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.

The Executive at Rest

Winter rains be damned, Spencer split from his mountain hideout and headed Down South in search of shreddables. What'd he pack?
A lighter gauge of neoprene, a fresh bar of wax, and brand-spankin new Executive.

Way back when, I proclaimed the Executive would only come in two lengths, would only feature three stringers, and would only have a glass-on fin. In short, I was gonna make these sleds the way I wanted to, and you were going to shut up and ride them.
Well, I say lots of stuff, people. Exhibit A: in 1991 I claimed I would never tire of the Spin Doctors' Pocket Full of Kryptonite album. Need I say more?
Spencer's Executive is 9'3ish.

Mid glassing: full volan wrap, tailpatch, lovely redwood stringer. Waiting for a fin.

All shined up and ocean ready.

 The Executive's my interpretation of a mid '60s Hobie Phil Edwards model--clean, classy, and stylish wide-point back trim machines.

Many of the features (rocker, rails, foil) have been modernized and adapted for our steep beachies, but the mojo remains.

Smoke This

I like it when they go from this:

To this:

To this!

Deep blue 7'6 Bonzer for local shred-and-jazz enthusiast Guitar Jim.

This is the Cigar Volant model--a hi-pro, beachbreak shreddy egg that rocks anywhere from one to five fins with joy in its sweet, foamy heart.
Resin cigar bands really tie the board/concept together.

Lotta junk in the trunk on this one.
The feels that laminators, sanders, and polishers get in their guts when they see a bonzer with e-wings and glassons come through the production line is completely canceled by the feeling the surfer gets when laying into their first fingertip-dragging, rail-burying, fully-involved bottom turn on a head-high wave. Value added!

Orange Boss

Orange Boss: not John Boehner, but another punch for Chad's sandwich card.
Dude's getting close to an Ike's. You know me, I'm no betting man, but if I were I'd say he'd be all over a Jaymee Sirewich--fried chicken, yellow BBQ sauce, ranch, pepper jack, non-mouth-ruining Dutch crunch. What?!?
Chad knows a few things. How to manufacture an iron grate for subterranean pork roasting. How to convert energy from the sun to power your home. How to climb steep granite. How to shred steep waves, bounce back quickly from nose-into-the-board smashes, rescue a good dog, marry a nice lady.

This is Chad's brand-spanking new 6'6 Pitboss, all cured and ready for fall-into-winter ground-swell shredding.
The PitBoss is no Jaymee Sirewich, but it is a step-up design meant for steeper, punchier waves. It's got some volume under the chest, because steeper, punchier waves worth surfing tend to not break on the shore up here. So you need to paddle to them. Sometimes pretty far. Sometimes you need to be able to lift your head up as high as you can when you're paddling to see over the 'bump' in front of you to the 'wave' behind it.
Sometimes you wish you hadn't seen the wave behind it, and were instead on your couch with a dram of Kilchoman bingewatching Quickdraw on Hulu.

This one's a quad. And a thruster.
The deep orange palette is Chad's nice-lady approved.

 Round pintail is standard on these mofos. I've done a few baby swallows, but they look weird to me. And sharp.

Just the hint of a beak nose--not enough beak to affect the ride, just an aesthetic nod to the larger-wave shredders and shapers who came before us. Bigger-wave riding has a history of folks with large balls and large ladyballs, and does not include me.

Top notch resin colowork from Almar in Santa Cruz, fins from Rainbow in Watsonville, foam from US Blanks in Gardenia. California is awesome.

All Clear

Cha-Ching! Paul gets to cash in his Sandwich Club Card with the receipt of this sleek 6'0 double-wing MiniSimmons. It's got a slight arc tail, a cedar stringer that made my shop smell like barbecue for a few days, and is super shiny.

If I had just aquired my sixth board, I'd go for a General Washington: an off-the-menu #98 with fried chicken substitited for halal chicken on Ike's own (non roof-of-the-mouth-destroying) dutch crunch. Good lord!

I hope Paul doesn't order a Lizzy's Lips (halal chicken, italian dressing, pepperjack). Not because the of the sandwich, which sounds awesome, but because Lizzy is my sister's name and that would be weird.

This board can be ridden as a four fin or three fin. I recommend pairing it with some waves, a little wax to make your feet stick to the board, and a nice dram of Templeton Rye. Even though it's from Iowa and not upstate NY, this is one hell of a whiskey. Honey and vanilla give way to crisp mint and wintergreen. Makes me wonder why I used to waste valuable drinking time mixing in vermouth and bitters. Perfect on a cold night, a warm night, a mild night, or during a hockey game. 

The Clover

Signs we're at the front end of an economic recovery:
1. I no longer cry in the shower after checking my home value on Zillow.
2. My kids can now have peanut butter and jelly on their sandwiches.
3. The local beachbreak has been conspicuously devoid of big-ass trucks in the parking lot, pointing to the conclusion that construction is on the uptick.
4. The board-order queue is redlining right now, a whole new batch of sandwich cards are being distributed, and some stoked shredders will be receiving an Ike's in the near future.
Leading the aquatic charge right now is the Clover--a widepoint forward stubb-egg shred machine. This is the original Clover, 5'10, which got passed around up here more than a endless-refill penicillin prescription on a Motley Crue tour bus.

5'10x21 2+1 Clover

Since then, it's proven itself in all kinds of waves and conditions in all kinds sizes with all kinds of fin setups.
This light gray 7'0 didn't disappoint in Baja.

Hull entry+concaves+hard rails in the tail=crazy fun as either a 2+1 or single with a flexie fin.

I am going to go surfing now.

Of Beards, Boards, and the Naming of Things

It would be a nailbiter if TofuChris and I had a beard-growing contest. My Scottish/Jewish heritage has me predisposed for both facial-hair density and uniform coverage, but Chris's lack of shame and humble grooming habits more than make up for the sparseness of his face bush.

9'4"

Plus, Chris pays little heed to the Full Beard Protocol, which clearly mandates beard-free faces between Memorial Day and Labor Day (similar to the Law-of-White-Pants for douches).
Beards aside, we figured it was time for Chris's signature model, mostly because he's been begging me for a 'signature model' for years, and I don't give a shit either way. We nailed the design, a high-pro noserider for  beachbreak shredding, but got stuck on the name.

In Genesis 2:19, Adam named all the animals in one big push. Impressive. We tried this with the help of a few IPAs, but came up with bupkis.
The obvious choice was the TofuChris model, but agreed this could isolate hysterics and meat eaters--my core constituencies.
I like keeping it simple, and offered Hi-Pro Beachbreak Noserider. Shot down.
Chris liked The Throatee, after his beard, which comes in low and hangs on dearly. Perhaps a bit close to the Neckbeard model by an industry leader in imported boards...

Names are central to identity and should be taken seriously. Scientists are keenly aware of this, which is why we have the Dumbo Octopus and the Dhole wild dog.
So I'm taking matters into my own hands and calling this hi-pro beachbreak noserider model the Helen Putnam, after Sonoma County teacher, mayor, and county supervisor. What a lady!
Plus, it's the name of the Ike's sandwich TofuChris is most likely to shred after one more punch on his Sandwich Card--avocado, breaded eggplant, cheddar, and french dressing, yo!

 It's business time.

The Sun, the Moon, the Sea

Just flew back from the Sea of Cortez...
and boy are my arms tired!
It looked like this:

One of these gently rested its mouth on my hand while I tried to take its picture:

It was hot and dry and I slathered on more sunscreen every morning than an entire Arizona waterpark sees during a homeschooler convention.
Not sure if that little gem of figurative language works or not, but I can't be trifled with such things at the moment. Board orders have piled up and swim lessons have started and now, suddenly, I sneeze when I go outside.
But he Baja desert has a way of putting things into perspective: Sun, moon, water (and, if you're lucky, Negro Modelo, fresh mango, chilled pinot grigio). The agents of life.
Sun, moon, water--the things that make us who we are--also give us waves. And waves give us surfboards, like this 6'8 egg (Lil' Pill) for Jon:

The bottom looks like this:

It has a shitload of fin options, a spiral vee bottom, a bamboo quad set by Rainbow Fin Company, and lovely in-the-lamination pigment layup by Tony Mikus at Almar Surfworks.

Jon and his lovely wife, Jen, aren't getting much sleep these days. But perhaps when they're up in the wee hours feeding their baby, one of them will peek out through the curtains and spy a full moon over Mt. Tam.
The same moon that makes the raccoons in my neighborhood suddenly, intensely interested in my compost bin. The same moon that inspires a breeding event among nudibranchs off the southern coast of Baja, Mexico, or a fiddler crab to set off and find a special friend for the evening, or the sea to drain off a reef in Sri Lanka long enough for a surfer to slot himself into a dry barrel in the silvery half light of evening.
Happy Spring.

Local H

What do you do when a really big dude wants you to shape him a big board?
You shape him a big board, damnit.

 Howard, who stands at least three feet taller than me and would make Thor feel like a schoolboy in shortpants, gets a 9’9.
Why 9’9?
Because he wanted something between 9'8 and 9'10. I'm no math teacher, but 9'9 seemed right in there.

Howard is a bicoastal shred and ocean enthusiast, a hell of a kayak fisherman and--I hate to blow his cover--as nice a guy as you could ever meet. So, if you see him tearing it up on the central coast, just go ahead and push him off his board and have a turn on it.

You might want to bring a couple friends to help push, though. Even then it would probably look like a kindergarten class trying to uproot a sequoia.

Production shot of Almar Glassing and Tony's resin-fume hideaway. Those stands have seen more tints than a Jersey Shore tanning booth!

October

If March roars in like a lion, then October pads in giddily like a golden retriever, all joy and gentle reminder.

You may need these, October suggests, your socks cradled in her mouth as you creep out of bed at dawn, suddenly darker than it was last week. Or this, she says, nuzzling a sweatshirt.

October points to the Thermos you almost forgot on your way out the door, the hotwater jug, the hat October knows you’ll be glad you remembered when you get out of the water.

October rides shotgun to the coast, head out the window, head back in to look at you, warm lips stretched into a smile, and asks, isn’t this amazing?

And it is.

And then you’re at the coast and October is bounding in a frenzy, dizzily pointing the soft cylinder of her nose at the sea—its cloudy breath and slick, morning-gold surface.

Then she’s wriggling, belly on the ground and you lower yourself to see what she’s got. Down here, she implores, listen. And you press your ear to the ground—wet, fresh—and you hear it. Thump Thump Thump of October’s tail on the packed earth.

Thump Thump Thump of the waves’ as they shatter onto sand.

Thump Thump Thump.

Deeper you listen, eyes closed.

Thump Thump Thump it goes.

Winter’s almost here.

This is Tommie's 8'6 mini log.

Tommie makes cool stuff through his Dedicate Brand.

Q: How much more black could it get?

A: None more black.