Maybe things have changed since some of you got your first tube, but I had the unique pleasure of gettting shacked for the first time in my life on a board I shaped and glassed myself. It was the first (only) board I ever built, a 6’1" triple stringer fish cut out of a beater longboard I didn’t have the heart to throw away. I just wanted to say thanks for the help, I couldn’t have done it without you, and I wouldn’t have tried.
Thanks to the Swaylocks community I have a memory I’ll never forget.
nice call. That picture was taken this morning at Lafayette jetty in Long Beach, NY. If its possible for perfect conditions to include 20 degree F air and 40 degree water, today was it. Around here the cold is just a fact of life so the colder the better: fewer kooks like me in the lineup.
I lived in New Jersey for a while as a kid. Couldn’t imagine surfing in that cold. What’s the secret? Gotta be more than peeing in your wetsuit! There isn’t enough coffee in the world to warm my insides enough!
Lots of rubber, and I keep my sessions under 2 hours. The first hour
is not bad, except for the occaisional icecream headache from a rough
wipeout or duckdive. hour 2 gets progressively worse the longer you stay out… The worst part is trying to escape a 5 mil.
wetsuit with jelly arms and bare feet standing on freezing (literally)
pavement…
PS here are a few shots of my board. I messed up the nose the first time, so I cut it off and improvised a noseblock out of some oak, poplar and
balsa from Home Depot and the local craft store. Thank goodness for
trial and error because the nose block is easily my favorite part of
the board, and today was proof that the weight issue is not insurmountable.
I hand shaped the fins as well, but they didn’t work out nearly as well.
Sounds crazy but I miss the cold I have been stuck down in SD trying to get work and will gladly put my 5 mill and 7 mill booties on to get some waves without a hundred of my closest freinds out.
thanks, the red oak matched the redwood center stringer pretty well. but I couldn’t find anything to match the rosewood side stringers. I found some 1/16 balsa strips at the craft store and tried to saturate them with stain. unfortunately the stain didn’t penetrate the balsa at all and pretty much disappeard when I shaped the block.
It didn’t turn out exactly as planned, but it was nice being able to work with virgin material for a change, even if oak and poplar were far from ideal. The foam was pretty hammered and difficult to work with due to its previous life as my loaner longboard in San Diego. The board had to be shaped around all the craters and scars from old dings, and it shows. the curves on the rails are pretty sketchy, but thankfully people focus their attention on the nose.
Beautiful board… Thanks for sharing the stoke, but for the love of life, what’s with 5mil and no boots??? I’m stoked and warm in much warmer condition in my 6/5/4 suit, 7mm boots, and 5mil gloves… and I’m w/Girvin… heck, I surf lesser breaks just to get away from a dozen of my closet “bros”… Ha! In fact, I try to surf my “secret spot” alone any chance I can… Ha! But seriously, my advice - get more rubber!
Sorry for the confusion, the bare feet come only after I take off my boots so I can get out of my wetsuit. Changing on the street is the worst part for sure. TIred wet naked and cold is simply not a good recipe in my book. I’m pretty sure surfing without boots in that water would lead to frostbite or something.
Ok - Here’s my latest… I keep two - one gallon jugs of hot water in a cooler, to keep it hot… and I wear some wool socks to help with the on and off of the suit, plus it helps keep the feet a little warmer… but, I realized, if I leave them on when I’m “showering” w/the hot water, then the socks get full of hot water, which cools off slower than my bare skin on the ground, and I leave the hot wet socks on until I sit down to put my clothes on… then pull em off just before I dry and put double layer of socks on… etc… but, it has helped a lot…
you wear socks under your boots? I’ve wondered about that. I’ve thought about it but I was never sure if it would make much of a difference, and if so if the difference would be good or bad. on one hand its probably like teh fleecy stuff inside some wetsuits, but on the other hand I was worried that the socks could push the boots away from your skin, and let more water pool up in your boots, and make your feet heavier and colder.
my latest trick works great. I live in manhattan, NYC so owning a car is not worth the hassle, but lately I’ve discovered the joy of the borrowed beater minivan. (my parents live a few hours away and there are only 2 of them, and they have three cars: my mom buys old couches from thrift stores and reupholsters them as a a hobby, so they only keep the van to move furniture occaisionally). I take out one of the seats so there is plenty of room to change inside and no one cares how sandy/salty it gets. Parking the thing in the city is still a major hassle, but in the wintertime at least, its definitely worth it.
Hey if you where smartwool socks under your booties it really makes a difference. In canada they used to where wool sweaters and beanies to surf before wetsuits.
Great board, great thread mate, awesome lookin board there.
Do you think people get used to such cold weather??. I have never seen snow in real life, and if i lived somewhere that cold i doubt i’d surf at all, at least not in winter. I live ( all my life ) somewhere that i suppose is mild in winter compared to that, with water temps bottoming out at 14deg celcius. In the coldest part, im surfing for 30-45 mins. Last year though, my steamer busted at the start of winter, so for the coldest part, i used my springy. I kinda got used to it, although i think because i was going a few times a week, and felt like a was surfing good ( no injuries, good shape waves ).
I started surfing in relatively warm water in San Diego, and have only been here in the cold for 2 years. I do think you do get used to it, My 5/4/3 wetsuit doesn’t fit all that well and I’ve had some pretty miserable sessions in the past, but this year seems to be less painful. shorter sessions probably help alot too.
