forward observation post

If you don't have young kids is difficult to understand how much of an expedition a simple day at the beach can become. If you do, you'll know exactly what i'm talking about. The beach tent, an essential bit of kit!

an authentic story.....

[TRAILER] The Avthentic Story from Avthentic Films on Vimeo.


I've just been watching this new little dvd from talented frenchman Rudy Jacques and it's really pretty cool. Least it made me want to go surfing and thats a pretty good test of any movie i always think!

It's 40 mins of artfully shot french logging with a handful of oher stuff thrown in. Rudy would be the first to admit that Thomas Campbell is a huge influence and it shows clearly here, there is a definate feeling of the seedling being a strong point of reference.  Dismissing it as purely derivative would however be unfair and would be missing the originality and gallic flair that Rudy's filmakers eye exhibits.

Most of the surfing is by guys you wont have heard of (although Clovis donzinetti is in the latest vans duct tape comp) and most of the waves are under head high. It will probably redefine you're preconception of French beach breaks - it's not all thumping barrels, summer offers trunkable logging waves as well as the obvious attractions of ace seafood and fine cheap wine. I think my two favorite sequences are the body surf/ paipo session and the guy cruising on a frye fishsimmons at the end.

What really pervades the footage is a sense of fun and an absence of pretence. This "authenticity" is a thread that runs through all of Rudy's work and it's something i know he regards as central to it.

Bottom line, i really enjoyed watching it. Head on over to avthentic.com to get a copy and see for yourself!

lest we forget

Tudor is rightfully venerated for being hugely influential in the second rise of traditional style longboarding but in current times it's easy to forget the contribution made by Robert "wingnut" weaver.

Back when Tudor was still all about pink wetsuits and tri fin longboards and Knost still thought his dad was the coolest surfer in the world, wingnut was cruising blackies on a single fin, taking his style cues from edwards and company. He did a huge amount to popularise riding longboards, particularly in a traditional style and not least by riding a log in everything the endless summe 2 shoot threw at him

It could in fact be argued that wingnut was one of the direct catalysts to tudor seeking out single fins and black wetsuits as the 90's wore on. Sure his personality and ceaseless self promotion grated with many as did his latterly association with surftech but he should still be remembered by todays loggers for his influence, despite not having the same "cool quotient" of others.

Oh and he still has one of the best drop knee cutbacks in the business!

hut, hut, hut

Possibly now one of the most photographed sites in North Devon! Full marks to Jules for selecting such bright colours!

I wonder if beach huts are a british thing? I cant remember noticing them on my limited foreign beach experience. I will continue my research from a french beach break perspective this week, hopefully in sunshine and better swell than Portugal provided.

Vive La France!

pick up the planer..

This little run of summer waves and weather has given me the first proper chance to run my newest log through it's paces. It's a 9'4 "mod log" from the last batch of boards Randall shaped before hanging up his planer indefinately last year. I loved the look of it when Neil showed it to me and wished i'd had the cash and the space in the shed to buy it then so when it popped up for sale on magic seaweed i wasn't about to make the same mistake twice!

Template wise it's pretty much what a lot of people have been moving towards recently, less Nuuhiwa noserider and more Hot Generation/ Magic Sam with a greenough fin, thin pinched rails, widepoint pulled back a little, plenty of roll out into the rails and only a shallow nose concave. The nose is fairly narrow at 17 3/4 and the tail is wide at 16 1/4. Despite being 23 wide and 3 in the center there's not a great deal of foam in there. It's similar to the boards Dane Peterson has been riding recently or Chonoski's "involvement" Mctavish's

It's not really a "saunton board" being designed for waves with a little more zip but like most boards with a wide point back of center, as long as there is a steepish pocket to tuck into there's plenty of scope to get piggies dangling. Off the tail it's whippy in a pivoty way and it's got a nice responsive lively feel despite it's volan glass. In fact my only negative so far would be that it paddles really slowly although i'm not entirely sure why as it's fast in trim.

It's a crying shame Randall is no longer making boards, his logs are great and he makes a great mini-simmons too. His templates are spot on and the boards are beautifully finished with some very neat creative touches. Mine has a carbon fibre cloth asymmetric tail patch for example!

I think everyone i've known to ride one of his shapes has rated it and there are more than a few people who would like to get a board off him if he can ever be persuaded to pick up a planer again. In a way it's a little bit pointless posting a detailed review since none of you can currently order a board off him so perhaps this can form another little prick at his concious that his skills are prized over here and an occasional trip to the shaping bay wouldn't be such a bad thing!

a hully hull

There's something about the shape and foil of a displacment hull thats so pleasing to my eye. I think it's the way that there are no hard edges just gentle curves, whichever angle you look from, that flow into each other.

It's a deceptive kind of shape, there's a lot more going on than there first appears and they somehow feel more organic than a pointy thruster ever could.

Still doesn't really feel like summer does it, despite a few small semi clean waves this week. I'm struggling to get enthused as a result but hopeful some portugese sun and waves will restock the stoke next week!

get in the van

Finally finished the film that i took in the holga up to the lake district at easter. Not sure if i posted much about the trip before but what a beautiful part of the country! There aren't many places in this country i could imagine living but cumbria is now on the list, assuming i could cope with the seperation anxiety from the beach. The scenery really is breathtaking and there's a real "active" feel to places like Keswick and Ambleside, makes you feel like you want to get out walking or on a bike.


Like most of our trips away, we drove miles exploring, "up and down dale" as they say, through steep narrow roads and up close and personal with errant sheep and some dry stone walling. In fact just millimetres away from explaining "aggressive livestock damage" on my van insurance claim form!


 I took plenty of photos but in typical toy camera fashion, only a handful came out. This one is from Fellfoot park boathouse on Lake Windemere and you can't see how heavily it was raining from the shot but it's a good job the camera is purely mechanical and therefore showerproof! Most of the rest of the roll (including some shots that i really liked the composition of) ended up wrecked, i think purely because it was expired film. Thats what you getb for trying to be all arty and clever! Frustrating but i guess it's all part of the "fun" of these things!

don't just sit there!

Funny how a view that most members of the public would see as calming and something to sit still and soak up has the absolute opposite effect on us. That can't get your suit on fast enough excitement, a flurried burst of hectic activity slowing only when you make it out back and float waiting for the first set to roll through!

relations

Two different branches of the simmons design tree with the same basic ideas within them but a different application.

It's interesting how influential Richard Kenvin and his championing of Simmon's ideas has been over the last few years in terms of board design outside the thruster realm. Although you could argue that the recent trend to shorter wider thrusters has some roots here also!

Before Kenvin's original simmons replicas no one was really using the concepts Simmons came up with all those years ago, with the possible exception of the hull crews and whilst related, they are very much a different type of craft. Since then, more and more shapers are offering some kind of take on the concept.

Take these two, both definately directly inspired by Kenvin but neither direct copies of the original "casper"

On the left is a 5'2 Tyler Warren Bar of Soap. The shape originally came from Tyler making a small version of the original "casper" mini-simmons for the daughter of his father's friend. It came out so well, he kept the first and made her another! Hands down the favorite board i've owned to date. It has the chracteristic short wide mini sim style but with the wide point pulled aft of center, snub nosed with a wide tail block. It's stringerless with two very wide based keels which owe more to a conventional keel fish than the half moon simmons style. The bottom contours are the classic simmons bellied entry into flat but through the fins theres vee and deep double concave (spiral vee if i remember correctly!) The rails are soft in the front third but pretty hard through the fins and pretty thinned out.  In the water it's fast and lively, very responsive, probably best described as a fish with afterburners. I've overtaken people who've dropped in on me on this one on more than one occasion. Although it's still a lateral style board it's looser off the top and goes more vertical more easily than the other mini sims i've ridden.

On the right is a 5'6 Jeff McCallum Mford. Named after Jeff's tattooist mate Milford Barnes, he asked Jeff to make a board that felt like floating on a cloud (allegedy - it's unclear how many ales had been consumed at this point!) Jeff is credited with making the second ever mini simmons and is part of the same san diego surf scene that spawned kenvin. This board takes the bottom contour and the rails of the simmons but marries it to a template based on Greenough's velo kneeboards with a widepoint forward and a narrower tail block. The fins are quad half moon keels and the deck is concave. The rails are softer and rounder than the soap but still follow the same high to low shape. Bottom shape is still bellied entry but very quickly goes flat for most of the board with a medium single concave through the fins. In the water it's more idiosyncratic to surf, smoother and more flowing through the water, more lateral, more hull notes in there. It's wider and a bit flatter and goes better (brilliantly) in junk waves.

There are lots more variations on these ideas out there. Mccallum himself makes at least two other shapes based on the simmons idea, Royal makes his Simzers, Baugess makes copies of the original casper and bing, zamora and christenson all have versions. Unfortunately hardly anyone over here has jumped on board although dale walker and Tim Mason have been making some, steve croft at empire has his lumus model (a bonzerised quad version) and Nineplus have one in their new Hasu range thats out soon . It's only a matter of time before more shapers do, they are superbly suited to our regularly average waves and a whole heap of fun!

highs and lows.................

I mentioned before how interesting it was to see our coast through fresh eyes when i posted about my visiting californian friends a few weeks ago. As well as being slightly freaked out by driving in our narrow country lanes, they couldn't believe how big our tides were and were literally gobsmacked to realise that our biggest tides were pretty much ten times the size of theirs!

Most of our surf spots are tide dependent to some degree. Plenty don't even exist at certain tides, others vary in quality as the tide moves over the banks so having a handle on what the tide is doing can make the difference between scoring or not. Most tide clocks or watches are not really that accurate and most people will have one of the classic yellow tide books stuffed in a corner of the bookshelf or glovebox. A timeless classic perhaps but a bit boring which is why my friend Germi created "Highs and Lows" a slightly more surf-centric tide table.

At the moment it's only for the North Devon coast but next year there's going to be a cornish edition too. The tide times are clearly set out as you'd expect but it's bookended with nice pictures of our people, waves and coast. Useful and nice to look at!

So If you want to look like a local when you're checking the surf here, or just support a little homegrown cottage surf industry, keep your eye out for the highs and lows tide book in our local shops or get it online from www.eyeballhq.tv or www.citysurfessentials.com

pickle in print!

I'm Stoked to post the link to my latest piece for drift. It's an interview with man of the moment, Tyler Warren, who seems like a nice guy with a good head on his shoulders as well as being an immensely talented surfer on pretty much anything. I'm sure i'm not the only one who's excited to see the TW Experiments film later in year.

Click here to read the interview

Big thanks to Tyler for doing it and to Kyle Maclennan for the great photos. Kyle also made the clip above.

Surf is still less than epic and guttingly i missed out on Monday's suprise swell. I did get wet on tuesday though, albeit caught by a downpour walking back from a pleasant evening climbing on Baggy Point. Fun to get on some proper rock again, whipped by the wind with a frothy sea crashing below as we climbed.

life's a gas

What with the changeble weather and dodgy swell conditions i haven't managed to get wet over the last couple of weeks but i have finally got around to learning one of my favorite guitar intrumentals, "classical gas" written by mason williams.

It's a song thats been recorded by lots of different people over the years, Williams himself recorded several different versions. My memories are from childhood and my Grandfather giving my Dad a cassette copy of the shadow's version which we played to death in the car on the way to school. Listening back it sounds quite dated now and the version above is much truer to the original acoustic guitar version.

My dad is a pretty useful folk guitarist and i can remember him playing this when i first took my first tentative guitar steps under his tutelage. Hanging out with my parents a couple of weeks ago i spotted the music and brought a copy home. It's kept me occupied in the slow times at work this week and while i'm not posting myself playing it on youtube anytime soon, it's coming together!

So if you've got a minute or two, play the clip, marvel at this guy's technique and forget the rain outside

the last time.....

for a while that the beach will look this empty...

Living in an area that's a tourist destination, it's always interesting to see the change in the local population and it's density as the seasons cycle through. Even in the current days of webcams, internet forecasting and thicker wetsuits, it's not that hard to roll up to the beach to a view like this. Leastways over the colder months.  Yet as soon as Easter rolls around it's like someone, somewhere throws the people switch and there are people everywhere. No matter how bleak and grey and windswept, there's hardy british holidaymakers hunkered down behind their windbreaks. The village is filled with stressed, damp mothers ushering their bedraggled offspring from shop to shop looking for an alternative to the mud of their campsite.

In a weird way i've always liked it, it gives the place some life after the cold of winter. There's an air of anticipation of sun and fun to come. Spring is in the air... 

velo - city

It's taken me a while to feel like i've surfed this board enough to properly review it here but i've had it out in a decent variety of waves now so here goes!

It's a 5'6 x 22 x 2 - 2.5 Mford model by Jeff McCallum. The template is based on Greenough's velo kneeboards with the rails and base borrowed from a mini simmons. The wide point is well forward and the bottom goes from a gentle roll quickly into fairly flat then a big single concave through the fins. The deck is scooped out a bit, though nowhere near as much as a proper flexspoon kneeboard. The fins are beautifully made half moon style quad keels glassed on and beautifully polished. In fact the whole board is a work of art from the shape to the tint and the finishing. It's definately a board you could have on the wall if you wanted!

Paddling is fine, in fact the concave deck feels really comfy and "connected" with your chest. Despite the width it's thin enough to duckdive fine too. It paddles into waves smoothly and then you're off to the races!

It's a really laterally fast board, covering a lot of ground with each pump along the wave. There's a real feeling of squirt out of each bottom turn. It's great at racing sections down the line and it's short enough to coax up and over encroaching white water. It's got a lovely, smooth, knife through butter feel through the water, closer in feel to my old velo - sim than the bar of soap. A little bit of hull smoothness but without the "squirlyness" the greater belly on the velo-sim gave. The lack of rocker and width let you carry through flat sections easily and it's much more of a junk buster than the bar of soap has been so far.

All this lateral speed needs to be reined in and the smoothness carries through cutbacks. I'd probably describe it as like a very smooth fish, a flowing softness to the lines it draws. Not as shortboard feeling as the bar of soap, not as hully as the velo-sim.

The width and the position of the widepoint does need a little getting used to, both setting on a rail and bottom turning on your backhand but it's not a problem after a couple of waves. Thats about the only negative thing i can say, all in all it's a worthy addition to the quiver and a keeper for sure!

room with a view...

So recently i've been listening to Elise by The Horrible Crowes a lot. It's a side project from Brian Fallon of Gaslight Anthem ( who are currently recording their fourth album ) and it's really very good.
More introspective, darker and less urgent than Gaslight. Fallon is a fine songwriter and lyricist who's stature is growing with each release.

This is the standout track for me, one i find popping into my head at quiet moments......behold the hurricane

flare/flair

A couple of weeks ago i had the chance to ride a Bing Lovebird model. 9'6 x 18 3/8 x 23 x 14 3/4 x3 and beautifully finished as all Bings are with the distinctive 3/4 deck fabric inlay charcteristic of this model.

It's not an out and out noserider, more of an all around single fin with a medium weight, shallow nose concave, a relaxed rocker, a lot of v in the tail and a tucked under edge to the rail in the back third. It's a board i've always liked the look of and it's quite similar to a gulfstream log i had a couple of years ago.

The day i rode it was a really glassy thigh - waist high with Saunton doing it's best slow pointbreak impression. Good clean logging waves but perhaps lacking the zip that the Lovebird is designed for.

Off the tail the board is lively and the vee is really noticeable having a slightly different feel to more bellied logs but getting the board on a rail and turning with ease. The board trims fast, zipping along as soon as you take your first steps forward. The weight feels good, heavy enough to give momentum but light enough to feel manageable.

On the nose it's solid enough. It has more rocker than my own boards and that felt a little strange. Getting five over is easy enough but it's not as easy to get all ten pinkies over as it is on a loggier board, though i guess thats not really the only point here. It's also true that the shape is designed with faster or slightly bigger waves in mind than i rode it in.

So overall i quite liked it but i wasn't blown away. It's not ideal for small waves and personally i dont ride a log in anything over 2 ft at the moment. Not for me right now then. I do think it would be a good choice as a one board quiver for the travelling traditional minded surfer or a versatile single fin for those who are still on longboards from shoulder to a little overhead waves.

Obviously it's all just my opinion and what do i know really!

a solitary pursuit

alone in a crowded place...

Hopefully everyone had a few fun waves over the weekend. Once the fog cleared up here there were some beautiful glassy chest high waves on sunday and some small clean loggable peelers on Monday. Perfect conditions to show off our beaches to my visiting Californian friends, Jake (who works at the excellent Almond shop) and his girlfriend Anna

I think they had a good time, i certainly got loads of pleasure from showing them around. Seeing it through their eyes reinforced how beautiful and relatively unspoilt our coastline is and how much fun our waves are when it's good. I think Devon exceeded their expectations. They're in Spain now, hopefully getting fun waves there too.

Anna has a cool little blog thats worth checking out here.

betwixt sea and sky.....

Winter surfing here is a pretty grey experience mostly, grey skies, grey sea, muted countryside, grey tarmac coloured only by the brown of mud.

Some days, like this one, the sea and the sky are so similar you can't see where one starts and the other finishes. Waves loom unexpectedly and the water is cold enough to burn your face as you dive beneath them.

sitting on the stoop..

cold beer, warm air, bare feet and the fading summer sun.

A time to remember in the depths of winter........

a healthy obsession?

So the following was a piece that i originally did for Dan Crockett's kook project but in the end didn't get used. It found a home in Corduroy lines magazine issue 13. Much as i'd love to think everyone who reads this blog has bought a copy, i know that , partly for reasons of geography, plenty of you wont which is why i'm reprinting it here........

We're pretty cool right?

Basking in the reflected glow of the way surfing is perceived by the media. Congratulating ourselves on our status as those in the know. Inducted into a tribe with it's own language, customs and traditions that those on the outside could never truly understand. Pursuing waves for the childlike fun it brings into our lives as we pit our athletic bodies against the forces of nature.

But maybe there's a darker side, a compulsion, a desperate need to repeat the thrills. The tug of the sea ever stronger once the hook is set. As any old sailor will tell you, the sea can be a cruel mistress.

The following is (only slightly) modified from one of the many self tests for addiction to harmful substances or habits found on the internet.............................be honest, i bet you score pretty highly!

Do you often find yourself spending more time surfing than you intended to?

Is it hard to imagine a life without surfing?

Has excessive surfing or surfboard buying resulted in financial difficulties for you?

Do you sometimes feel that something inside you, beyond your control, pushes you to surf?

Do you hide your surfing habits or purchases from family and friends?

Have your relationships with family and friends ever suffered because of your surfing?

Do you feel "high" following a good surf?

Have you tried to stop "over surfing" but been unable to? (e.g paddled out on a day you know will be rubbish just to "get wet"?)

Do you often feel compelled to surf even though conditions are not ideal or you cant afford the time?

Do you feel surfing helps you cope when you are lonely, anxious, disappointed, depressed or angry?

Has your desire to surf ever interfered with work or school?

Do you find that your friends are determined by your surfing habits?

Do you plan your life around surfing?

Do you ever feel anxious about how long it will be until your next surf?

Have you ever failed to keep promises as a result of going surfing?

Sadly not everything we love is as good for those around us....