on one bottom turn; “There it is, see!” At the Boost Mobile Pro in Trestles, tour stalwart Mark Occhilupo tested one out in the early heats, but went back to the familiarity of his tri-fin in the later rounds. Yet in hollow, fast surf, the 4-fin clearly offers a different “feel” of speed and agility for those who make the adjustment, while in softer conditions less pumping down the line can be a distinct advantage.

Randy has remained adaptable in his approach, getting some of his blanks rough cut by an APS-3000 computer shaping machine. Still, he favors a first computer cut on the deck, while saving the bottom for the magic of the power planer, rather than trying to iron out the computer’s heavier strokes on the critical rocker. With prodding from his cohort Washburn, he is also in the process of testing out some of the early bio-foam blanks by Homeblown Surf Blanks and Foam Systems, which offers a less toxic MDI-based polyurethane foam versus the TDI-based foam that allegedly put Grubby Clark out of business on environmental grounds. These are made up of sugar- or soy-based polyurethanes that leave a much lighter footprint on the environment—and on the blank blowers and shapers themselves. Once refined, the hope is that these alternative blanks will ultimately make a stronger and more resilient choice—a fusing of performance and conscience.

The vast majority of Cone’s boards, however, still use proven conventional polyurethane blanks from Surfblanks Australia. Polystyrene (EPS) blanks are also offered, though the lighter materials, like the epoxy pop-outs, don’t necessarily handle the wind and chop of heavier seas. The custom boards are mainly coated in epoxy for durability, performance and lower toxicity. Experimentation in the glassing cloth is also forthcoming with fine-woven bamboo cloth making a strong statement, picking up where hemp cloth left off. One constant of the new era in shaping is that materials costs are going up, but the trade off is an expertly shaped board that instantly feels right underfoot and lasts longer—not a bad thing in our disposable culture. Just scroll through the long lists of used boards for sale on Craigslist or SurfPulse for failures to get the mix just right, and you’ll realize it’s worth paying a small premium. Like the fit and feel of a fine tailored suit of wool versus buying an off-the-rack polyester blend from Wal-Mart—it’s no contest.

The Odd Couple

Business and surfing partner Grant Washburn sees the shaping industry quite clearly in qualitative terms. Like Oscar and Felix of the Odd Couple, Grant and Randy have a unique working relationship, driving each other in the surf, in the shaping room, and beyond. Cypress-sized Grant towers over most other people, an exception in the shrub-sized big wave community, while Randy is more compact. Grant is animated, enthusiastic and brimming with business ideas, while Randy is very subtle, quiet, wry, focused, conservative and methodical about the board business and his priorities.

Grant once said self-mockingly, “I’m terrified they’ll hold Maverick’s one day in small conditions and a surf contest will break out.” Disarmingly humble and friendly, Grant is fiercely opinionated about the direction of board building and the integrity of his friend, Randy, who he describes as a workaholic and perfectionist—all the qualities you would want in your shaper. Washburn sees the future of independent shapers in the quality of their craftsmanship, materials choice, closeness to their customers and knowledge of their local conditions. Predicting polarization of the shaping world, he sees high-end specialization as where the innovations will still take place, while mid-tier equipment will not be able to compete with the mass-produced, low-priced entry-level boards overseas.

In addition, Washburn is enthusiastic about adopting shaping room practices that recycle the resin, pigments and glass cut from the finished boards. Colorful custom resin tinting is a hallmark of a Cone board and the byproduct is a kaleidoscope of scraps and drips left over in the glassing trays. This same ingenuity and creativity has spawned a side furniture project, as the pair shape the spare materials into Tim Burton-esque chairs with high backs and seats, along with Koa wood feet. Some of these functional art forms have already made an appearance in the Minna Gallery in San Francisco. To date, they have produced three exceptional chairs: an ice-green arm chair (pictured), an opalescent elliptical recliner and a modern blue armless beauty that would make Alice at home in Wonderland.

Kudos from Down Under

Rounding out his international fan base, Cone’s refinements have touched others overseas. Damon Eastough of Australia thought enough of Randy’s talents to “travel halfway around the world to get one of his guns.” He had an 8′ gun shaped for powerful 10–12′ surf around Margaret River after hearing about Randy’s design theories and working on tow board designs himself. Says Eastough, “The board is suited to take off late without grabbing and make adjustments without being too locked into a line on the way down.” Moreover, “To me it feels like a board that has been made by a surfer who has spent a lot of time surfing guns. I can get a gun in my area, but it’s rare to see the shaper out on them. I found Randy to be very generous with his time and ideas, and the quality of his product shows in the performance. Mass produced boards are perfect for the fashionista—they look good, but don’t cut it if you surf a lot.”

Johnny Get Your Gun

In an era of industrialization, high volume shaping and wide open materials choices, it pays to shop around. So the next time you hungrily fondle a few board curves and rails in the racks at your local board shop, torn between price and value, if you are ready to step it up, work with a local shaper who knows the conditions in your area. Look around you in the surf and see what the local rippers are using—very likely it’s not a pop-out. There is a ton of local shaping talent out there, near every cove, point and beach break. Ask around, do your homework and you just might score a performance board that exceeds your limits. After all, you can bet Randy Cone and his test pilots at Maverick’s are gearing up for winter. How about you?

For more information about Randy Cone’s boards, visit www.randyconesurfboards.com.

Mike Wallace has surfed for over two decades on the East and West coasts, Hawaii, Europe and NorCal. Currently a resident of Moss Beach with his family of four, he can often be found haunting the beaches south of Devil’s Slide in search of the perfect sandbar with his dog, Moose.

Comments? Send an email to mike (at) surfpulse (dot) com.

The Bradner Story

An avid waterman from infancy, according to family lore, Hugh “Brad” Bradner (b. 1915) was chucked off a pier by his father into the water at the age of three to sink or swim…he swam. Bradner graduated from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) with a Ph.D. in physics, where he also coached the swimming and water polo teams, and was one of the first Americans to make a deep water SCUBA dive (5). As a nuclear scientist, he was among a trio who established Los Alamos in 1943 and he worked as a research scientist at Lawrence Radiation Laboratory at U.C. Berkeley.

However, it was his work for the U.S. Naval Ordnance Laboratory that led to his pioneering research on the wetsuit, as a means to keep Navy SEALS warm and insulated against underwater explosions. He rounded out his illustrious scientific career as professor emeritus at the Institution of Geophysics and Planetary Physics at U.C. San Diego.

Consulted by the military and an active member of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), he was uniquely qualified to fuse science with ocean exploration. On many levels, Bradner worked in an era when the security of the country was paramount and collaboration was the most effective means to that end. It also explains Bradner’s evident reluctance to claim his rightful role as inventor of the wetsuit. That claim was just never important to him, then or now, despite the evidence in his favor.

Scripps Oral History

In a rare Scripps oral history interview in August of 1999 (6), Bradner candidly discussed his career and revealed a trove of hidden gems and invaluable insight into the process of invention and the origins of the wetsuit.

Bradner elaborated on his formative experience of being thrown into Gunpowder River in 1918 at the age of three, with his brother, age four. Bradner explained that his father “had faith that by taking this kind of approach it would not turn me off in the water and he was right. He threw us off the end of the pier in deep water, and well, actually I was happier under water than above pretty much from then on.” His father was the director of the Edgewood Arsenal (chemical warfare) in Maryland at the end of WWI.

In college Bradner was a self-described “lazy” competitive swimmer, who entered swim relays and high diving. While a grad student at Caltech, he began diving below sea level, rigging with another Ph.D. student some homemade diving equipment with a bottle of pure oxygen and a Co2 absorber in the pre-SCUBA days of 1938, five years before the Aqua-Lung was invented by the Cousteau-Gagnan team and more than ten years before that device was first marketed in 1949 (7). It was SCUBA that made the invention of the wetsuit a necessity, increasing cold water diving time from mere minutes to hours.

Advised by the Mayo Clinic to not go deeper than 30 feet under water with their set-up, the pair prowled the coast of Los Angeles and Palos Verdes. Part of his formative diving experience, Bradner found the water uncomfortably cold, forcing him to venture as far south as Punta Banda, Baja, in search of giant abalone—a quintessential snapshot of the idyllic, if not chilly, early California waterman lifestyle.

Fresh out of Caltech, he did a stint at the Naval Ordnance Lab in Washington, D.C., working on mine warfare technology at the start of WWII before moving to Los Alamos, New Mexico, to contribute to studies on high explosives and implosion. Bradner then moved back to California and on to high-energy physics at Lawrence Labs in Berkeley. Despite his “7-day workweek,” he somehow managed to set aside some time for recreation and at the same time was invited to join the National Research Council to advise on undersea swimming and warfare. It was here that the idea of a “wet suit” was spawned.

His primary focus was improving the equipment of underwater demolition teams (UDTs) and the frogmen who comprised them. From the standpoint of a disciplined and multi-faceted scientist, he quickly found that the contemporary “dry suits” did not provide sufficient insulation for divers and concluded that some sort of rubber compound that trapped dead air would be an ideal solution. So he “messed around” with other scientists to solve the problem after going through similar unsatisfactory experiments in layers of rubber and wool as Jack O’Neill and the Meistrells did later. At the recommendation of a colleague in 1951, they zeroed in on a product he called “neoprene foam rubber” made by Rubatex.

On June 21, 1951, Bradner sent a “definitive” letter to Larry Marshall at the Naval Office, pointing out “Look, you don’t have to stay dry to stay warm.” By that time his group had built several “imperfect” wet suits to present to the December “Swimposium” of that same year in Coronado, California, marking the first public airing of the concept. Water trials came next with the Navy SEALS, with the first open ocean trial in April of 1952 in 51.8°F water in Punta Banda, Baja. Other trials took place in Echo Lake, as well as an ambitious test at Christmastime in icy Lake Tahoe.

In the Marshall letter, Bradner said, “I do not care especially whether a patent on the suit is ever issued, since a refused application would presumably be just as effective in protecting the government from having to pay royalties. I plan to get someone started making the foam suits commercially within the next month or two, if all goes well. I do not anticipate any particular difficulty, since I specifically wish to avoid any profit myself. I don’t want to compromise my position of unbiased consultation on swimmers’ problems.” (8)

There are early photos of Bradner and his team venturing out to Año Nuevo Island to test the new suits 55 miles south of San Francisco. Named by Spanish chaplain Father Antonio del la Ascension as “Punta de Año Nuevo” or “New Year’s Point” (9), the craggy spit of land is known mainly for the wild marine mammals who descend upon it en masse during breeding season and attract formidable carnivorous predators in the process. Bradner would have been hard-pressed to find a more hair-raising location to test a wetsuit in the 1950s than Año Nuevo.

On a lighter note, Bradner vividly recalled another test of the suit in shallow waters near the Golden Gate of San Francisco. Donning his equipment, he submerged in 3–4 feet of water while under the watchful eye of another scientist who broke away to get something from the car. As he peered up from the water, “a very luscious woman came running down to the beach, this completely deserted beach with nothing except this black-suited creature in the water, and threw off all her clothes and lay down behind a rock. That I remember.” Who knows, perhaps he unwittingly became the inspiration for the 1954 Jack Arnold science fiction-horror cult classic Creature from the Black Lagoon.

The most obvious question that comes up is: why didn’t he patent the design? Bradner stated quite clearly that, “the morality in those days was that one was not supposed to profit by anything that he did under government auspices.” The patent office treated it as a classified project and bounced the issue back to the government, which found that it didn’t require any patent protection. In turn, that put the ball back in Bradner’s court to discuss the commercial application of the wetsuit with the University of California and any need for patent protection. “In my wisdom, I said, ‘No, I think maybe fifty people in the country (would use it).’” A fateful admission, considering wetsuit sales topped nearly $450 million/year in the most recent industry stats and the surf/skate business generated roughly $7.5 billion in sales/year combined in 2006 (10).

Once the research became declassified, contracting to build the suits for the SEAL UDT teams would take several years if they went through the Navy’s procurement bureaucracy, so Bradner and his engineering team formed their own production company, Engineering Development Company (EDCO), to manufacture the suits using unicellular foam plastic material (neoprene). He had no stake in the firm, but subsequently formed other lucrative commercial relationships with the engineers. Note that Bradner had discussed the strong connection between the thermal properties of the wetsuits and blast protection as early as 1950, though he lacked documentation for this earlier period.

Though he was the driving force behind the wetsuit, Bradner was scrupulous about treating its invention as a collaborative venture. This also held true for many of his other research efforts into much more sophisticated diving equipment, including underwater contact lenses, a single-hose regulator, and a decompression meter. Bradner even developed a loop system for quickly extracting SEALs from the water via inflatable boats, similar to modern tow surfing sleds. Engineering problems were to be solved collegially, not unilaterally “claimed” by any one team member. As he put it, “I don’t give a damn who thought of it first, as long as I’m not going around making a false claim. I’d be very happy to continue with the pleasure of being called the granddaddy of it, if it’s valid.”

Questioned by the Chief of Naval Operations about just why did “a good high-energy physicist spend his effort on swimmers and divers when around him people were doing Nobel prize work,” Bradner responded, “I felt that a single person could make a greater contribution, a greater impact, in a war situation by diving than by any other activity that I knew. I still hold to that.” Little did he know that his research, motivated by the war effort, would leave the legacy of year-round recreation for generations of divers and surfers to come.

A “Dry” Retort

A search at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reveals the earliest listing for an “Aquatic garment having an ergonomically curve opening” incorrectly listed in the category of a “wet suit,” filed Jan 31, 1947 (11). Though extraordinarily detailed and impressive, the patent application clearly describes a dry suit, not a wet suit; “a water-excluding garment of rubber sheeting, with insulation provided by a thermal vest.” This leaves Bradner’s June 21, 1951 letter in place as the earliest documentary evidence of plans for a wetsuit.

While it is clear that we owe a debt of thanks to all the early developers of this critical aquatic garment, Hugh Bradner rates a special place in the pantheon of wetsuit development. Without the wetsuit, the popularity of surfing would be limited only to the summertime. Cold comfort in increasingly crowded line-ups, true, but infinitely better than using an itchy wool vest ill-suited to the rigors of sport. Though he is reluctant to claim it, Bradner is truly the “Granddaddy” of the wetsuit.

Admittedly, there is no “Bradner Eliminator, Psycho II or Vapor” wetsuit on the market today, since he never patented the idea. So the next time you pull on a thin, flexible and toasty wetsuit, take a moment to appreciate not only its creators, but its evolution and innovators.

Endnotes

Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

Hanauer, SIO, June 2001

Scripps was later the first group to develop SCUBA certification procedures under the guidance of Connie Limbaugh in the 1950s at the La Jolla Beach and Tennis Club in San Diego.

“Wet Suit Pursuit: Hugh Bradner’s Development of the First Wet Suit,” Rainey, Scripps Archives, UCSD.

See www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=523

Surf Industry Manufacturers Association ( SIMA) Retail Distribution Survey, July 9, 2007

Received patent 2582811 in January 1952 by Harvey L. Williams of Hadlyne, Connecticut

Acknowledgements

Thanks go out to Harold and Suzy Ticho for providing the inspiration for this story on the origins of the wetsuit and the life of their dear friend and colleague Hugh Bradner; Deborah Day, Archivist of Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) Archives was invaluable in providing thorough documentation and photos of the wet suit, and Bradner’s contributions; Carolyn Rainey of Scripps for her intelligent SIO paper (#98-16): “Wet Suit Pursuit: Hugh Bradner’s Development of the First Wet Suit”; and Eric Hanauer for his insightful Scripps Oral History interview with Dr. Bradner.

Mike Wallace has surfed for over two decades on the East and West coasts, Hawaii, Europe and NorCal. Currently a resident of Moss Beach with his family of four, he can often be found haunting the beaches south of Devil’s Slide in search of the perfect sandbar with his dog, Moose.