glen

This is Glen, owner of local shop Surfed Out going beyond the call of duty and delivering a new board to a customer at the waters edge early one saturday morning.

Glen was a sometimes divisive figure when he first moved here and openend his stores but time mellows and I've always found him to be friendly, helpful and just trying to make his business run well in sometimes difficult circumstances.

blue sky thinking.....

Summer has drawn to a close and the anticipation of some autumn swells rolling through is building. I finished august with another super fun week in the lakes. Once again we lucked out with the weather most of the time and had a great time. I've said it before but it's genuinely my second favorite place in the country to be i think.

 

I think maybe its just the outdoors vibe about the place as well as the spectacular scenery abd the big hills to test yourself climbing up and bombing down!

 For reference, Honister Pass is something you enjoy after it's finished!

testing testing 1,2,3......

I've just stolen Gordon from Wavedreamer's pictures of the aforementioned Will from Gulfstream testing the first stock SeaPea. This is Will's take on it:


As you know I have been given the responsibility of testing our new board, the Sea Pea. Mainly im testing this one to see if it surfs how we want it to, and most importantly like its Father, Chris Preston's aka CP, Sea Pea.

I knew of a few subtle differences before surfing it. There was slightly less rocker, and i felt it had a slightly straighter rail line. It looks fantastic and was praying that it surfed as well as the original one.

The first session was in horrendous 2ft woolacombe. Strong NW winds had been blowing all day saturday and it wasn't til 5 oclock that i mustered up the stoke to get in. Gordon from Wavedreamer came along with his camera to document the event.

To give you an idea of how bad the surf was, there was only 2 other people actually attempting to surf, both of which were on shortboards and were having no luck at all. To say this board made me smile is an understatement. It didn't even have many good long faces to open up its turbos but good golly did it surf well. There is few boards that accelerate and trim quite like this board did in conditions like this. The whole experience of surfing this type of board is rad.

I also surfed it early Sunday morning in super clean 1-2ft. It was really weak and gutless but the Sea Pea served its purpose yet again. While a few keen loggers where in trim and getting nice nose rides, the Sea Pea was flying across little walls and making me wonder why i haven't owned a board like this for the last 5 years. Dam you CP.

Testing boards in good waves is no real test, most board will go well in 3 ft glass, but very few will go well in 2 foot absolute wind blown rubbish. This board is one of those few. It finds speed from the flattest wall, and drives through forever searching for the next section. You can beat sections that wouldn't dream of making on your standard thruster. It caught waves very well too, being flat and floaty gives you plenty of paddle speed. Once up, a few moments after, a subtle pump and I was going mach 10.

I will say a few constructive criticisms of it though;

- friends wont want to surf with you anymore as you get too many waves

- your hair will end up long

- you'll grow a moustache

- words like 'rad' will and 'stoke' become normal day to day words

If you can deal with the above then come and get one! See below for a few little snaps of it in action. More updates to come when i have had a few more surfs on it...

There are more of Will's thoughts and pictures of the orange SeaPea here.

Whatever your choice of trousers, corduroy lines never go out of fashion!!

So the other day, i lent my new little mini simmons, the SeaPea to my friend Will. To set the scene, Will is a shortboarder, he's actually a very very good shortboarder in a conventional pointy white thruster sense. He finds logs boring, doesn't like fish and thinks eggs are best confined to breakfast!

I think he wanted to try a sim partly becasue he's seen mine take shape and partly out of curiosity. I'm pretty sure he really just wanted to confirm that they were odd dysfunctional hipster shapes ridden by me and my beardy pals!

He rode it a couple of times, in onshore lumpy 3 foot croyde and in clean lined up 1-2 feet croyde. I'm just going to paste some of his texts to me here

"Oh my god, just surfed it at croyde, that was SO fun!!!!!!"
"It's by no means a shortboard but it went amazingly well in average waves and created speed from nothing!! I need one in my board rack!"

Whats pretty cool about this and the reason i've posted it, is that Will could see the fun in this shape despite coming at it from an entirely different direction and surfing reference points. It blew his preconceptions out of the water and in his words "made a very average day a lot of fun!"

 It's nice to know that someone with much greater small board ability than me, see's the validity in the design for our waves.

More about my board here Jools will make you one here

swell times at saunton high

 

after dinner speaking.......

I've known Joel for a long time, albeit as more of an acquaintance than a real friend. He's quiet and  humble but he's a talented surfer and backyard shaper. He's most definately a thinker, tinkering with his own ideas, sometimes outside the percieved norms.

The port glass is his take on a modified mini simmons kinda thing. I think you'll agree it works pretty good! The point break is a local gem, sadly it's not often as quiet as it is here anymore!

van life number 1

Completely off topic but i wanted to share this.....

Boom Kitchen is a new little start up enterprise from a couple of locals here. It's basically a simple curry kit to which you just add chicken and a couple of other basic store cupboard type ingredients. What you end up with 20 minutes later is the most delicious curry you will have tasted outside of a curry house. To coin a phrase it's like having a curry house in your kitchen!

I know this probably comes off as hyping a mates thing but i was honestly really blown away by the flavor of the food you make. It's head and shoulders above any of the curry sauce style jars you can buy from super markets.

At the moment they are only available from some of our local stores and by mail order but it's well worth clicking buy now!

a car park ritual.....

 

Shooting the breeze while car park faffing.  A classic male pleasure no matter whether it's pre or post surf, ride, fishing, footy, whatever! To quote a book i read recently "one of the last bastions of masculinity in an increasingly feminized world!" Maybe a little strong but...

sunburn

 

Brown legs, sunbleached hair, warm water and clean little waves. Such are the things that a good summer is made from

it lives......

 

The Sea Pea is finally finished and in my grubby mitts! Massive thanks to Jools, Matt, Ellis and Will at Gulfstream for your time and patience! 

I know you are all dying to know how it surfs. 

It's great! Really 'effin great!!

 I can honestly say that if i had bought it off  the rack i would have been really happy so to know that i designed and made it pushes the stoke-o-meter off the scale!

First session was mid to high p-land, 3 footish sets, really just windswell cleaned up by the southerly blowing cross offshore. I've ridden quite a few different iterations of the mini simmons and this one is definately a good one!

 It paddles great, despite being 5'2. There's quite a lot of foam in there and i think we struck a good balance between float and duck divability. There's a hair more rocker than some versions of this shape, something we borrowed from the bing version and that really seems to work when you're up and surfing and yet isn't enough to affect wave catching or "mush busting"

It's fast, really fast and skatey and responsvie, section racing and feeling lively under foot like it will react to every little pressure change from your feet. The bottom has a pretty subtle roll up front and that transitions quickly a single concave that deepens through the fins.

 There's not much of a hull feel here, more jet powered fishy. That translates into whippy cutbacks and a board that is really happy to go backside with no real nursing required, something that can be the downfall of mini-sim style boards.

Personal bias aside, i honestly think we've come up with a great shape. Like i've said before, these style of boards go great in the UK but up til now getting hold of one was difficult. Well now you can get one that you know will work great and you know it will be lovingly shaped and beautifully hand finished by Jools and co at one of the best factories in this country.

 The 5'2 x 21 5/8 x 2.5 Gulfstream sea pea in full flow, available now...... disco fingers not included!

Big thanks to Tom for the company and the picture!!

style is everything

 

 So i've shamelessly stolen both these photos from Devon Howards instagram, mainly cos i really like them and partly because they reinforce how smooth and stylish Devon is. He's riding a 7'2 egg shaped by Tyler with a 2+1 set up which tends to be his choice in larger waves. Of course most will know him for his log stylings in films like single fin yellow and the seedling. 

When i started logging, Devon was one of the big names and someone i always enjoyed watching with his smooth noseriding mixed with powerful rail turns and drop knees. It's a style that is perhaps even more relevant in longboarding today and it's interesting that his signature model with Donald Takayama features many aspects of what people like Matt chojnacki and Alex knost are riding today despite being designed 15 odd years ago. Of course Devon himself would be first to admit that he is in turn heavily influenced by the invlovement style of longboarding circa 66/67 and his preferences for templates reflect this.

 Devon is currently testing shapes for Tyler and enjoying a proper grown up career.


He is genuinely one of the nicest people you could hope to meet. More smooth logging here

drive by....

 

Just what i wanted to see out of the window, small clean and empty! Perfect for my birthday surf a few weeks ago.