Surfboards by Royal

Rob Royal lives between the Bahamas and the UK at the moment, and he builds some highly interesting looking surfboards. He's been a great proponent of the sidecut design, and seems to really like playing with the concepts of modernized twin fin designs, all of which are very good things. Now he's done this quad with a Simmons bloodline, and I'm utterly impressed. Those English boys have some nice stuff bubbling away over there....

Mackie by Kidman

Asymmetric channels, a sidecut and some lovely keels. I have an idea for what could be done with keels like those, and as soon as the R&D budget gets sorted out it'll be on.
There's a nice little selection of 'Lost In The Ether' images here, then get the film here, you won't regret it.

Sarlo Shoots The Pier

Saturday night I run into Jeff Ho and have a nice hang. He told me Malibu had been good that morning on the South swell and he'd seen someone shoot the pier on what seemed to be one of his boards, then realized it was Allen Sarlo. Jeff thought he should have been riding a bigger board.
Monday morning, someone sends me a link to the above footage. The internet can be a frightening place sometimes.

Denevan & Baikal

Apparently this is Jim Denevan's art on the surface of Lake Baikal. Quite lovely and amazing to see, and that's a nice yurt he has going there. I'd love to hear some of the stories behind this one. Jim's beach art is featured, of course, in Patrick Trefz's film 'Thread'. And in his book 'Thread' which you can get from us for a mere $30 by emailing us at info @ foamandfunction.com. It may seem like I'm now working for Trefz (which in a way I seem to be, unpaid of course but that's how it works) but I hadn't seen these photos until yesterday and his films really are quite good, well worth you investigating if you haven't already done so.

An update: I love it when the comments are better than the post- thanks to Andrew Kidman I can steer you here which has some stunning photos and footage from this project.

Simmons & Curren & Beamish

Christian Beamish & Boards, photo by Patrick Trefz from the film 'Idiosyncrasies'

Beamish built these boards to ride Mavericks on after some study of original big wave boards made by Pat Curren & Bob Simmons. The whole process and result is documented in Trefz's film Idiosyncrasies and is well worth a look at.

Schaaf & The Unicorn

Many of you with a fondness for the skateboarding may remember Max Schaaf. Always a skater who's style I liked and despite aging along with the rest of us, he's still doing some fine stuff. He tinkers with motorbikes and has an entertaining blog along those lines called 4Q, mostly bikes, some skateboarding and he managed to find this quite excellent surfboard. Nicely done Mr. Schaaf.

MP

It's amazing how well and intuitively this man built surfboards, and how much impact his designs have had. Still by Kidman from 'Lost In The Ether', logo by MP, plate by Gerry Wedd.

Tijuana Makes Me Happy

Just saw these guys, they were brilliant. How often do you go to a show where the sousaphone player gets the girls screaming when he steps up to solo? ¡maravilloso!

Gentemstik's 'First Track'

'The First Track' is an impressive looking photobook put together by Taro Tamai and his snowsurf colleagues at Gentemstik. Unfortunately, it's probably not the easiest thing to get hold of (all the good stuff involves a little work otherwise it wouldn't be as good really) but you could try emailing them at worldwide@gentemstick.com and see what's up. No idea about price, but whatever that is it looks worth every yen.

Two Weeks by J. Abegg

Two Weeks... An experience by Johnny Abegg (film) from Johnny Abegg Films on Vimeo.

Johnny Abegg has posted a 20 minute version of his latest cinematic effort. Enjoy, and feel free to purchase his limited, entertaining and quite mad "___". $30 for the DVD/zine version, $50 for the DVD/book. All signed and numbered. As always, info @ foamandfunction.com to purchase, ask questions or just tell us something we should know.