Fins Free & Flying

Mark Thomson. Photo by Hilton Dawes.



Classic, the best surf photo I've seen in a donkey's age, and the craft is a surfmat. Mark Thomson charging hard, and given the man's commitment to serious down-the-line speed, this is some g-force in action. Tommo knows his way around a surf vehicle too, he builds and rides incredible high tech carbon fibre boards with the same level of intensity he puts into the mat riding, as the photo below shows.





I'm not sure if I'm seeing more surfmat stuff on the internet because more people are riding them, or if more people are riding them because they're on the internet more. Either way it's a grand thing- proning it with handplane, paipo or mat is obviously the way to a more fulfilled and enjoyable surfing life given how fast people who are willing to try such devices become obsessed. You can see the positive effects of mats at 23 Breaths and more of Mark Thomson's magic at Krypt. Slide on.

Go Speedracer!

I know I just posted a bunch of Jeff Beck's boards and raved about them, but then he did this for a guy in Japan. Definitely a picture/1000 words situation but I will tell you it's 5'6", handmilled redwood skin, redwood tail blocks and redwood/balsa fins. Outrageously stunning.

Jack Block Park

Three years ago I posted a photo of this beach but noted that it was fenced off (Jack Block Park: May 2008) Now it's open, providing access to the water from one of Seattle's best and most overlooked overlooks.

Port of Seattle News Release

This is one of a couple of gravel pocket beaches built into the shoreline of this Superfund site on the southwest shore of Elliott Bay. Waves will gradually reshape them, but the northern exposure makes significant wave action infrequent and this molding will take time.

The largest waves, when they do reach this beach, will come from the north and will strike this beach at a fairly oblique angle. I suspect this will lead to the gravel shifting southwestward over time. Imagine a pebble on of this beach. There will be plenty of waves from the north nudging it southwest. But it's hard to conjure a wave from the southwest to move it back. There's a reason pocket beaches are swash-aligned. It represents a stable configuration. This one is like filling a tilted glass with water and expecting it not to spill.

I'm intrigued by the opportunity to build beaches along these industrial shorelines on the leading edge of old river deltas. In this way, this site is similar to the Olympic View site on Commencement Bay in Tacoma that I mentioned in March (Olympic View, Tacoma: March 2011).

This is the Jeff Ho board.

The shape you can get should you want a pretty awesome all-rounder from a Los Angeles legend. This one belongs to Paul, and he likes it:

"the Jeff Ho Sarlo model is a yes. I've ridden it four days in a row now. I freaked on all that foam, but Jeff compensates for it by using an extended hard edge and particular concaves. It gets in early and holds in big bu bombs. I put Simon Future Fins in it and they seem right. It snaps off the top and throws good spray for a quad. I did outrun a couple BIG waves, falling on my butt. I was surprised, though, by the board's functionality in overhead so cal surf."

Paul has a quiver most people reading this would froth over- Pavel, Seebold, Mackie and so on, so he definitely knows his way around a good board. If you want one of Jeff's board's yourself, just email info @ foamandfunction.com and we'll set you up. Feeling very enthused by surfboards today as I managed a trip to small but very fun waves near to Rincon. Wonderful way to spend a summer's day believe me.

Waves

Some more photos from Mick Mackie- the lucky bastard, it's 2 foot and crumbly here. No wonder he surfs as well as he does and shapes the boards he does. He should be getting some sort of kickback from the Australian Board of Tourism for his work because these shots make me want to buy an airline ticket.

More Surfboards (Mackie this time)

Mackie S-deck stubbie, volan deck patch and 2+1 setup with one of Mick's hand foiled flexfins for the box. Very ,very nice indeed. The fish is the EPS sidecut that's here and for sale at $800. 6', high performance shape with some float. A board than can honestly be described as 'epic'.

An Addenda- If you'd like one of those custom stubs they run $875 with fins etc. Sweet indeed.

Ninelights

Some surfboards built by another Jeff, Mr. Beck of HB this time. I've made quite a few visits to his workspace (Jeff very kindly has assumed the role of ding repair guy for me which is great because he's brilliant at it and probably good for him as it's steady work given how often I knock chunks out of boards) and I'm always blown away by what he's quietly doing there. He builds with compsand construction, the board is shaped from EPS and then a skin of wood is vacuum bagged onto the shape (usually cedar and poplar it seems) and Jeff shapes down the rails and nose & tail blocks. The result is an absolutely beautiful looking board (the work on the tails is pretty stunning), but it's also a really functional ride. I had a loaner twin fin for a while and completely fell in love with the feel. The board had the float and general feel of an EPS board, but the skin obviously makes it a bit heavier which in our often wind hacked waves makes things much nicer. What really hooked me was the feel of the board underfoot- solid like a PU/PE board but with a sort of twangy stiffness it that makes sense- like hard racing shocks on a car, it gave when it needed to give. Totally sold me on the construction, and Jeff's shapes are great. As nice as these stubs are, the modern twin shape is the business. He's here if you want to check his stuff out, and it's well worth doing so. These guys who are actually building interesting boards rather than just finish shaping what a machine pops out are a small gang, but it's them who will drive the progress of surf design forward.

Golden Gardens

It's amazing that in over 430 entries and more than 5 years, I have never posted anything from Golden Gardens, even though it's the closest beach to my home and does not lack for interesting stories.

Early on the morning of July 4th, the beach was still quiet. A few vans were unpacking for the day's activities and people were beginning to mark territory for the afternoon's celebrations, but not much more was going on.

The north beach is gravel and sand and has retreated over the decades, perhaps aided by railroad, which was built along the eroding bluffs to the north and eliminated a potential source of sediment. In the mid-1990s, the City chose to nourish the north beach and restore the wetlands behind the berm. Both have done well in the 15 years since.

Meadow Point (the name of the landform, Golden Gardens is the name of the park) is the site of one of the largest relatively intact (although by no means original or pristine) backshore dune areas found in central Puget Sound. Keeping the Scot's Broom and other obnoxious vegetation in check is a full-time job for the city and the park's volunteers.

North storms appear to dominate sediment movement at this site, since this shoreline is sheltered from the more common southerly waves by West Point. The large Shilshole Marina and it's breakwater to the south may also influence Meadow Point - they certainly represent an abrupt end to the beach south of the Park.

The southern beach is swash-aligned, forming a broad crescent that faces the southwesterly waves. It is broad and sandy and by later today will be filled with people throwing frisbees, playing volleyball, picnicking, and launching kayaks. The north beach tends to be more for beach walkers and kite flyers.

Unlike Seattle's other beachfront parks where fires are prohibited, here they are not. Which probably explains the remarkable lack of drift logs on the berm.

Dixie Lee wanted to put the aquarium at Golden Gardens. Wolf Bauer did not. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, they argued about it, but in the end, the aquarium ended up on the downtown waterfront. This is neither the first nor the last beach that Wolf saved. Fittingly, Wolf was a key part of the design team that developed the 1996 beach restoration work.

Shirts For Summer

Yeah, it's summer. It's getting hot and the waves are tiny. You can however look mighty suave at any barbeques, beach days or what have you with a new t-shirt. The range above is the Hydrospiral, the Mackie and the Casper (ladies sizes only sorry). There's the full selection here although size and colour options are getting limited. Price is $25, shipping included to make it simple. Email the usual address- info @ foamandfunction.com and we'll set you up.

The Highly Efficient Jeff Ho

The Jeff Ho/Zephyr Designs mission is shaping up to be utterly simple and even quite fun. Jeff is really happy to be doing some boards, and they are getting finished quickly and nicely. For those who missed it, this is the deal- Dogtown Legend Jeff Ho, not a man who is easy to track down and order a board from, is building a run of his current favourite shape for those who want one. It's the design that Jeff has worked on over the last few years with input from Allen Sarlo and a core of the Venice crew. Things being as old school as they are with Jeff, I don't have a photo of the shape. It's not either of the above- there you have Jeff's Beachbreak fish shape (I surfed one of those literally into pieces, totally fun board and I credit it and Derek Hynd in 'Litmus' with triggering my fish obsession which is still going strong today) and some of Jeff's work in the current 'Art In The Streets' show at the Geffen Contemporary in lovely downtown LA. (Photo stolen from surfsister- thanks!)I will have photos of what he's actually building in the next few days however, as Tall Paul's board is done and getting picked up any time now. Best of all, these things are at non-collectors prices- $850 or thereabouts. Yes, I'm frothing over what is to most of you probably just some local underground guy from my adopted surf spot, but seriously- this guy makes boards that are aesthetically, historically and functionally brilliant. I'm honored to be doing the point man work for Jeff. Email info@foamandfunction.com if you're interested.