Updates, Changes, spiders, Hotcakes

Heya surfboard and surfboard-riding enthusiasts, much has changed since the last HHG blog entry. Here are a few highlights:
1. Northern California went from being in the worst drought in history to experiencing the largest seasonal rainfall in the state's history. Nice!
2.  Team HHG moved across town. The kids can now run feral and I no longer have to worry about the homeless guy pooping on my front doorstep twice a week with impressive regularity and precision. Nice!
3. I built a new shop. It looks like this:

It took me a long time. One morning, I got bit by a Black Widow spider in the same spot on my leg where I was bit by a Brown Recluse spider in 1991. Another morning, I tried to do the shingling myself. It took me six hours to get a row down. I called Javier and he finished the whole thing in about forty-five minutes, stopping only once to point out that he could carry two bundles of shingles up a ladder while I struggled with one. Nice!
4. I finally caught up on orders that were postponed due to the move, which gave me some moments to refigure some templates and designs, especially the midlengths which are, and have always been, staples of the thinking person's North-of-the-Bridge quiver. The chief result is that I boiled down my six different midlength designs (too much!) into just two platforms: the Valiant, and the Mini Flying Beard (or MFB, or Mini Beard, or Beardlet, Peach Fuzz, or Baby Beard, according to those who ride them). The Valiant is a widepoint-forward speed egg with a sleek profile, rails, and foil. I've shaped them in lengths from 6'0 to 8'0 (Midlengths longer than 8'0 fall into the Broadsword category) with customizable dimensions, in any fin configuration one can imagine, and with a all 'round beachbreak/pointbreak rocker that can be tweaked per customer/shred spot. Here's a 7'2 Valiant:

The Mini Beard is a cruisy, full-nosed, scaled-down log meant for fun in non-life-threatening conditions. Like the Valiant, the full array of fin configurations can--and should be!--explored. I've been shaping them from 6'0-8'0. Here's a 6'6:

5. Another new model: the Hotcake, a widepoint-aft midlength that really likes a bonzer setup--either three or five-fin configurations. The Hotcake really likes the rider to hang out on the tail and lock into trim. This is a great shorter board for a longboarder in the 8ft. range, or a good longboard at 7ft and up for those smaller or high-tide pointbreak days. I like mine on surf trips when my arms are blown out in the afternoon but I want to paddle out at sunset just to grab a few more...Hotcake!

Glasson kelpy bonzers:

OK, that's enough change for one post. If it takes eight more months for me to update this, and you're itching for more surfboard porn, feel free to check out my Instagram here.

Pink Lady

This was the last board to come through my West End shop. Fitting that it was for Jay, who's earned more than a few sandwiches over the years.

7'0 Lady model, a beachbreak-specific midlength that borrows equally from school of displacement and the school of planing.
Jay's super arty, so he painted her up, faded-red-t-shirt style. Here she is waiting in line for her hard candy shell:

 Stoked pickup stoke!

Knock knock.
Who's there?
Flexie Fin.
Flexie Fin who?
Schraaaaaaaaaaalp!
Huh?
Snaaaaaaaaaap!
What?
Schplaaaaaaaaaack!

Also, this is how my dog sits--back half like a roast chicken.

Of Beginnings, Endings, Numbers, and Wall-toWall Shag

Although all oceanic waves (deep water, shallow water, tsunami, standing...etc) are somewhat unique dynamic forces, a mathematical equation exists for each. Like all things, they can be reduced to ones and zeroes. Here's a well-shaped binary set on the horizon.

A well-shaped surfboard starts with code. Its ones and zeroes seek function with the individual wave's ones and zeroes. The product should equal fun.
I prefer shapes to numbers. These curves are the starting point for every surfboard.

Our human predilection for reduction commands us to simplify the complex curves into a simple one. In this case, surfboard reduced to single-dimensional plank of wood.

Our human predilection for extension commands us add complexity and dimension to the simple curves. In this case, surfboard carved into multi-dimensional slab of foam.

And, as we're talking human nature here, we make the thing into art. Can't help it--that's what we do, and we're the only creatures born to do it.

From complex to simple to complex again. Reduction and expansion. Numbers and curves. Ocean to mathematics to art right back into the ocean. The wheel spins.
Speaking of art, we replaced this carpet soon after the shot was taken.

Strange Things are Afoot at the Circle J

I'm not going to lie to you, friends--things have been a little nuts lately.
First, we moved. Deep into the 'burbs. How deep? So deep that I, who's natural compass is as fine-tuned as a Russian spy satellite, have a difficult time making my way out of our 'circle' in the morning (all the street names end in 'circle'),.Or evening. It's like Groundhog Day, only on a five-minute loop.
The good news is that my kids love it. They only come inside at night, like turkeys. Also, like turkeys, they spend most of their days barefoot, pecking at each other and not paying particular heed to car traffic (which is, granted, mostly minivans trying to find their way off our circle).
The better news is that my new shop will be up and running soon, so very soon I can catch up on backorders and stop turning away nice folks who are interested in custom boards.
Speaking of boards, this one's for sale at SEALS Watersports here in Santa Rosa. It's my take on a 90s hi-pro longboard (rocker, volume), but with a bit beefier of a glass job than its predecessors, which tended to be as fragile as a polar ice cap with a Republican-dominated congress in office.
Excellent for our steeper beachbreak at any size, or pointbreaks at lower tides or when things start to pick up.

9'2"

 Looks like a baby square tail, but it's actually a rounded pin being swallowed by the lush, deep, slightly umami-smelling, 1980s-era shag carpeting of my new living room. Don't get too used to it--wood floors are on the way!

Shiny

This thing's got enough finboxes to keep even the most OCD tinkerer (me!) busy for a long while.
Go feel her up at SEALS if you have a few moments. Ask for Zeke--he's huge and could crush you, AND he's got a mess of kids, including a newborn, so be super nice.

Dual Residency

Feel free to check it out if you have a moment:
https://www.instagram.com/headhighglassy

The Color Purplish

Twin-fin fish

Single Wing

 Streamlined

Good for any occasion

Pret a Lambeau

(UPDATE: SOLD) 7'0 Clover for Zeke's shop--SEALS Watersports--conveniently situated one block from In 'N Out and less than fifty steps from Romelli Bail Bonds. Today could be your day to post bail, grab a new sled, order a Flying Dutchman off the secret menu (suck it, gluten!), then head to the coast to BLAST!!!! some of this swell that's still pumping with the rabidity of a Brazilian teenager's slender fist after landing an air reverse.

Clovers currently hold the title as my most-shaped all 'rounder for Northcoast surf. Will they allow you to sit out the back and compete with SUPpers for thigh-high Bo%*@as peelers? Nope, that's what a single fin log is for. I recommend the Bohemian.
Will they allow you to snap an over-vertical reo to grabless icepick 360 out into the flats? Hell no. You're a grownup, for chrissakes. If that's your ambition, you should put the Internet down and make yourself a nice salad, do some light stretching, and start a journal.
Besides, that move's not even a real thing--it's just a combination of words I don't understand from the last five years of Vans US Open webcasts.

This Clover will, however, take you where you need to go when you need to go there. Midlengths, which are enjoying a bit of a moment right now, can get the job done from waist high to anything over waist high you care to paddle into.
This one's a 2+1. And shiny.  And foiled out to feel lively under the feet and let the water know who's boss.

PopsiGlider

I like it when they go from this:

To this.

Rebecca's popsicle-icious Mini Glider for shredding OB waves in the fall and beyond.

This is an 8'6. What separates a Mini Glider from a standard longboard? Well, these mofos are designed for speed. With a well thought and executed rail shape/bottom contour, a single fin (flexie) is all that's necessary for control and stability.
Fast and stable for getting into tight situations, then getting the hell out of them.

Here's Rebecca handling a tight situation this morning in Nicaragua.
Recommended pairing: color-coordinated homemade popsicles. A couple of these after a solid shred sesh, and you'll have harnessed the stoke of your ten-year-old self on that summer vacation when you didn't wear shoes for what seemed like a month and drank from the hose for most of your meals.

Or pair with a couple of these if you want to harness the stoke of your sixteen-year-old self on that summer vacation when you didn't wear shoes for what seemed like a month and got to second base with Jen Gibby.

Of Fire, Rain, Praying Manti, and Bitchin' Quads

Strange things are afoot in Sonoma County, friends. Portentous omens. Unsound eventualities. Weird shit.
Example 1: fire. And rain. In the same week. In September. For those familiar with the climate of Northern California, or familiar with our four-year drought, it's strange.
Example 2: I left my house last week, as I do on just about every day that I've lived there (once, I was super sick and didn't leave the house for a week. Another time, I shaped surfboards straight through for three days while my family was in Yosemite without me). Something on the sidewalk drew my eye. I had to inspect: a humungous praying mantis.
I'll refer to her as 'she', but really, I have no idea. As I squatted down (no small feat for someone with knees like mine) she moved her head to watch. I leaned to one side. She moved her head to follow. I leaned to the other. She did the same. It was a strange feeling to be connecting with an insect. To experience her cognitive powers. She was watching me. I held out my hand and she slowly crawled onto it.
I called my girls over, and we all checked her out. She took turns looking at each of our faces. She didn't move into an offensive or defensive position. I held her close to the ground, but she made no motions to escape. We were in each other's thrall for a solid three minutes, which to six-and-eight year olds may as well be an entire day.
Then I dropped her to the sidewalk and we squashed her with a satisfying crunch.
Just kidding! We put her in the garden in the backyard.
As you know, in these trying times we seek out the constants. The dependable. The comfortable. The fresh baguette in these most carbo-free of paleo days. The pull of the moon and the splatter of stars. The tilt of the earth as we enter our autumnal solstice and the deep gold evenings of a Northern California fall. The waves that grace our rocky shoreline without thought, and without cease.
Shredders, like nonshredders, need the comfort of routine--to pull into parking lots in the chilly pre dawn, stamp our feet, squint toward the ocean, wrap our hands around a hot drink. We need to check, check, check the buoy readings at work all day, then finally make the call, drive to the coast, and marvel at the feel of the ocean around us, the sudden calming of the mind as the light turns pink.
And surfboards need to be made for this. Not only the shredding, for we come for the shredding, but for the everything else, too.

This particular instrument of engagement is currently being schralped by new homeowner, corduroy enthusiast (I'm guessing here, but he seems the type), and bicoastal (if you regard San Diego and Sonoma as two different coasts, which I do) surfboard enthusiast, Eric.

Lovely two-tone resin tint by the good folks at Almar, led by their affable, mustachioed capitan, in Santa Cruz.

Still life with dog-scratched wood floor, dog-haired Persian rug.
I believe it to be a 6'4" Clover.

Glass-on wood fins are just as satisfying to foil as they are to lean into a hefty bottom turn with.
Nota Bene, blog enthusiasts: while never exactly 'prolific', these blog pages were updated with some regularity. Not anymore! These days I'm stretched thinner than an ironic t-shirt at a hipster convention, and something's got to go. The good news is that it's not Princess Dress-up Time with my girls. The bad news is that the board porn might be a little light this fall.

Blue Tuesday

Spring's a season of vexation.  On one hand, things warm up outside and we can all stop wearing socks. On the other hand, there's the itching. Oh, the itching!
Surf-wise, we're also on the opposite end of the shred stick from Fall. The wave period drops lower than a limbo bar at a gymnasts bat mitzvah party, and the onshore wind speed climbs higher than my grandpa's WWII khakis.
In his poem The Enkindled, subtleperv D.H. Lawrence writes of spring,

                                   THIS spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,
                                   Wild puffing of emerald tress, and flame-filled bushes.

I get the 'bursting' part. The 'bonfires green' makes sense, perhaps, to those living outside drought-plagued California (more like, 'bonfires banned because of severe fire hazard'). The only wild puffing I've seen is from my eyes, which I desperately want to scratch with the force of a thousand fingertips. Oh, the itching!

We'll chalk up that last part, "flame-filled bushes" to some typical D.H. Lawrence stuff, which could be boring or gross, depending.

The best remedy, as far as I can tell, for spring's one-two sucker punch to the histamines is a new surfboard.

This one's Cat's:

9'5", 2+1 Bronson, which is crazy fun all around shred sled with a pleasing combination of curves and flats that can handle a vast swath of Northern California conditions. Which is what we see in Spring. For example, this week's forecast calls for everything from 2-3 foot swell to 2-3 times overhead. Spring!

The engine room features some serious edges complemented by patriotic-hued fiberglass fins. The center fin's a flexie, so it wants to snaaaaaap! out of turns.

This is the part of the board where some shit happens

Spring's blows are lessened a bit by a new, blue shred sled. Couple that with some Port Charlotte "Islay Barley" release, and you should be set until Fall, of which D.H. Lawrence writes,

                                                        I go slowly,
                                                As under the hairy belly of a great black bear.
What's with that guy?

The Mini Beard

The Flying Beard is my beachbreak-tuned longboard model.
This Mini Beard its smaller, skinnier, scrappier little brother.

Can I use the word 'skinny' to describe a 6'0 that's 21" wide? You're damn right I can--I made it, so I can use whatever words I want. Here are some more: shred, rip, stab, punch, Claritin, zinfandel, Adventure Time, sriracha.
In a few more words, this is not at all a mushbusting mini-longboard cruiser for fat, high-tide dribblers--it's light and thin and designed for steeper waves with some push.

The Engine Room: the 2+1 with flexie fin provides a center pivot point for a really locked-in, flow-y style, while the quad setup is fast, free, and full of bucking-bronco punch.
I like both.

Black-and-white photos because art.
Also, Easter+two little girls=the inside of my house looking like the inside of a rainbow's bathroom after two-dollar burrito night, so my eyes could use the rest.
If you have to buy stuff, go local.

Foiled Again

Fish

 Is

Good

Of Zeus, NPR, and New-Model Shredding

Zeus was a tricky, horny trickster. One time he appeared to Leda in the form of a swan, snuck into her bed, and did some stuff so that later she laid some eggs.
Interestingly, her husband was also in bed doing stuff that particular evening, so when the twin boys hatched from their eggs, they were considered part divine, part mortal.
Leda called them Castor and Pollux, which probably sounded better with a Greek accent. They were transformed into the constellation Gemini so they could always be together.
What does this have to do with surfing? Technically, nothing.
But late last night in my shop as the dust swirled and lines were drawn, I was thinking about the twin fundamentals of our sport--the Trim and the Glide. The Castor and Pollux of our sport. Inseparable, immortal, they shine down on us from a surfy heavens.
Hopefully, their bastard stepsister (Helen of Troy) will shine down as well: the Shred.

Damn!

It's not often we get an action image with my logo on it. Not because my clientele aren't continuously schralping hot curls--they are!--but because they tend to seek out the foggy, the remote, the mysto spookzones that tend to discourage photography. This ain't SoCal.
However, sometimes the skies clear and the swell lines up and local stokemeisters like Chris (pictured above and below) get an itch to sample a not-quite-Northcoast spot that sees the occasional telephoto on the beach.
Chris is shredding this week's featured board: the NPR.
The NPR is an offshoot of the Clover, which is a great head-highish and under shred machine. Last winter I shaped myself a more streamlined version for larger waves that featured a slightly different rocker profile, adjusted thickness flow, and a modified bottom contour. It was dubbed the Clover PR, for Pocket Rocket.
Not the best model name, for sure, but I didn't have time to come up with a better one. The surf was crackin!
It looked like this:

6'9

I dug it. A few folks tried it out, then ordered their own. A few tweaks later, and a few more folks ordered them until a bunch were ordering them and it deserved its own name. The NPR, or Northcoast Pocket Rocket, is a full-volumed aquatic fun machine designed for waves that are on the head high to well overhead range. They've been ridden with everything from one to five fins. I like mine as a quad, but that's just me.
When local shredder Chris ordered his, he went full Glasser's Choice on it, and we handed it off to Patrick at Northern Light, who did a bang-up job making it look right.

6'10

Brown opaque bottom wrap and a lovely robin's-egg-blue deck tint. Classic!

After the maiden session. Not heel dents on the deck, just a stoked-out wax job by someone who couldn't wait to get in the water and do this:

 Damn!

Urban Legend

PitBoss for local shredder, climber, surf instructor, paramedic, public intellectual, and twelve-pack ab muscle enthusiast, Urban.

Urban's glassing order card said, "Earth tones. Glasser's choice," and this is what the fine folks at Almar Surf Works came up with.
Urban picked up a new board and declared his love to a long-time lady friend around the same time. It was a big week for the guy.

The PitBoss is not meant for small waves.
Or medium waves, really.
Any surfboard with more than one leash plug should give one pause.

This one's seven feet long, and features all the goods that one needs for Waves of Increased Consequence on the Northcoast: a little extra foam under the chest for our ridiculous paddle-outs when there's a jump in the buoys. Foam forward also gives the board a nice momentum when driving down the line--almost a 'pulling' feeling with the right bottom contour. Finally, it's nice to be able, while paddling out, to raise your chest up a little higher so that you can scan the foggy horizon for dark lines marching toward your suddenly tiny, suddenly cold, suddenly lonely body, floating at sea, hoping for a gift from the surf gods that could suddenly change everything.