Sunday, November 30, 2008

Pokarekare Ana




Back after 2 pretty grueling weeks of being away, no surf for me but for a glimpse on an overnight visit to friends in Piha. Awesome stormy gray beach day, quite a change after leaving LA all in tones of red and orange because of the fires. Thanks for the kind words about the website. It's crude, but it's up and will improve. The idea is a more focused place to obtain the cool stuff that's out there. All boards fully approved off from experience. I'm stoked on the response I'm getting from people on the Casper boards too, thanks largely to the excellent Mini Simmons article RK has in the new Surfer's Journal. He's got it posted over at the Hydrodynamica blog too, but the mag is well worth buying as the rest of it is pretty excellent too.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

DONE

www.foamandfunction.com

barrack all you want, I'm on a plane in 3 hours and will be thick skinned by the time I get back. Actually, I'm OK with it although there's a few minor changes I'm ready to make already.

Thursday, November 13, 2008

New Day Rising




Sometimes things are so chaotic it seems they couldn't get worse, and then they do. Should be posting the news that a temporary, beta sort of website is going up to do the retailing of some excellent product. This economic collapse seems like the worst time to be trying to sell strange looking but high performance surfboards and exceptionally nice photo books but that's how we operate around here, so the site, or at least a version to give the idea of what we'll be doing, is nearly done. There should also have been some new insanely fine surfboards available, but a last minute emergency has me heading back to the shores of NZ for a couple of weeks, and it all goes on hold. Ah well, I may still have the site up before I go given I can deal with no sleep for a day or two, and the new boards will be delayed a few weeks but it'll all happen eventually. The very useful Andrew Kidman has stepped into the breach to help out and ensure the blog gets not only an update, but a stylish one by sending these excellent images of Dave Rastovich putting one of Mackie's flextails through it's paces recently. There should be an available 5'10" one of these in the next board arrival, and there's all sorts of epic new design work taking place in the Swift thinktank, complete with successful test sessions and stoked riders. This is all getting quite interesting so I'll be back soon.

AN UPDATE: Go look at Safe To sea- he's posted purchasing info for Musica Surfica, the award winning film where Derek hynd tells us to get rid of our fins. Brilliant.

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Rain On The Roof



First decent rain of the season here in SoCal, so all the goodies stored up in the drains and on the roads have washed into the ocean leaving it a broth of filth. Luckily I got in a Saturday AM session before it kicked in, and it was plenty fun. Few decent sized closeouts, plenty of peaks and quick rain shower to keep it fun. The size and peakiness vanished as the tide shifted but I'd had my fun. Linked Rob Royal's Alma Pura site over there on your right, he shapes some nice ones and the latest post is an excellent looking fish with a fantastic red and gold resin job. I'm a sucker for those ali'i colours. Keeping in the twinnie vein, above is a selection of keels. A Horan winged single at top, Rasta cutaways (the keels that come with the Mackie fish), single foiled hemp cloth home made beauts courtesy of my friend Ben in West Australia and a set of classic Geppy hand mades that were gifted to me by RK. Not a bad fin in the lot.