If this run of swell continues into winter....

7'6" Round pin single- $750

7' Baby swallow single- $725

6'5" double bump single $675

...you might want one of these and as always an email to info at foamandfunction.com will do the trick. All Lynch designs shaped by Tim Griffin, who can do a custom if you want and has a really nice line in 2+1 setups, something I'm very fond of when there's a bit of water moving around. All these boards are hand shaped by Tim to Wayne's specs which makes them a pretty excellent score- no machined close tolerance blanks here. Although one of my favourite boards is straight out of the computer and I think you should surf whatever makes you happy, I have nothing but respect for the shapers out there who mow foam from a blank and end up with something like these. I know we're meant to hate imports/popouts what have you, but something that has just had the crust scrubbed off it seems pretty much like a popout to me, especially when it's easy enough to feed someone else's dimensions into a machine and there you go- witness all the mini Sim versions out there. All a bit hypocritical it seems. I get the 'support your local shaper' concept, but what if your local shaper isn't Wayne Lynch, Joe Bauguess, Dick Brewer or whoever? Does it make it OK for someone to sell a cheap version of their design? Lynch takes flak for having models with Surftech, but his motivation for that was basically that his designs get duplicated anyway, so he may as well make something on the deal. Not the best way to go about it in my opinion, but now he's got Tim making his boards which is a far better option. Sorry about the rant, surf whatever your conscience says is right, but a doff of the cap to the likes of Tim, Joe, Mick Mackie, Jeff Beck, Jamie Murray, Rob Royal, Pendo and the other craftsmen at work (many who have blogs listed to your right). They deserve our support because it's their efforts that drive the whole design process forward. I'll shut up now, I think I'm a bit surf happy from a week's worth of closeouts on the noggin.

More magenobashi o

Jeff Ho by Craig Stecyk III



Jeff & Carl Ekstrom at the Ventura Sacred Craft

Weather's been good, there's a bit of energy in the water and I've availed myself the last few days. Had some good moments courtesy of the Mackie flextail, coming off the bottom hard and fast which is needed in the closeouts I've been frequenting. Good fun, but back to work now.

What's The Japanese word for flex?

Mackie in Glide magazine. Seriously, any Japanese speaking readers out there- I'd love to know.

Ether Monthly #4

Mark 'Sutho' Sutherland by Andrew Kidman.
From 'Ether' available from Foam and Function

For many of us antipodeans, Sutho is something of a hero. He was and is responsible for the mighty 'Gonad Man' comics, some of the finest 'surf art' ever made. Back in the old days, the mighty Testicular one was a mind blower, utterly hysterical and totally universal in it's lack of respect for the sacred cows of the culture. It was around this time that young editor Kidman met mighty artist Sutho in the 'Waves' office and the two have been co-conspiritors of sorts ever since, both artistically with Sutho contributing animation (and genius monologues- check 'The Ghosts Are Calling' film, available with the new edition of 'Litmus) and musically as the Val Dusty Experiment. The above photo is from the morning after the band broke up. Sutho is still at it and Gonad Man is back at www.gonadman.com For a low subscription price you can have the new work delivered straight to your desktop- genius!

Simster

As I've mentioned before, there's often someone's custom surfboard sitting in my house waiting delivery, and almost inevitably I'm frothing over the thing, wishing it were mine to soil with wax and pressure dents. This one is an absolute beauty, a 5'6" Simster via the talents of Joe Bauguess, and having ridden an earlier prototype of this board, I'm pretty heavily stoked on how this batch look like they'll ride. The original Simster is a lot of fun, sort of a performance version of the mini Sim with the trailing fin and narrower tail giving serious hold and responsiveness- whereas you surf a dual fin, these boards feel a lot more neutral and like a thruster go where you point them no problem. Unlike a thruster however, the Simsters have that awesome drive and planing feel of the mini- maybe not as blazingly fast down the line, but in more serious waves the speed of the mini makes some of those bottom turns a skin-of-the-teeth affair and there's none of that feel here. It's a really nice option on the days that the fat little fish isn't going to be the sensible ride. Along with the Lynch single fin, definitely the board discovery of the past 12-18 months for me. In case you feel like ragging me on the start of the garden, there's chunks that look might fine- like this.

Photographers

Ray Barbee by Patrick Trefz, from the 'Thread' book.

A couple of relevant shots from Patrick's book, Ray Barbee doing the non-music stuff. Trefz has been off in the far reaches of Baja tracking down Christian Beamish who's been sailing his little boat into all sorts of nooks and crannies down there. I have signed copies of the 'Thread' book for $30, free shipping inside the USA. Contact us at info at foamandfunction.com if you're interested- there's some of his prints from the book available too, framed and reasonably priced.


The Whomp- photo by Ryan Field.

Meanwhile Ryan, who's been shooting a lot of the Hydrodynamica footage, has got what is going to be a seriously great photo blog up and running at http://ryanfieldphotography.blogspot.com, he's linked on the side too. Well worth a visit, believe me.

More Flow than Ebb

All round nice guy and charmer Andy Davis had an opening party for the Ebb & Flow shop, and it was fully hard body. RK busted out new Hydro footage with some stuff from the Big South, J. Smart rolled some great footage from 'The Tyler Warren Experiments' and The Mattson's and Ray Barbee played in front of an Airstream, attracting the attentions of the local Constabulary. Fortunately one Copper was a fan of Ray and let him finish the set unmolested, get a permit next time gents. The shop looks great and Wegener's Alaia shaping deal across the road at Patagonia was a huge hit it seems. There was even a nice little swell showing out at the Cardiff Reef. Pretty awesome all round.

Interstellar Overdrive

Mackie's not the only mad bastard out there, here's an early Hydrodynamica Test Pilot board that Bauguess and Kenvin riffed on, but the fin setup made no-one happy. The big keels were taken off then RK decided to see what the spidermonkey groms could do with it as a tiny trailing fin board, meanwhile Joe B. is frothing to make the thing with a new fin setup, and so goes the meandering trail of progress. If you're in SoCal this weekend, vist lovely Cardiff On The Sea Saturday afternoon and evening. Patagonia will be hosting a series of Alaia workshops with Jon Wegener at their store on San Elijo Ave, and across the road the new Andy Davis store Ebb & Flow will host an opening party from 5pm on. RK will be there with films, I'll have some books and maybe boards, Primo in the house again- it'll be fun and I'm going to try and make Jon stick around for the Ando action so if you miss the workshops you can hit him up with those concave questions and score some nice t-shirts at the same time.

Mick Mackie, surfboard shaper

Mick & Taro Tamai



They've had waves in Australia



7 fin option



Asymmetrical Andrew demonstrates 'coming off the bottom'



A few from our man in Ulladulla, he's been working a bit, surfing a bit and after some snow recreation will be making a few boards for us, so now's the time to get that order in for fall and hopefully better waves. There's a stock flextail here and we can set you up with whatever you want, just email info at foamandfunction.com. There's been some pretty epic work being done by the Australians, more soon.......