SF 001

This is SF 001, my first board. The template is from the book Surfboard Design and Construction, and 5'5" Steve Lis fish. The outline is the same as the book, but I changed the rails and fin placement. I went with a fish design because I had never ridden one but had always wanted to: I really liked all I had read and seen on them. I used the Lis design because it was one of the originals, and it seemed like a good place to start. One thing I've enjoyed (and look forward to) that has come as a result of making my own boards is that I can personally experience surfboard evolution by investigating older templates and designs.

Here it is finished, in its natural environment. Not really, but it looks nice. I was, and still am, so happy with how the glass job came out. I had never worked with fiberglass before, and I was expecting it to come out worse than this, but one thing I discovered is that not much is really final with fiberglass - if something gets messed up (which many somethings did) it can most likely be fixed. So after a lot more work than it should have taken, I think the finished product was worth it. I finished polishing it at midnight on a Saturday...

...just in time to test it on some nice 4-5 foot long, glassy lefts off the wooden jetty in Holgate in the swell we got from Tropical Storm Danny. I couldn't have been happier with how it rode. Fast and smooth with nice wide arcs. It definitely made it worth all the work. Those are Gephart twin keel fins on the board. I think next time I'll make my own and save some money, but I didn't want to tackle too much at first. 

By the way, the yellow is resin pigment, and the pinstripes are resin. I love the slightly raised feel of resin pinstripes. And so Strange Flora was born....