decisions, decisions...

If you haven't visited the Museum of British surfing yet, why not!!

bellyboards are cool

FACT!

Difficult to explain the fun to the uninitiated but much like handplanes, body surfing and surf mats, there's a lot of fun to be had from this most simple of surfcraft. Even on the messiest day they can provide some much needed saltwater based smiles.

The two in the picture are amongst the oldest surviving surfcraft in the country. The one with the slats across it was made from an old coffin lid and resides in the surfing museum collection.

commuting.....

Couple of promo shots of Pete Robinson, founder of the museum of british surfing on his way to the beach keeping the chill off in his finisterre jacket. The museum is open now and finisterre helped support the opening.

Most of you probably know about finisterre but if not, they make exceedingly fine outdoor type clothing, perfect for dealing with our climate pre and post surf. It's as ethically sourced as possible and great kit.

surf museum open now!!!

The Museum of British surfing is now open! Massive congratulations to Pete and the team for making it through the long process with all it's trials and tribulations. It's located at the side of the main car park in Braunton. Please make time to come and visit and support it, it's preserving our nations unique take on surfing and it's really worth your time and support.

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.

unique belly board auction for the surf museum

It's not long now until the first Surfing museum in Europe opens it's doors in Braunton and preparations are gathering pace.

Gavin at Traditional Surf in Sennen has crafted this lovely bellyboard and is auctioning it off in aid of the museum. Every little helps them,Pete Robinson has poured heart and soul into getting the museum off the ground and they still need your support to make it a success!

Gavin's bellyboards are beautifully made and rigorously tested in darkest kernow and honestly bellyboards are so much fun and a massive part of our surfing heritage in the UK, everyone should have one!

Full details of the auction here. It finishes 12 noon on the 24th Feb

the kook 2

Out Now,the second installment of Dan Crocketts labour of love, The KOOK.

In his words:

*****What is the KooK?******

*24-page Independent Surfing Newspaper
*Pink Newsprint
*UK-printed paper from sustainable forests
*No paid advertising
*Almost 90 Global Contributors
*Available worldwide to your door

Buy exclusively through http://thisrichtapestry.blogspot.com/

I'm proud to be one of those contributors and i'm amping to get my grubby mitts on an actual paper copy. If it's anything like the last issue it's going to be thoughtful, aesthetically pleasing and well worth supporting. I think Dan deserves congratulating for putting the huge effort in to get these out because it's not easy. Please support him if you can!

the curator...

Pete with the oldest board in the collection of the british surfing museum. It's a belly board from the 20's on loan from a family in Jersey and has their family crest painted on the nose. Interestingly belly boards are an almost uniquely british wavecraft, apparently Brits believed our waves were not suited to standing up to begin with!

There are plenty around and in use even today, for more ply related eccentricity check Mr Isaac's Prone to belly blog here

a private view

Behind the scenes, work on getting the surfing museum off and running by next summer is in full swing. At the moment the collection is housed in a store at a secret location. Last week i spent a couple of hours lugging boards around helping out on a photo shoot. It's the first time i've been to the store and seen the whole collection, the place is a true Aladdin's cave of surfing memorabilia. There are some beautiful vintage and not so vintage boards and loads of posters, newspaper clippings, belly boards, old boardshorts and wetsuits.

The pic above (not mine i might add) shows an old Tiki board catalogue and an old photo from Putsborough in May 1965. It's a weirdly timeless image, a longboarder in forward trim in shorts and a neoprene jacket, it could just have believably been taken this week & posted on a blog from So Cal!

See more pics from the shoot here

Hopefully everyone got some waves this weekend. There was plenty of swell around up here on friday and saturday but plenty of wind and plenty of people. Still there was some fun and some beatings to be had if you were in the right (or the wrong) place at the right time. I saw one friend who suffered a scary post leash breaking swim in at croyde and another local that has an arm in plaster after an incident at Saunton on friday evening!

Sunday brought some really fun logging waves despite the kooks and it was fun to get back on a board over 6 foot for a few. Pretty much flat today unfortunately but at least it's sunny.

The green gulfstream below still needs a good home.....

The Museum Of British Surfing is getting closer.......

Completely failed to come up with a witty title or repartis for this post so read no further, just click here to visit the new British Surfing Museum website.  I can't tell you anymore about the progress with the plans as i'd have to kill you all afterwards but believe me it's getting closer and it's very exciting!

waxing up too

The British Surfing Museum

This fine splitscreen panel van (it's a very tasteful maroon colour if you're wondering) belongs to Pete Robinson, relatively recently moved here from Brighton. Pete is the man behind the British Surfing Museum which has previously existed as a travelling exhibit but is now well on it's way to a permenant home in Braunton.

This is a GOOD THING!

I have a huge amount of respect for Pete and his efforts to preserve our surfing heritage and you should do too. For updates on how the project is progressing, or to offer him your time & support check here or search the museum out on facebook.