We had an awesome time this past weekend at The Boardroom Show. So much to see, so many cool people, lot's of story, and MR. That guy was my idol when I was a kid and I can't believe how cool of a dude he is. He was so involved this weekend. I swear he spent at least one hour watching each shaper try to recreate that board he constructed back in 1981. This was no simple task as the board had some serious bottom contours and the deck/rails were nothing to sneeze at. Since this was the first time I got an opportunitty to watch so much of this shape off I was amazed at the struggle these craftmen were up against. The lighting sucks for shaping a board, the fish bowl effect can't be fun, the unfamilar surroundings add to the difficulty, and trying to replicate that board in an hour and a half is almost impossible. Everyone was so impressive!!!
Those were my highlights from the show. What were yours???
Thanks for your support in stopping by to say hello too.
I had the same impression of MR. We spoke for 5 minutes about twin fin guns and he was open, approachable and was pretty good with a story too. Talked with George at Plus One who had some neat takes on the changing surfboard construction industry, materials, and design. He looks at stuff from an engineering standpoint which jibes well with my own thoughts.
The highlight though, was running my hands over a 11’ Kivlin balsa gun from the 50’s. Full hull bottom from tip to tail moderately pinched round rails and a beautiful S-deck profile. The nose was fairly pulled in putting a lot of area in the rear half of the outline (the board had a narrow square tail). That let him put a little more curve in the back than some of the more parallel outlines I’ve seen from those days. Easternpacific took some photos. I hope he’ll post them here.
The board had a wood trim tab for a fin; about 6"-10" long and about 2" deep and 3/4" thick with no foil! The board was in immaculate shape. Don’t know if that means it was ridden once and put to pasture as a experimental failure or if it worked so well he never lost it to the rocks…
This surfboard had some of the most beautiful detail I’ve ever seen. Inlaid with abalone and some sort of pearlescent cream colored shells that lined the rails. Yater only wanted $7500 for it. I don’t know how it didn’t win best of show.
Nice to meet you yesterday, Brad & thanks again for the tix…Kyle
I thought that it was really cool that Bird (from Birds Surf Shed) kept Bobby Challengers booth the way it was. We talked and shared a few stories about Bobby. It was good to see the last board I pinlined for Bobby on display. It was the one with his photo of him nose-riding for miles as Bobby told me. Classic! Other than that I had a good chat with Carl Ekstrom about asymmetricals, got to met a few more iconic surfboard legends and saw lots of cool boards. I shaped in “the fish bowl” on Saturday, couldn’t see that well. I was a little shocked when I put that board on my shaping room racks this morning. (oh well). Other than that it was cool. Scott Bass did a good job promoting it.
