I’m sure we’ve all been asked to do it, and the majority of us resisted, i did too, but I finally gave in and made a Sea Sweeper. Let’s face it, surfers are broke, I have the tools to do it, the knowledge to make it happen, a family to feed, bills to pay, and getting $1,000 plus per board doesn’t suck either.
I wanted to make a SUP that was fast, stable, and could turn on a dime. The ones I’ve seen are floaty, with no concave, and have thick rails that would be hard to bury in a turn. For the most part, their stability comes from the length of the board which makes for a giant dangerous boat often used by unskilled riders with little knowledge of etiquette. So I took a look at the recent trends affecting shortboard design and I applied some of them on a larger scale. I decided I could go way shorter, a bit wider and throw tons of reverse V concave in it to make give it some stability.
I made some rocker and foil templates and cut 2 of them out of a 12ft long block of foam. Then, I adjusted one side of my template and cut out the center rocker, way flatter, on both sides to form both the concaves and the “V” in the tail. I resined the 2 sides together and clamped her down for the night. So both the V and the concave are already in the blank at this point this makes for way less foam dust in the room and a lot less shaping. I laid the template down and used a hot-wire router I made to cut the outline and the rail bands, giving the board the step deck look. At this point the only actual shaping that needed to be done, was turning the rails and smothing out the concaves, It didn’t take long…
Glassed both sides in the vac bag and then made her pretty with some giant ass laminates.
My favorite thing on the board is my solution to the handle issue. I had a choice of buying $15 to $30 handles and a $160 install kit, molding my own and free-handing the hole with a router, risking a sloppy job, or getting creative and spending $2 on PVC end caps and $20 on a new Forstner bit… Guess what I did?
All in all, I was really happy with this project and though I swore I’d never make one, I’m gonna be making a bunch more. I finished this one less than a week ago and I’ve received orders for 6 more, most of them for flatwater use for yoga or fishing, thankfully! 4 orders are husband and wife duos wanting his and hers’ paddle boards. Instead of being beaten down on price by surfers, I ask,“what’s your budget?” because the pricing is all over the place with these boards… That simple question to the customer is the best business move I’ve made yet, no more haggling. Try it the next time you get an order, you’ll be stoked!
There is no denying there is a giant market for these beasts and I’d rather take my share than have it go overseas.
