under iron skies..

rocking the status quo....

Not the actual Quo you understand. I'm not advocating you go out and listen to caroline or rocking all over the world! I'm thinking more the way things are, there in your comfort zone. It's easy to get complacent, follow the same routines, the same well worn ruts to the same spots with the same boards.

Sometimes what you need is something from out of left field to make you sit up and take notice, make you take a look at things and see them from a new perspective, maybe give you the things you were missing even if you didn't realise they were absent. Just because things are easy, rubbing along nicely doesn't always mean it's the best way forward. Maybe there's a lesson for life, that you should keep looking forward, working at it, not rest on your laurels. It's fashionable to talk about "going on a journey" right now, reality shows are full of it but Shmaltz aside there's a kernel of truth there...

Case in point, the mini simm in the picture. Obviously a fashion correct hipster such as myself had to have one or i wouldn't be able to walk down the beach with head held high. Yet jesting aside, the mini simmons design and the thinking behind it has had a big effect on the daily surfing of a lot of people worldwide. It's a design that looks odd, feels a bit funny to surf initially but unlocks a huge amount of fun in marginal conditions. It's certainly redfined the way i've felt about small boards in small waves and is responsible for more surf stoked smiles than almost anything else in the last few months

fun to come......

It's holiday time hereabouts and as you read this i'm twiddling my thumbs at heathrow waiting for a shiny jetplane to whisk me and my girls to California for a couple of weeks. Hopefully the bing noserider is tucked up safely in the hold and hasn't recieved too much of a kicking from the baggage handlers already.

So just over a week around Santa Barbara then a week in Dana and no doubt a few waves at doheny and san o. If you see a pasty bearded skinny guy in a nineplus fullsuit riding a tan bing with a chocolate brown nose patch paddle up and say hi, i'd love to meet you!

the man responsible......

 

Jool's Matthews, owner and shaper at Gulfstream surfboards in  North Devon, the man who was voted best fish shaper in the UK last year.

Jool's just shaped me a frankly lush looking 5'6 x 20 1/2 x 2 3/8 keel fish, it's not quite done yet but pictures and ride report to follow when it's actually in my grubby mitts! Gulfstream is a small operation in the true sense of surfboard manufacture as a cottage industry, but their shapes, finishing and attention to detail is excellent. Each board is a labour of love and craftsmanship and Jools really cares about delivering something he can be proud of. They're a great example of how ordering a custom spec handmade board can be a fantastic experience.

7 waves....

The song is "59" from Brian Setzer's ignition album

cp in 7 from Chris Preston on Vimeo.

hai - Ya!!!

Something about doing these feels super fun

suction, self promotion and the art of noseriding...

Issue 11 of corduroy lines is out now, click here to check it out. I wrote them a piece on the art of noseriding but (as i type this) the mag version has half the text missing (but not in an edited way) and the article makes less sense as a result. I'm sure it's an oversight on their behalf but the full text is below just in case......

The Art Of Noseriding


Magazines like this one are filled with pictures of surfers nonchalantly perched on the tips of their longboards. Yet to many intermediate surfers, standing on the front 18 inches of their boards can seem a daunting, almost impossible prospect.

In truth, noseriding isn't THAT difficult and is within the grasp of most people once you understand how it works. Like many things in surfing, it's difficult to teach people how to noseride, there's a lot of feel and experience involved and this isn't intended as an exhaustive "how to", more a list of tips from someone already in the know.

- Learn to cross step

This isn't a specific noseriding tip, more a general longboarding one. Learning to cross step fluently is a major step to good longboarding. Not only does it look better but it is more functional too, allowing you to move up and down the board quickly and make use of the noseriding sections of the wave as they appear and disappear. If your water time is limited, learning to cross step on a long skateboard or an indo board can help a massive amount
You will notice that some surfers take two steps to the nose while some take four. This is dictated by the length of your legs and the length of your board, to begin with just go with whichever feels "right" to you.

-Pick your waves

Small clean waves are the ideal learning conditions. Although it's possible to hang five in almost any conditions, the bigger and messier the waves get, the more difficult it is. `Ideally  you want a lined up wave that has a long tapering shoulder- there's a reason the worlds two best noseriding waves (Noosa & Malibu) are sandbottomed points.

- YOUR Longboard WILL noseride

Sure some shapes make it easier to stay up there for longer but any board over 9 feet will let you noseride if you get the board in the right place on the wave.

- Practice, practice, practice

Don't be afraid to fall off, just make sure you understand enough to only try and go to the nose when the time is right. Try and analyse your waves and note the differences between the waves where it worked and it didn't so you can concentrate on replicating the successes.

- Positioning

This is the biggest part of getting your toes on the nose!
In simple terms, when you stand on the nose, your weight is counterbalanced by two things

1) The upwards force exerted by the water rushing up the face of the wave and across the underside of the nose of the board. Wider noses and nose concave increase the amount of lift available

2) The counterweighting force of the wave breaking over the tail of the board. Look at some pictures of people noseriding and you will see that at least the back third of the board is sunk inside the wave. Having soft "50-50" rails and a convex "bellied" bottom in the tail encourage the water to do this. Tail kick also helps here as well as acting to slow the board down and hold it in the wave.

For a really solid noseride, no. 2 is the most important thing. You will see pictures of people perched on the tip where the suction is so great that the whole front third of the board is lifted out of the water. These things only happen if you position yourself in the fastest part of the wave, about two thirds up the face and as close to the breaking part of the wave as possible. The further away from this position you are, the more likely you are to nosedive or stall out of the back of the wave. Straight off your take off you can get in the right spot by fading towards the peak as you paddle in before standing and swinging back the right way. Once riding you can either stall the board and wait for the wave to steepen in front of you or cut back far enough so that the wave is already steep ahead of you as you bottom turn again. Obviously in a sectiony beach break style wave, the wave might steepen ahead of you naturally.
Once the wave is steep ahead of you, dont hesitate, go straight to the nose, the moment can be gone in a split second. Too many people wait too long and let the board trim too far in front of the pocket before they start to move. The board outruns the section and then nosedives as they reach the nose.
It helps to think of starting to walk forward as the board begins to climb the face after you bottom turn so that you arrive on the nose as the board reaches trim, rather than trying to move forward once at the top of the wave with the board already starting to head down the face. Weighting your inside rail helps too. In fact when on your backhand it often helps to have your heel quite a long way across the stringer towards the inside rail.
Unfortunately, knowing exactly when is the right time is one of those "feel" things that takes experience to fully master but trying to heighten your awareness of what is happening on each wave you ride as mentioned earlier speeds up this process.

- Stretch those toes

Don't worry too much about where your back foot is to begin with, just make sure your front toes are properly dangling over the tip. Anything else is just forward trim.

- Don't be greedy

Once you're up there, it's easy to freeze then fall as the wave breaks or stall out of the wave. Often the section will only support you for a short time. Once you sense the board start to slow down or drop down the face, step back, cut back and set up again.

- Watch some videos

There are lots of good logging films and plenty of clips on you tube. When you watch them, analyse what the surfers and waves are doing. Watch waves that show the surfer setting up the noseride. Pause the action just before they go to the nose and look at where they are and what the wave is doing around them. Try and visualise how the wave looks at that moment from the surfers point of view.

Once you become adept at hanging five you'll notice that there are some times where the board feels much more stable and "locked in" compared to others. This might only be for a split second, especially in beach break style waves. These are the moments when the time is right to move the back foot up to hang ten or kick it out into the wave face or hang heels or lift it up and hold it while you stand on one leg! Only feel and experience can help you judge the moments it will work but you can practice the balance needed for the moves over an over again on a long skateboard. Then when you're in the water, you're only learning how to get set up properly not trying to improve your balance as well. This is something i found really useful when learning to hang heels.

- Most of all, have fun with your surfing, after all thats why we all started in the first place isn't it?

I should also mention that Tom Wegener had an article in an issue of pacific longboarder about 8 years ago that greatly contributed to my understanding and influenced what you see here. I think it's still available to read on tomwegener.com

Pic is from Woolacombe a couple of August's ago, shame it isn't this warm all year round!

go lateral

Those of you who actually read my ramblings will have noticed a common thread to my choice of surf craft. Personally i believe style is all important in surfing, i don't care how radical your turns are, if you have an ugly style i'm not interested. Having been initially drawn to the style inherent in traditional longboarding, once i started to experiment with shorter boards i looked for shapes that would still allow a smooth flowing style, one that works with the wave, rather than trying to beat it into submission.

When i'm trying to explain it to others i often term it like this: Conventional shortboarding is all based on getting vertical, drawing very "up & down" lines on the wave. The surfing i'm into is based very much on drawing more flowing lateral lines on the wave, heavy single fin logs on small waves, two and four fin fish on bigger waves and lately, the ultimate lateral trim machine - the displacement hull.

Some of you will relate to that, some of you will think it's boring surfing. Thats cool, each to their own, the world would be a boring place if we all liked the same thing.

disco fingers

It's probably clear to anyone who checks here often that i think style is important when you surf. I think everyone has an innate type of style, a natural look to the way they surf, be it smooth as silk like Dane Peterson, nonchalant like Lopez at pipe or just plain different like Alex Knost.
Although it is possible to work at surfing in a certain way, it always looks slightly contrived compared those who are lucky enough to have good style naturally. Obviously "good style" is a very subjective judgement and to a certain extent a personal assessment.
I've spent a lot of time watching video of people surfing, both other peoples films and the footage that went into my two. After a while it's very easy to identify different people from the way they move, the body positions they adopt, even if they are riding similar equipment, doing similar things, on similar waves.
I'd like to think i am at least a little smooth when i surf but my own weird style quirk is pointing my index fingers, especially on my left hand. Don't ask me why, i'm not sure it is crucial to successful balancing, but i do it on a skateboard or a snowboard too. Check the photos!

swings 'n' things

jet train

one day in woolacombe

I can guess what you are thinking....."nice wetsuit"

Well bright is coming back, or so we're told by the people who decide these things! Thats a shot of the very talented James Parry, at the north end of Woolacombe while filming for One Day

Richard Gregory aka wavedreamer has been working on his "One Day" concept for the last couple of years. It's finally taken the form of a series of short films, all shot over a twentyfour hour period at a single location, set to a soundtrack that was recorded in twenty four hours too. Not like he wants to put himself under any pressure then!
Intended to be a celebration of surfing in this country, the first film was shot on a lovely sunny day, a few of weeks ago and will be out on dvd this winter. We were blessed with a small clean swell and plenty of people made the effort to be there in front of the cameras. There was some great surfing going on & given Rich's perfectionism & eye for a good shot, i have no doubt the finished product will be a really great piece of surf cinema

Check the trailer below





I recently interviewed Rich for Drift and it should be up on their site a little closer to the release date so keep your eyes open for that.

Stay up to date with what's happening in one day world here
awesome water shot taken two thirds of the way through THE day courtesy of the legend that is Jamie Bott

shameless self promotion pt.2

cp drop knee

You can't beat the feeling of a well timed drop knee cutback on a heavy single fin on a waist high wave. It's one of my favorite things about traditional style logging (as well as noseriding obviously) yet I recently developed a real mental block about doing them. 

Like many things in surfing (and life), if you stop overthinking it and just do it, things usually work out.

Normal service is now resumed.

Photo from woolacombe last summer courtesy of wavedreamer

musings part two

< just add tourists!

I had a fun surf last night at semi-clean 3 foot saunton. First time in a 3/2 this year which is always a pleasure. I came to the conclusion that i am lucky enough to own some bitchin' boards at the moment, yesterday's steed was my 5'9 Bro diplock quad, heavily based on Mani Caros template with AK4 fins. Turns like it's on rails and a lovely spring from the fins out of the turn. Good times.

I recently came across easytom's blog detailing his learning to surf adventures and the lessons therein. He's right at the beginning of a wonderful adventure, just at the cusp of full blown obsession. It's good advice for newbies and a fun reminder of when it was all new and exciting for the old salts. It's a long slippery slope from here that can only end with him living in a car with only a dog and a tide table for company