Good Times, Bad Times...

     ...today I've had my share. Sub-par softies in the morning at Holyoke, followed by superb chest to head high bombs rolling in giving barrels at Sandal for a few hours, then some lackluster landlubber-style "surfing" in the afternoon, which was partially the fault of the waves getting whacked by the strengthening wind, and partially the fault of myself, who forgot how to surf between A.M. and P.M.Oh well, tomorrow's another day.
     Been surfing my 5'5" fish exclusively recently, and so far it's held up in some really big stuff, and I've made tons of steep drops that last September I thought were impossible on a board with such little rocker. Turns out it was only my surfing that had to catch up. One thing that bugs me about the general public's notion of fish-type surfboards is that they are meant for and great for small surf. Not true. While they may work well on smaller surf due to the speed the design itself generates, they also work well, and were originally conceived for, much larger surf. Here's a picture from Point Loma, San Diego, where the design originated and evolved:

     Don't know if that guy is on a fish, but that's a pretty good size wave. It just drives me crazy when you hear, "Oh man, it's gonna get small duuuuuude, looks like I'll have to bust out the fish, brah." Not true. I've decided I'm going to use my fish in bigger and bigger surf until it proves it can't handle it. Maybe I'll never surf anything else. Probably not.
     Some more pictures from today, with film pictures coming soon.

Two of Frank.

Pre-dawn fish nose. 

     Led Zeppelin, "Good Times Bad Times," from the first track from the band's initial aural assault, Led Zeppelin. I would say this album is probably my favorite album from the band, and if you haven't listened to it in a while, you should. Around 1:30 on this track is where your mind explodes if you love rock 'n' roll. 

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....