New England Dispatch: Winter Edition

Good lord, I've gotten soft. I grew up surfing New England winters with a cardboard-stiff third-hand wetsuit and no booties. I've hacked my way up numerous frozen waterfalls in the Rockies, picked ice chunks the size of playing cards out of my beard at 18,000ft in Mexico, got blown off Mt. Adams in February by an 80mph gust of wind that froze my jacket thermometer at -20.
What I'm saying is this: cold and I have spent some time together, and it's been pretty rad.
But now it isn't.
Which is why I'm huddled next to a space heater at my in-laws in Connecticut. Bitching.
But 'hardship' makes us thankful, and here's what I'm thankful for as we stare down the line of another new year.
Surfboards. All of them, really, no matter who shaped them. This one's for local shredster Jon, and is off to the glasser this week.

6'8. Egg. 4+1

Electric Blankets. I used to think electricity and sleeping didn't really mix. Not anymore.

This is what happens when you Google Image 'Electric  Blanket'

Barbie Dream House. I shit you not. We didn't encourage our girls to join the Barbie Army, but avoiding it is as impossible as avoiding pictures of that one Kardashian's ass . For the last five days they've been going to town on the Barbie Dream House like it's their job. 40+hrs, only two fights (both elevator related). Them's good numbers.

Isle of Skye 8yr old blended scotch whisky. A little bit of something for every scotch lover in a single bottle. Don't 'upgrade' to the 12yr--less peat, more money.

Coming home to this:

Happy New Year!

Plug

Kelly is a Renaissance man—surfer, artist, designer, entrepreneur, musician, dude with a mustache. He’s also a builder with of epic vision. How do we know it’s epic? because it’s in the name: Epic Design Build.

The EDB bros are scientists of building efficiency. They also like riding bikes, shredding Northcoast waves, and drinking beers at the Toad.

Kelly is at the forefront of a movement to transform Santa Rosa’s Railroad Square from a place of occasional dining and hobo watching to a model of the contemporary urban ideal: small local businesses, artists, intellectuals, musicians, surfboard shapers with an alarming amount of gray finding its way into their beard this winter, purveyors of local-made (and brewed!) goods intermingling with community-minded homeowners and their offspring. Sounds nice, eh?

So what does a man-of-our-times order when he wants to shred?

6’ Sparkplug.

Like the name implies, the Sparkplug is the necessary ingredient for heavy duty shredding. Plenty of foam for Northcoast paddling with a rocker to match our steep beachbreak offerings.

Quad for extra spark.

Because he's also a gigantic design nerd, Kelly created his own custom Sparkplug lam just in case, in the middle of a sess, he forgets why his board shreds so hard.

California born, start to finish.

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.

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!

The Green Lady

The Green Lady for SoCo wave shredder, family man, teacher, and open-minded weird board enthusiast Paul.
8'ish with a full coke-bottle tint.

The Lady series, spawned by The Painted Lady, are northcoast-specific trim machines. They borrow heavily from Greg Liddle's hulls in concept, though only moderately in form. I'm aware that Lady is a terrible name for a surfboard model, but sometimes these things are out of my hands.

More rocker than a traditional hull and more meat in the rails for our long paddles, thick wetsuits and shelfy sandbars.

 Less convex on the bottom of the board, and pulled in noses and tails to fit in steeper pockets.

These things work best with some added length—think mid seven foot to mid eight foot range. This gives them a long rail line for drive and hold. A flexie fin rounds out the package with the result of a fast, maneuverable, drivey pocket rocket that finds the power spot on the wave and holds tight. Think: greased pelican getting shot out of a black-bored 28” Browning Citori barrel.

Actually, don’t think that. It’s kind of gross. I’ll let you come up with your own parallel—you’re an adult and I trust you.

If you’re an East Coaster dealing with the aftermath of Sandy, our thoughts are with you.

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.

iAdios, Verano!

So long, Summer. We humbly stand at the dock and salute your fickle ship as it sails west, or south, or wherever the hell you go when it comes time to turn off my landscape irrigation.

You greeted us with some fun Baja peelers, as evidenced by Mrs. HHG, a fun Baja peeler, and the view from our rented deck that was tough to relax on because the kids kept pretending to throw themselves over the rails. Ha!

Kids.

One night you looked like this, and made our dog hide in the closet for two days.
Explosions!

You brought out the east-coast creepie crawlies, and introduced my daughters to a new river, the Housatonic, to add to their ever-expanding list of awkward public places to take off their clothes.
Crawdads!

Now you've pulled anchor, and the boards coming out of my shop are starting to look like this one: PitBoss. OBSF ready. Currently resting on the racks at Almar Glassing in Santa Cruz.
More Hot PitBoss Action here.
Surfboards!

And, based on this morning's buoy readings, Summer's sweet, sweet stepsister Fall has already moved in to take her place.

Swell!