Foiled Again

Fish

 Is

Good

Your Title Here

I shaped a clear winged keel for a customer last month. He rode it the day he picked it up, which was about twenty minutes after it was polished.

Did he give a shit about recommended curing times?
No, he did not give a shit about recommended curing times.

He was very excited about the board after he surfed it, which made me very excited about the board, so I shaped another one.

Why? Because I like the shape, and I couldn't sleep due to an afternoon cup of coffee. The coffee was a bad choice.

Also, there was this blank in my shop. Just staring at me. Daring me.

And now it's daring you!

You see, it's for sale.

5'8x 21x 2 5/8. Single wing. Cedar stringer. Gloss and polish. Foiled. Fun beachbreak board for someone between 48 and 300lbs who enjoys surfing.

Lokbox boxes and CI keels (not pictured) for maximum shreddage.

Obstacle and Opportunity

It's been a week of obstacle and opportunity.

Obstacle: a, um, dude I know ran out of deodorant.

Opportunity: there, on the kitchen sink, sat the deodorant of his Special Lady Friend. It smelled like cucumber and sea breeze. He wanted to smell like cucumber and sea breeze. Permissions were granted, the obstacle was overcome*, gentle vegetal effluvia calmed the gentleman in question as he attended to his vocation.

Obstacle: this lovely MiniSims, bound for the racks at a retail surf venue, received an aesthetic blemish at some point during the construction process, rendering it unbound for the retail surf venue.

Opportunity: It's for sale!

Stats: 5'6x 21.5x 2.75. Convex to concave bottom, marine ply keels, S-deck with some serious foil in the nose, rails, and tail. A shred-ready wave-catching gnar machine.

Feel free to make an offer, though I won't subtract dollars for the blemish--you lived with them in high school, you can certainly live with one on the deck of your surfboard.

Looks more avocadoey and less limey in the real world.

In the spirit of wine country pretention, I recommend pairing this new surfboard with a dram of Bruichladdich 10yr old single malt scotch.

Why? They're both classic expressions crafted in the old style. However, far from relics, they offer saucy surprise after saucy surprise. In the case of the MiniSims, it's blazing speed and maneuverability. For the Bruichladdich, it's caramel, toffee, and...who's that knocking at the back door?...our old friend Mr. A Hint of Fudge and Brine.

Both offer smooth salty goodness. Another opportunity!

*interestingly, even though used sparingly and just once, the proffered object made this guy's armpits itch for a full week.

The Greymember

William Shakespeare didn't live in Northern California. If he had, his Sonnet 18, which compares his beloved to a summer's day, would have mentioned northwest winds, coastal fog, and dry riesling before 5pm. He redeems himself at the beginning of the third stanza, however, by introducing the concept of the 'eternal summer' inside us. He concludes the stanza with a reference to 'eternal lines' as well. Perhaps The Bard was a surfer after all...?
Anyway, stoked Bay Area shredder Dan has a plan for the eternal lines of summer: The Greymember.
The board stands a diminutive, yet fleshy 5'4" with a slimming dark cedar stringer and Member-specific keels.
The slate gray opaque reverse wrap (tapered!) reinforces the tombstone likeness, and just a hint of swallow tail keeps things lively in the back.
The "S" deck: meat where you want it, neat where you don't.
When I told Dan this was strictly a head high and under board, he said, "I'm gonna ride it in overhead Ocean Beach."
The kid's got moxie!

The Undecider

Numbers scare the hell out of me. Want an example? 300. Terrifying number.
This is why I have a deep respect for Northcoast shredder and beard-growing enthusiast Chris, who chooses to remove numbers from his life entirely.
Chris wanted a board, but didn’t concern himself with the details. Our conversation went like this:
Me: What are you looking for?
Chris: Shaper’s choice.
Me: Glassing?
Chris: Have at it.
Me: (scrunching eyes with what-you-talkin’-‘bout-Willis-like suspicion) When do you need it?
Chris: Whenever.
With respect to Chris, I went for a shortish, wideish, thinnish little number that would like nothing more than a wave about yay-high--preferably with water temps hovering around just right.

Leslie's glassing is good.

Yellow Monday, EMail Monday, Non-Euphemisms

Film enthusiasts might recall a scene from Jonathan Demme's The Silence of the Lambs where intrepid, birdlike FBI cadet Clarice Starling pokes around in Hannibal Lector's storage unit (not a euphemism).
The powerful beam of her flashlight exposes all manner of objets d'freaky until it lands on the severed, pickled head of some dude from a side plot.
As you know, Email Monday, a time-honored tradition here at HeadHighGlassy, is the day we arm you with a government-issue flashlight and turn you loose, like Clarice Starling, into the unlit storage unit that is the HHG inbox.
First up!
Dear HHG,
Most of the time I love my full, diverse stable of surfboards. I can ride a different board each day of the month if I so choose.
Sometimes, however, late at night I feel soulless in my board hedonism. I think that somewhere there walks a single surfboard--The One design--that will satisfy all my needs.
Does this mean I'm ready to commit to just one board?
Board Bachelor
Dear BB, Don't do it!
Order more boards, experiment with more designs, swap out fins, exchange boards with friends, fill out order cards like they're free raffle tickets for even more surfboards. You see, guys and gals who have committed to The One board design rely on you to remind them of their own quiver-abundant days, when they, too, could leave the garage with a board under each arm and two already in the car. It's not hedonism, BB, it's living the dream.

Dear HHG,
I got kind of drunk the other night and had a fantasy about ordering a thruster (not a euphemism). Is this normal?
Tri-Curious
TC, You are perfectly normal. Please consult Board Bachelor for support.

Dear HHG, this week marks the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. Traditionally, Jews eat dairy to commemorate God's delivery of the Torah to the Israelites, but I'm lactose intolerant. What to do with this meshugganah?
CircumSurfer
CS, the tradition stems from the fact that the Torah introduced the law of kosher and, since Jews had just received the Torah, they didn't have time to prepare meat in kosher cookware that night (not a euphemism). May 28th, The first night of Shavuos, would be a great night for a salad and some home-rolled sushi. l'chayim!

Yellow Monday is another time-honored tradition. This week's yellow board is for Northcoast fish-enthusiast Robert.
Black tapered foam-stain panels and full-board deep yellow tint by Leslie Anderson at Fatty Fiberglass.
Hotcoating, sanding, finning, leash-plug install, glossing, and polishing also done by Leslie.

Bamboo fins by Marlin Bacon.
Hope the Memorial Day weekend found you engaged with something important.

Shape

Births, deaths, tragedies, hangovers--these events have the power to remove us from ourselves, to provide a brief recess from the countless factors we're required to juggle at any moment.
Shaping grants me some of this same constricted focus, a break from the self-absorption that engulfs more than a few of us.
The word itself, shape, is onomatopoeic in the way it mimics a surform pass along the rail (ssshhhaaaaape!) or the slice of a finely-honed hand plane on a basswood stringer (ssshhhhaaaaape!), or the slash of fin through the thin lip of a cresting wave (ssshhhhhaaaaa) followed by the ping of water droplets (ppppeeee) on the flat water behind.

The Twin Keel Fish pushed me out of the water and into the shaping room ten years ago. Early on it was about the buzz: the joy of creation, the thrill of new tools, and the fear of screwing up perfectly good foam all provided a heady rush in the shaping bay.
Now, it's about the calm, the meditation, the quiet.
I was reminded of this transition--from frantic to tranquil--while shaping Rob's twin keel last week, as well as how shaping itself has altered my life.

Parenthood (you knew this was coming) grants us a similar opportunity. We are shaping a young life and, in turn, we are being shaped in the process.
California writer Gary Snyder's poem Axe Handles captures the moment where the speaker, when showing his son how to make an axe handle with an existing axe, realizes that in modeling a shape, he is also modeling his life to his son.
I love the simplicity of this idea. If we all keep in mind the notion that we, ourselves, are models for future generations, that we are axe handles or shapers, then maybe we will exercise better behaviors when a kid burns us in a crowded lineup, or a beginner ditches their board in front of us, or a stranger shows up at our favorite semi-secret spot.

We are shapers, every one of us. The foam of our futures is spotless, unlimited in its possibility.