Lighting it up like a Christmas Tree

Kye Fitzgerald hurling a top turn, no idea who took this but it's good.

I'm off up to central Cal for some decompression time before Jan on the road. Beer, widowmaker, Horan, thickest rubber, dog and warm clothes are in the truck. Enjoy yourselves.

Ventura

5'4" biofoam Eaton Bonzer kneeboard, shaped by Joe Bauguess

Swiped this picture of the Wetsand website- they have their bricks & mortar shop up and running and Andrew Kidman will be there Jan 11th around 8pm. There seems to be a really awesome array of boards there, the vast majority of them made with the kind to the environment biofoam that Wetsand had a hand in developing. Not many places you can go and find an off the rack super hi-tech Stanley Pleskunas flexfish and a Wegener wooden recreation of an ancient hawaiian board (both reasonably priced I might add). The much ballyhooed death of the shaper through foreign imports seems to have bypassed this place. I like going to Ventura anytime, but this is going to be an extra fun tour stop.

Derek Hynd

Derek Hynd, Skip Frye board, Scotland. photo Kidman

Andrew's interview with Derek in the Surfer's Journal Vol. 11 #1 is probably one of my favourite pieces of surf journalism ever. Here's Derek talking about the young Australian's yearning for speed.
"I was woken at midnight once by a chase going down after the Pub all over the neighbourhood between a Charger cop car and a Mach 3 Kawasaki: what a classic double. They were the only sounds around and it was like an amplified dogfight. It went on and on. You wouldn't read about it- they started getting closer and my heart was thumping like crazy and it felt like a lottery win as they got to my street half a mile away, both red lining.
Had to be. The bike raged down the first hill past the house and over the rise down the next hill. He was a local for sure, heading for the bends to shake him off. The V-8 hit the rise 30 yards outside the house at ridiculous speed. I'll never forget the moments when his car left the road before the crash. Greatest thing to happen on our street- both were heroes, better than the Queen driving by in '66.'

Derek is an absolute original; brilliant, somewhat mad and still a fantastic, relevant surfer. He's been working on the finless project and I've linked the Safe To Sea blog over there, it's a great read and he's involved in making the Musica Surfica film.

Fish, Frisco & Finished Books

5'8" Neal Purchase fish.

I've posted so many pics of hull/stubs lately, it seems time for a nice fish. I know may consider them an overdone fad, but personally I couldn't be happier with them. Stay low, drive with that front foot and keep 'em moving- it's just a lot of fun. I rode my 5'10" this morning in sunny, glassy little waves and had a surprising amount of fun. This is a nice one from Neal Purchase. Neal started out as a sander at the Keyo factuory in Brookvale working with the likes of Nat Young, Ted Spencer and Bob McTavish. In 1966 he shaped a board that both Nat and Ted rode and loved. It was called the Virgin and at 8' with asymettrical V it fits neatly into the birth of the shortboard. I'm dropping science like this because today I received advances of Andrew Kidman's book. It's utterly epic and I'm really pleased. As surfers we have our own shared history and culture which have always tended to be dominated by the big players, and valid as the Quiksilver/Slater/Cal-centric may be to may people, there's other stuff out there as well, and 'Ether' is an beautiful chunk of it all. And there's a swell coming. Really, really stoked. The Frisco portion of our story is the nailing down of a Three Sails date there. It's Jan 12th at Aqua Surf Shop, 1742 Haight St, San Francisco CA94117 (415-876-2782) and we're bringing the full dog and pony show.