Such a beautiful country. Can’t wait to go back. Insane food and people and lots of surf with good set-ups. Coming over the bridge which is fashioned after the golden gate, you see Jesus welcoming you from the other side as you head towards Costa de Caparica in central portugal…
The judging panel consisted of Phil Northey one of the best most experienced laminators in the UK, Nick a surfshop owner from the south coast of england, and myself. We had a hard job to be honest as all the boards looked really really good. We decided the best thing to do was to give the whole lot a good walk by or two and pick out the boards that jumped out at us. We eventually settled on these 6 boards. Once down to 6 boards we then changed the criteria to the board which had the most amount of effort and least amount of flaws.
That was then widdled down to these 3.
Of those 3 the tangerine dream by John Purton of JP surfboards wales took top honors.
He was awarded one of the trophies that Rainbow made for the event. A hand shaped and glassed oversized wood fin.
This was hands down the best orange tint I have ever seen. The color was literally flawless with 0 imperfections in the shaped blank, the lap, the polish etc…
The man the myth the legend, with a very unique battail
Lisboa
The aqua duct
Europe is a very colorful place…
Ericeria is the place to be with endless coastline full of right points…
We surfed this place and it was tons of fun. Cool little inside section here great for cutbacks and floaters
Not to mention the beachside attractions.
The bombie on the other side of the bay
Every color under the rainbow on this tucked away little beach.
You can see the girth of the swells wrapping in here. They called this an average sized swell.
Awesome re-furbished old style windmill. After taking the pic I noticed the sign and we had to shoot down the road for a look see.
One of Portugals best, and meanest waves.
Solid 8 foot faces, sideshore and no one out.
A mistake here could have you running straight up onto the reef to ride out the rest of the set. Hope you remembered your booties.
Paul from Black and White surfboards UK with his second place finish, a white opaque with resin color on the hotcoat and flawless pinlines on the bottom.
This board from DK caused quite a stir and was snatched up by a happy portuguese surfer itching for the next swell.
Our good friend Lob from Barrel surfboards representing for a France in a big way.
Twinzerfan made the trip down with one of his creations. Nice board and thanks for coming Rob!
Until next year!
Great pics. I’ll be in Portugal and had a couple of questions which I will send via pm,
regards
Bob.
How lucky!
Lisboa is one of the best cities I’ve ever been to. I wish I could go back there this summer and maybe get some waves this time…
Stefano
Wow, that really brought back a flood of memories.
As a grommet in Spain in the early 80’s Ericeira was the closest place we could buy boards.
Semente Surf Shop. Are they still there? I think it was Nick and Miguel?
My folks would drop us off at Coxos and we would pitch a tent just to the right of your photos.
Got a lot of good waves back then.
Thanks for the photos. I know the post was about the boards and they are stunning, but all I saw
in my mind was memories of the trips we took.
Chris
the white board with the red and blue deck splashes - “A” for originality
…would yhave been nice on the bottom too
Great pics - con’t waith to spend my hols there this summer…OBRiGADO!
JP - WALES …you’re right …an amazing shaper…I’m riding one of his quads at the moment with your fins --------wo hooooo --------such fun!
Im I the only one who notices the breast’s in the last pic?
Chris,
Semente are still there: http://www.semente.pt/english/home_uk.htm
I found them really helpful in answering some general questions I had about Portugal, where I will be enroute to this time next week.
Bob