Gerry Wedd- MP lives on pt 1

What you have here is the early stages of an urn/vase deal being made in the traditional blue & white style by master ceramicist Gerry Wedd, who you  should be familiar with if you browse this spot with any regularity.  It's a brilliant riff on the traditional and a great tribute to MP. Gerry's documenting the process here and it's as interesting as any build you can name, from bike to board.

Mackie 2014

It's February already and I've not posted any Mackies? Time to fix that- here's a batch of Smooth Glides- single fin light displacement hull action, bit of V in there according to Mick and some nice resin work as the icing on the proverbial cake. There's more to come too.....

Jamie Murray

I've posted pictures of Jamie Murray's boards before, and he has one of the most readable surfer/shaper blogs over at Head High & Glassy, but now he has a proper website for his foam mowing activities here, and it's worth a look. Some very clean, functional surfboards getting made quietly in NorCal for some seriously good waves. Lucky bastards......

Those Will Do Nicely.......

It's even less likely the channel bottom will stay pristine for the Wheels & Waves event, it now has a couple of options as far as directional stabilizers go. A Greenough 7.5" 4A and a Neal Purchase Jnr. 7.5" Wolfhound, in classy beer coloured tint. The Wolfhound comes from the really excellent Salty Merchants Fin Company of Coolangatta, Australia, and that last image, a 9" Matte Black flexfin is an example of how good it gets. They do single fins only, mostly for bigger boards but given how good that Wolfhound and the flexfins look, I'm hoping there will be more gems for us single fin aficionados in the future.

Complete lunacy/genius

Ladies & Gentleman, Mr. Neal Cameron. Outstanding experimentation here, just completely wild. Taken from the excellent King Waka's Korner blog via the equally excellent Ben Chipper, king of the fins.

Royal Asym

He really is getting good at these....

Kneelo Madness

This is one Chus Fiochi on the Atlantic coast of Spain, and it's some of the best Go-Pro usage yet seen. Lifted from Aussie kneeboard site Legless.tv who are so worth a visit....

Other People's Scores.....

Hawaii- finless Rabbit's Foot, custom cork deck/carbon bottom.

Canada- flat deck bonzer. Actually shaped in N. Carolina by Bill Pressley who I hear nothing but good about. Check his site out.

Hawaii- 10' Double stringer Jeff Ho! The lads around the world have been busy and doing well for themselves on the surfboard front....

Channels!?!?

Again, Erle Pederson jet bottom courtesy of the Chipper Bros. in Australia- Simon actually owns these pieces of insanity. The top 3 shots are a 5'5" stand up single fin from 1978. Amazing stuff.

Another Happy Customer...

Jimbo the Supergrom with his Micro Stubb that will accompany him to Mexico. He's frothing over this board, and rightly so- it's a beauty. The young man is a damn good surfer too- we caught the tail end of the swell at a place north of the ugly LA closeouts and he was killing it on a tiny finless Wegener Albacore. This board is definitely in good hands.

Channels

6'6" Parmenter channeled single. This is the design Dave worked on for the 'Spirit Of Akasha' film project, and the design Stephanie Gilmore was documented riding in the book 'Single'. This particular board is meant to be kept pristine for as long as possible as it's going to be used for an upcoming event in Europe (more on that later) which is absolutely killing me. All the Parmenters were glassed at the Waterman's Guild in Costa Mesa CA and I have to say the quality of work was pretty much as good as I've ever seen.

Christmas Crackers

Jimbo's 5'8 microStubb

My 6'4" microStubb

7' widowmaker showpony. More to come......

Aleutian Juice

The Parmenter portion of the 'event quiver' (and Jimbo's board) is done and spectacular to say the least. There's going to be a lot of surfboard pictures here over the next week or so.....

Meanwhile, In New York City.....

Photo by Michele Lockwood, surfboards by Dave Parmenter, firemen by NYFD. More Parmenters very soon......

Testpiloting

There was a bit of swell, although as expected smaller and dumpier than I'd hoped (always the pessoptimist) yet there were corners and the flexstik was officially 'tried out'. It's a strange board to paddle, a strange board to sit on and a strange board to position yourself on, but once up and riding there is most certainly something going on. Felt lovely through the couple of small bottom turns that were managed, and when it got moving there was a taste of some serious glide. This one shall be worked with most definitely, and a serious effort will be made to get it into some decent waves.....

Update...
Via Cabinessence, one of the most oddly readable surf related things on the web, here's a clip of Mick made under the aegis of Fibreflex.

Mick Mackie ff from Noods on Vimeo.

Go!

Well, if you're at least in the vicinity of New York City you should definitely go, it'll be a great night.

Surf Rides

After a couple of weeks that have been dominated by work, flat spells, cold weather and run-off laden water, one's thoughts turn to the proverbial get-away, and preferably one that involves somewhere warm. A coastal run in perhaps Morocco in a rigged out Citroen? Not bad, although you might want a bit more in the way of a roof.