War Pony Chronicles: the Jet Pony

Like every surfboard ever made, the War Pony is an amalgam of flats and curves. Because it's designed for punchy surf, some curves are enhanced while others are reduced. Flats and curves. Zeroes and ones. A binary principle tucked into a three dimensional form.
This particular War Pony has a few extra flats in the back. Not great when you're with a lady, but super fun when you're looking for more release through the tail.
The jet-tail's been around for a while, but credit goes to Daniel 'Tomo' Thomson for its recent resurgence. The fish's roots may be buried deep in San Diego, but its branches extend globally.
This one's a quad, but there's a twin fin (or tween feen if you're Australian, Kiwi, or Kirk) on the glassing racks presently.
The rear panels have some crazy fun flex. I keep sneaking back to the shop to squeeze 'em.
Do my fingers look fat? Could be the lighting...

The ______board Revolution

These are not the best days to be a Middle Eastern dictator. Nor are they great for polar bears or allergy sufferers. Mortgage owners, too, have cause for concern.
However, these are unbelievably exciting times to be a surfer or a custom surfboard shaper. The last five years of surf culture has seen the rules of the game change so much that there are no longer any rules. Last century, surfers laughed when the odd twin keel fish made its way into the local lineup. Now I can’t even wax up my Mini-Simmons in the parking lot without a handful of passersby deliberating design nuance: single or double-foiled fins? Concave all the way out the tail, or flat behind the fins? Would a shallow swallow tail give it more release?
The Shortboard Revolution of mid 1960s saw surfers hacking down their longboards six inches at a time. Shorter and shorter they got—ideas ping-ponging between California and Australia as traditionally designs were reinvented monthly.
Monthly. Can you imagine that? It’s a sloth’s pace compared to what’s going on today. It takes a month to fill a laboratory dish with bacteria. It takes two weeks to buy a gun (and feels a lot longer) in California. It takes minutes for a stoked surfer to see something online that captures their imagination, copy it, send it to their custom shaper with a few tweaks and a question (“what do you think of this but as a quad with a more pulled-in nose?”), and decide on a color.
The Shortboard Revolution was, as indicated by its name, unidirectional: shorter.
Today’s surfing revitalization is three dimensional: longer, fatter, shorter, thinner, more fins, fewer fins, concaves, convexes…etc.
It works with mindboggling speed: A backyard shaper in Portugal redistributes foam in an interesting way and posts it on his blog. Online surf communities initiate substantive discussion before the board even finishes curing. A California shaper gets inspired, fires off a few testpieces, and sends a crew to Baja to film and post up some video. The Big Guys see it and push a new model into production, but by then it’s too late. The dude in Portugal has moved on, deciding that the board would work better stringerless with carbon rails. The California shaper, too, decides to widen the tail, change the fin configuration, and push the widepoint back.
The target has shifted. The conversation has changed.
Suddenly, we’re talking about a teenage girl in New Zealand who hacks foam out of her parent’s mattress, glues an innertube to it, and shreds the reforms. The conversation continues, it expands, it contracts, it pulses like a jellyfish. It moves, literally, at the speed of light.
The result? Everyone is relieved: grizzled old shredsters are no longer talked into underfoamed, overfinned, banana-rockered potato chips with the float of a kickboard and the shelf life of swiss chard. Gremmies aren’t hounding after the latest ‘CT hero model guaranteed to blast them over the lip in 2ft beachbreak windswell, and the rest of us are encouraged, gently, to experiment.
Interestingly, it’s been a collaboration between the old and new guards that has brought us here. Elder statesmen like Kenvin and Ekstrom have enlisted the energy and talents of stoked groms. Everyone wins. The kids have their minds significantly blown over the pleasures of trim and glide, and the older guys get to reap the benefits of more user-friendly boards without the stigma.
Case in point: Big John had a vision for a specific board for a specific wave that requires a specific (read: dealbreakingly long) paddle to access. The wave is powerful and known to throw big, legit barrels on the right swell. He wanted paddle power. He also wanted it to be able to handle juice and steep walls. Not a longboard, not a gun.
Also: pulled nose and tail, e-wings.
Also: a bonzer setup. With bamboo fins.
Also: enough foam to float a guy as long as my car.
Also: banana/mango yellow tint with a tapered black resin pinline.
Try finding one of these on the racks.
It's not that a board like this didn't exist ten or twenty years ago--it did. The difference now is that the kids in the back row, the ones grinding their popcorn into the carpet while texting their girlfriends and downloading seven movies simultaneously, are now the ones standing up, aiming their camera phones at the world, and saying, "that's rad."
And it is.

All Clear

Foam
Cedar
Fiberglass

The Stuff of Life

All the literary heavies have succumbed to the powers of the grape at some time or another. Hemingway refered to wine as, 'The most civilized beverage in the world," Emerson demanded wine to wash himself clean, and it can't be more simple than the declarative statement of Roman poet Petronius: "Wine is life." Even the sciences back it up, as Louis Pasteur claimed it to be the, "most healthful and hygienic of beverages."
Based on the comments I get on this blog, I am clearly preaching to the choir, but it must be pointed out the great things wine has inspired: poetry. Literature. Civilizations. Sweet sweet love (though Shakespeare warns us it, "provokes the desire but takes away the performance").
And surfboards.
Ranger Fred makes some damn good wines up here in SoCo.
He also makes lots of children and clean lines on cold beachbreak waves. His 9’0 performance log sported a ‘glasser’s choice’ order card, so Leslie busted out a Zinfandel deck with champagne bottom inlay.
Probably the last thing a winemaker wants to see on his days off but, hey, he left it up to a lovesick temperamental artist with an affinity for reptiles and carnivorous plants, so what did he expect?
Pintail keeps it smooth off the back foot.
Thomas Jefferson wrote, "wine from long habit has become an indispensable for my health. Much like pulling in to a glassy barrel" (the second part is my own addition).
I'm a sucker for the 'reverse wrap' glass job. Leslie rolls her eyes when I wax poetic about them, muttering something about sanding into the weave blah, blah, blah, but the tucked laps really tie the whole bottom together.
Cheers.

Responsible Use

We don't judge up here at HHG. If a stoked surf enthusiast requests a board and shows appropriate measures of stoke, gullibility, and inebriation, discussions will ensue and a board will be created. This guy had all three in spades.
(not sure what's going on with his hand here, but something tells me it's not ok...)
I'm not going to drop any names, as my business is built upon a solid foundation of confidentiality and shaper/client privilege, so I'll just refer to this gentleman as 'Chaim.'
Chaim was stoked about an 8' something, 2+1 fin setup, and rounded pintail to manage the beachbreaks of Norcal as well as the warm water goodness of a forthcoming Costa Rica pilgrimage.
Chaim's choice of a gunmetal deck pigment job, and hourglass bottom laps was spot-on--the dude's clearly got taste, and Leslie made it sing in trademark Fatty fashion.
One thing is for certain: this board's in for some wild times.

Up for Grabs

Newly Unattached: Broadsword 2+1.
Measurements: a svelte-yet-curvy 8'5x22x3.
Reason for Breakup: Handsome Steve's employment termination.
Likes: the ocean, long walks on smooth peaks, steep and deep pockets, big stuff, little stuff, and everything inbetween.
Dislikes: waiting in the car on hot days.
Interesting Facts: smells like red cedar, would love nothing more than a good waxjob.
Another casualty of a dispirited economy, Handsome Steve had to surrender his freshly-shaped-yet-unglassed Broadsword this week (don't worry about Steve, a man that undeniably handsome is seldom out of work for long). By stepping forth, you have the opportunity to help a board in trouble AND realize the glassjob of your most pure/prurient desires--clear, solids, stripes, swirls, bubbles, darts...etc.
This is what she looked like when freshly shaped:
If unclaimed, the board goes to the shop with a glassjob of Leslie's imaginings, which will most likely be blue, reflective of her mood since The New Man returned to Alaska until summer.
Speaking of Alaska, if your board was in yesterday's pickup/dropoff cycle, it had the opportunity to experience snow, as evidenced by this picture I took at low speeds Somewhere in Mendocino County:
The white-knuckle driving affair (perhaps brought on by the weather hubris of my last post, and pointed out by Dr. Jay in the comments section) was only overshadowed by this stunning rainbow, shot at high speeds through the window with my camera on manual setting and no possibility of looking through the viewfinder. Nailed it! (sort of).
Bonus Question: if you name the Highway 101 exit closest to this image, you receive a FREE RESIN PINLINE on your next board order. Hint: it's between San Francisco and Crescent City. One entry per surfer, please.

Smiling Dutchman

In a merciless display of God's cruel irony, or perhaps some sort of conspiracy plot by those dastardly, ever-conspiring Masons, Northern California has been basking in a freakish run of good waves and unbelievable weather. This, while the rest of the nation hibernates under an impenetrable 'blanket' of continually building snow and ice.
Sorry, rest of the nation, but we're doing what we would want you to do of you were in our flip-flops: applying sunscreen, ordering surfboards, and shredding (without our hoods!) our local waters.
Like Dutch here, with his new quad fish.
But have no fear East Coasters and Midwesterners, we will get our comeuppance: I think I saw some clouds in the forecast for late next week or something.