Le Flying Cigare

On October 28th, 1954, the French grape-growing hamlet of Chateauneuf-du-Pape passed a law forbidding any type of cigare volant, or flying cigar, from landing in any vineyard. Article one of the decree states: the take-off, landing, and overhead flight of the aircraft known as flying saucers, or flying cigars, whatever their nationality, are prohibited in the territory of the commune.
Up here in Northern California, the legislative vibe is a bit different from le commune, so no such law exists. This is fortunate for local surf enthusiast T, who is clearly stoked to introduce his new Cigare Volant to our chilly waters.
Full board, Martian-green opaque resin work with a cigar band complete the aesthetics of the cigare theme. The bladed-out rails, single wing in the tail, and flexie fin provide the space-age engine.
The obligatory rocker/foil check.
If you see T squirting around on his Flying Cigar along the California coast, feel free to push him of and take it for a spin. He likes to share!

That Guy in the Parking Lot

My mom's a serial shopper. She even loves to return things, as it's basically an extension of the shopping process. When she hands over a gift, she usually begins, "You know, it's really not perfect for you, and it's probably not your color. If you'd like, I could return it..."
There's something about her hopeful expression that, no matter how awesome the gift, makes you nod and hand it back over.
There's a guy like this at my local spot. Let's call him Steve (to protect Dave's real identity). Every time I see Steve in the parking lot or in the water, he orders a board. Usually, he'll paddle back over after a half hour or so and cancel. Sometimes he'll find me in the parking lot after the session and cancel. A few times he's called and canceled. He always apologizes.
Steve likes colors, and always spends a few minutes throwing out suggestions from the "you ever do a..." school.
"You ever do a reverse lime-green tint with an avocado opaque bottom and red horizontal pigment stripes on the deck?" he asked me around Thanksgiving.
"Nope."
Steve looked proud of his idea promptly ordered it. He found me in the parking lot later and canceled, looking embarrassed. "My wife..."
"You ever do an egg that looks like an actual egg?" he asked last month. "You know, in fried-egg colors?"
"Nope."
"That's what I want," he said, then paddled for a wave, stoked. He called later that day: "Um, about that board..."
Steve found me the other day in the parking lot. "Hey," he said. "You ever do a board that looks like my dog?"
"Nope."
"It would be brown with white spots," he began, pointing down at Diesel, his blotchy-furred terrier, a stick permanently dangling from the corner of his mouth. "I want it to be a pintail tri-fin, just like him." Diesel has three legs.
Steve shook my hand before pulling his hood over his head and trotting off over the dunes toward the breaking waves. Diesel bobbed behind, stick wedged firmly in mouth.

I love Steve.
He fantasizes about boards as much as I do, maps them out in his head, dreams about riding them. Instead of simply imagining himself on the boards he peeps online or in the water, he takes it to the next level. He orders one.
It is my mother's art: shop-then-return, and I don't blame Steve one bit.
The waves weren't speaking to me that day, so I headed home and shaped Steve's board. I knew he'd be calling later to cancel, but that didn't stop me.
And instead of imagining the completed board at its logical next residence--propped in the racks of Ft. Bragg's The Surf Shop (a fine establishment)--I envisioned it darting across one of our local beachbreak waves, Steve marking a high trim line, swooping down to beat a section, then rocketing back up onto the face. I imagined Steve padding back up to the parking lot, triumphant, crisp new 8'4" pintail tucked under his arm. Reaching his truck, he would bend down to take the stick from the mouth of his buzzing, leaping, dancing three-legged wirehaired terrier, and throw it into deep into the dunes. Mad with purpose, the tiny animal would blaze after it, a brown-and-white spotted blur against the sand. Later, they would climb in the truck together and head for home, one dreaming about ordering a board the color of iceplant blooms in the spring, the other a smooth, weighty stick and an endless supply of human arms to launch it into the dunes beyond.

Anyway, The above two photos are of Steve's 8'4" pintail, and it's up for grabs if you're interested. The blank is by Surfblanks, the shape is a solid all-rounder, has a 2+1 fin setup, and is sitting on a rack at Fatty's right now awaiting her life-giving talents.
On a side note, it has been pointed out to me on several occasions that I resemble White House Press Secretary Dana Perino. While I'm sure Ms. Perino would be flattered by this odious comparison, I must point out that first, I'm a dude, and second, my frosty 'do is a classic flapper bob, whereas Ms. Perino's is clearly a trussed-up pageboy.
Nuff said.

Learning the Curve

Last month I talked with Mac from a bit north, who seemed almost embarrassed about his board order. "I have an emotional attraction to a certain type of board," he said sheepishly. "I just wanted to see what you thought about that..."
Turns out Mac likes curves.
I surf quite a bit with a geometry teacher who is also fascinated with curves, and traces the earliest forms of geometry to around 3000 B.C.E. One of the first geometric equations was to divide the circle into 360 degrees of 60 minutes each, creating, in a sense, ‘time.’ This equation was used to plot the courses of the planetary objects and develop the first calendars. Curves predicted rains, droughts, harvest and planting seasons, etc. The geometers were seen as spiritual leaders, the curves themselves considered sacred objects.
What am I getting at here? I have no idea, but Mac wanted an egg. Curvy as hell. Round at the nose and tail, gently curving through the middle, soft curvy rails and an even rocker along the bottom.
I have a similar attraction, and I don't know why. For some reason, I take more pictures of completed eggs and longboards than I do shortboards. I isolate the nose curve--the deepest curve on a longboard or egg or hull--and take a picture. I run my hand over it. I look at it for a really long time.
My wife comes out to the shop and goes, "ooohhh," when there's a really curvy board in there.
Sometimes I try to talk people into a roundtail or rounded pin over a squash tail. Most surfers wouldn't notice the difference, so what's the point? It's the curve. The flat line of a square tail or squash tail doesn't stir the eye (and the heart) the way a curve does.

Why have artists forever focused their attentions on the curvy female form over the male? Check out what may be the earliest yet-to-be-found example of art, Morocco's Venus of Tan Tan, dated from 300,000 to 500,000 B.C.E. The thing is pretty curvy. In this case, as with a lot of early art, the figure is believed to be some sort of fertility symbol. In the hands of the artist the link between curve and fertility, and therefore life itself, is inextricable.
Why does the curve excite us so much? Is it spiritual? Is it because of some sort of connection with the planetary objects and time?
Why are curves described as 'sexy'? Why do we love looking at surfboards? Why do we need to touch them? What does this stir in our souls?

I'm not too sure, and clearly I've had a lot of coffee this morning, so I'll offer a few pictures of Mac's new egg, curves and all. Dig.

Washington's Birthday

Question: Does it get any better than a windless, swell-filled day with no work obligations and the Little Lass in daycare?
Answer: Yes.
Perhaps our First President would have smiled had he surveyed today's coastal bounties (though perhaps not, as he was known to be a bit 'morose' in his more advanced years). Signs of freedom stretched from the coastline, where a relatively high number of surf enthusiasts enjoyed somewhat clean conditions, to the roadways, where the Amgen Tour of California passed through town preceded by every vehicle in the county with a siren, to the fields bordering the roadways where grapevines were slowly, selflessly preparing the fruits that will make us enjoy our freedoms all the more.
I think Washington would also applaud the voices of criticism on this day who speak out against a legacy of old white guys who have ruled this country from its inception. My dad's an old white guy, and I love him to pieces, but Washington was a famous advocate of change (I believe he was Commander-in-Chief of the Revolutionary War, for starters).
Onto the surf!
Surf was mainly leftovers from a bigger swell this weekend, but it doesn't clean up too often up here, so these chest-to-head high zippers provided a welcome meal. This girl rips!
I chose to ride the winterfish today, and now I'm smitten. A pulled in, fully-rockered quad, it does what I ask it to do. Having not surfed for some time, I didn't ask much, but I have a lot of questions for it in the future.
By the way, if you think these guys above look like seals from your angle, imagine what they must look like from below.
Actually, don't do that.
It ain't SoCal. The kid in the foreground told me it's the first time he's gone shoeless since the summer. How'd it feel?
"Bad," he said.
And now I'm imagining Washington lighting a fire right there on the beach, sitting down and motioning to this young lad to come over and warm those little piggies right up.

The Modern Brometheus

"I seek the everlasting ices of the North,
where you will feel the misery of cold and fronts."
-The Monster, from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein or The Modern Prometheus

Local surf diehard Brent is my new hero. Born and raised in Sonoma County (heretofore referred to as SoCo), father, enviro-champion, and stoked beyond belief, whether it be freezing cold dawn patrol or freezing cold anytime else. Actually, I've never heard the guy complain about the cold, which leaves him almost peerless in this most unwelcome of surf destinations.
And he shows up with beers.
Many of those beers are represented in the design concept of this board.
The Frankenfish stands at 7'9" (the champagne of board lengths), is longboardy wide, fishy tailed and ???? nosed. It's a quad, and features a single wing at the rear of the front fins.
The wing creates a pivot point right at the spot where I dropped a Tecate on the nearly completed shape. My bad.
Of course, no Frankenfish would be complete without the beak nose--a feature I feel really ties the shape together.
This crisp Ice9 blank will get a stellar full board tint from Fatty in the weeks to come. Color? I'm not going to spoil the surprise, but let's just say it rhymes with 'yellow with a blue pinline.'
On a more gastrointestinal note, remember that soup my wife reminded me to buy last week when she was feeling ill? Well, I bought a ton of the stuff (can you ever have enough soup around?), and it really paid off this week as we both got really sick. The roasted corn and pepper is our current favorite--sweet and spicy!

The Long of It

Enough jibba-jabba, here's a longboard for Bodega Bay surf enthusiast Mike.
Mike is famously hard on his boards. Despite the hefty glass job on this 9'6" noseridin' special, I drew up a Bill of Longboard Rights upon order that looked something like this:
I, Mike, hereby pledge to take care of this surfboard most beautifully glassed by Fatty. I promise not to leave it on the top of my car, uncovered, when I spontaneously decide to drive to Tahoe for the weekend. I promise not to paddle out at Bobo with my dog perched on the deck. I also give my word that I will not attempt any ding repairs, as I have proven to suck at this, and instead I assure that I will bring my freshly damaged board straight to an industry professional."
The comp band is to prove that he's full of it when he claims a cheater five.

As traffic to my blog continues to blow up (last week I got three hits in a SINGLE DAY, more than doubling my previous record), I've been getting the inevitable email requests for a head shot. One female corresponder (and you know who you are*) was quite graphic in her demands. My first instinct was to stave off the hordes--to keep the focus on my body of work rather than my body of flesh and lots of hair. To preserve the fourth wall, as it were, between surfblogger and surfblog audience.
But I am just a man, and every man has his breaking point (not sure about this with women, as I've witnessed natural childbirth).
The following is a candid shot of me in my shop, taking a break by resting on top of a fresh blank, as I'm wont to do when the weather turns. It's not the best shot--my mustache is usually fashioned into a more impressive 'handlebar' style, and my nose is actually a much bolder color of red--but it's one of my only non-boudoir images. And to anticipate a question: yes, I do have a T-Band stringer. It adds strength, but mostly it's for aesthetics.
Enjoy.
On a side note, it's been pointed out to me on several occasions that my nose has a striking resemblance to the Channel Island keel fin template for Lokbox, a similarity I cannot deny. I have no idea if it this is coincidence or a breach of surf industry ethics, but Al has been spotted in Northern California in the past, and I'm a notoriously sound sleeper...
*You don't, since I just made you up. My wife's been grooving on her ceramics lately. From shape formation to glazing to actually using, the more she talks about it the more I'm convinced we are actually engaged in the same pursuit when I'm in my shop and she's at the studio. I'm reminded of this connection when strangers ask me about surfboards--many times they don't even surf, but they are curious about the shape and the process. Upon investigation, they almost always have something they are passionate about. Something that broadens and deepens their curiosity, makes them see form where others see formlessness, sense where there only appears to be material.
An eighty-two year old man, a friend of a friend over for dinner one night, asked me the most pointed, articulate questions about surfboard design I'd ever heard. He had been a professional photographer and currently spends his time making beautiful, intricate wooden jewelery boxes. He'd never seen a surfboard in person.
My third grade piano teacher told me that if you can master one instrument you have, in a sense, mastered all instruments. I think this holds true for anything we are passionate about--if we have learned to look at something closely, really closely, we can start looking at other things closely. Soon, we are looking at everything closely, and the world is a more vivid place.
Below is one of my wife's mochi desert bowls. To me, this rivals the best resin swirls out there. To a science geek, it might look like the formation of the universe. To my wife, it's just what happens when impurities in pigment meet heat.

I hope you're out there doing something you love.