One Lone Swordsman

New Broadsword, and punch #3 on the Sandwich Club Card for SC shredder Mike.

This was my second-to-last blank from a batch of US Blanks that had insanely dark cedar stringers. Every time I'd make a pass with a hand plane my shaping room smelled like someone eating a pulled-pork sandwich in a Norwegian sauna.

Mike wanted a shorter version of his previous Broadsword (see here) for maximum rippage in more sizable surf. Since he digs the other board so much, we just had to make some down-scale adjustments (rocker, outline curve, fin placements) to recreate the magic in a smaller form.
Customs are rad!

If you live in or around SC County, there's a solid chance Mike oversaw the shipment, unpacking, and shelving of your foodstuffs. Not an easy job, nor one without some serious lift-from-the-legs skills.
The dude knows his veggies!

Broadsword Nouveau

What better way to celebrate the hard work and gritty determinism of the early American settlers than to set aside the third Thursday in November for gluttony, sloth, and immoderate consumption?
None!

Across the pond, however, our French neighbors reserve the third Thursday in November for impulsiveness and general abuses of the liver.
Vive la foie!
You see, just six weeks ago in France, deliciously thick-skinned Gamay grapes were minding their own businesses in the Loire Valley, contentedly fattening up on their vines while watching the world zip past them in a blur of unfiltered cigarettes and colored denim.
Then they were picked.
"Fear not!" their thinner-skinned varietals called to them as they were loaded onto palettes in whirls of unfiltered cigarettes and colored denim. "You will have plenty of time in ze bottle to adjust to ze new life!"
"How long?" cried the Gamay grapes, bunching together tightly. "How long?"
Turns out, not long at all. Anxious, curious, really thirsty, the French harvest, press, ferment, bottle, and drink their Beaujolais Nouveau in six weeks.
Why?
Because seven weeks is too long to wait for a bottle of wine.

And what better to do when you're in France and it's the third Thursday in November than uncork a freshly pressed wine and have at it?
And what better way to celebrate the third Thursday in November if you're Pierre in Northen California than to uncork this Franco-American midlength: Broadsword, Beaujolais tint, fresh out of production and ready for consumption.

And what better to do if you happen to be at San Onofre between Wednesday and Saturday afternoon than stop by and say hi? We'll be the large group of pasty Northern Californians chasing our wee ones around between log sessions, sipping lukewarm Tecates, stoked out of our minds to take off the booties and share some waves with friends.
Happy Thanksgiving.

The Crow

This is a clear 8'something Broadsword with five fin boxes and a cedar stringer and a big black resin crow on the deck for NorthCoast ripper, family man, fish-and-chips fan, and generally stoked outdoor dude Jean (as in Van Damme, not Billie King).
Why a big black resin crow?
No idea. I don't ask the questions. I just make the boards.

Now that I've written that, I realize that in shaping boards I do, indeed, ask a lot of questions. So I guess I don't ask a lot of personal questions. Sometimes I do, though, like weight and foot size and, "what's your favorite sexytime website?" and good ideas for ceviche recipes.

 Basically, I've lost control of this post and will end it here.

Of Broadswords, Pinot Noir, and Uni

Mike’s about as capable a waterman as you can get. Surf? Kills it.
Fish? Slays ‘em.
Sea kayaking? Yup.
Abalone diving? Si.
Urchin plucking? Enough already.

Lately he’s been ripping up the East Side on his 8’something Broadsword:

Pinot Noir bottom wrap by the boys at Almar Surf Works

Like Mike’s time in the water, his sword is all about options: 2+1, single, thruster. Whatever.

The go to lately, though, has been the quad.

Options provided by the good folks at Lokbox and Rainbow

In addition to the secrets of the salty deep, Mike inadvertently tipped me off to a secret parking stash somewhere in Santa Cruz. You see, he looks like a man who has a system. Who knows things.

So I followed him.

Sure enough: parking stash.

Thanks, amigo. And if you see a certain minivan paralleled in your usual spot, I swear it’s not mine.

Beefy cedar stringer. Strong like bull.
Still, you don’t want to wax the windshield. That would piss me the owner off.

The Golden Load

The opening lines to William Blake's To Autumn read:
O Autumn, laden with fruit and stained
With the blood of the grape, pass not, but sit
Beneath my shady roof.
Sounds familiar to those of up here NotB: we've got fruit in gross abundance, we're up to our nips in grapes, and we'd like nothing more than autumn to park her lush keester under our roofs for a while and end our run of uninspiring windswell.
This autumn's bounty includes Paul's new golden 8' Broadsword pintail, just about ripe and ready for some steep Northcoast beachbreak.
Blake was regarded by many, incuding himself, as nuts. He concludes his poem with autumn rising, dusting off his boots, then:
o'er the bleak hills fled from our sight;
but left his golden load.
It is precisely because of these last lines that I no longer give this poem to high school students.