Did I miss anything?

Well shit.

I step away for a second and it’s suddenly all global existential crisis after global existential crisis. Did you at least tidy your room?

To be honest, the idea of a self indulgent blog about toys to slide across the sea sideways on had felt a little trite recently. My kids were approaching pivotal moments in their lives and my wife was still battling away in the care sector.

Now?

Whilst those things are still true, I have begun to see a little more of the potential good in my creative endeavours.

The guys at Rooted Ocean are moving on up to bigger and better things, with their flagship store being built as we speak. As a result, I’ve now got the workshop to myself.

I can make cool as fuck surfboards to put smiles on peoples faces.

I can start to properly promote, environmentally responsible, sustainable, high performing surf craft as a real alternative to petro-chemical dependance.

I can re-start my workshop courses. Teaching people how to design and build their own boards.

I can drink too many caffeinated drinks in a room filled with power tools.

I can try and put some of that energy back into the surf community and the environment.

Okay so it’s not a revolution or curing cancer. It may be a tiny, insignificant drop of positivity in an ocean of uncertainty, but, shut up.

Have you tidied your room yet?

And They Say You Can’t Polish A Turd….

(Part One)

This one has been a long time coming. As alliteratively satisfying as it may be, Covid proper put the kibosh on collaborations. What was supposed to be a few weeks of shaping, shooting and surfing ended up becoming a 7 month long saga of missed meetings , missed deadlines and me pulling clumps of hair out with frustration at attempting to prove the old adage wrong and polish myself up a nice shiny turd.

Let’s start at the beginning shall we?

For the last couple of years, there has been a concerted effort among the great and the good of environmental groups to deal with that bane of beaches everywhere, the cheap, “disposable” bodyboard.

Local lifeguards, the plastic project, 2 minute beach clean, Widemouth Task Force and the Ocean Recovery Project have all been pulling these little plastic bags of fuck from the lineups and spearheaded by Neil Hembrow (Ocean Recovery Project and Keep Britain Tidy) they have been trying to find ways to stop them going to landfill or polluting our waterways.

The cores of my boards are EPS and I try and use recycled EPS as much as possible. I knew the standard of foam in these bodyboards was pretty shocking but with all the enthusiasm that only the truly naive can muster I asked Neil if I could maybe have a few of them to try and turn into a proper, built to last surfboard.

Not only was he happy to help but he also offered to have the finished board and to film the “making of” as a bit of promo for their initiative and my stuff.

Sounds like plain sailing, eh? I mean, I’m not a fan of being in front of the camera but I’m used to shaping in front of people and it’s basically a standard build with a bit of gluing up for the blank first, surely.

What could possibly go wrong?

You’re so vain…

….I bet you think this post is about you.

Or,

“The over thinker’s guide to inaction”.

Alrighty. I’m not sure what you know about me or my work. So here’s a quick recap.

• I ran surfboard building courses for years in an attempt to avoid being a “shaper”.

• Failed to avoid it.

• Discovered I loved it.

• Had a huge crisis of faith because of the toxic nature of board building.

• Discovered there were ways to build boards sustainably.

• Jacked in my entire previous set up and jumped into sustainable surfboards with both feet.

So far, so good. No way anyone could misinterpret that as anything other than me talking about me (no matter how vain that is in itself).

The problem I find myself with now is I’ve inadvertently turned myself into the board building equivalent of a vegan joke.

-A vegan, a new atheist and an anti-vaxxer walks into a bar...

-I know because they told me.

I’m genuinely over the moon with this new build method. It’s sustainable, it’s non polluting, it doesn’t rely on the oil industry and the raw materials grow on trees (or actually are trees) rather than coming in containers with such wonderful slogans as “Toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects” and “suspected of causing genetic defects”. I want to enthuse, extoll and exclaim. I want to shout from the fucking roof tops;

“SURFBOARDS ARE DEAD! LONG LIVE SURFBOARDS!!”

But I don’t.

People will actively rebel against anything that could be seen as sanctimonious and to make matters worse, of my professional board builder friends and associates, I’m the only one so far to have made this decision. Every social media post I make feels like it will be interpreted as a “holier than thou” shot across the bow of their livelihoods. In a couple of instances, this is exactly how they have been taken.

So I play it down.

I try not to mention the toxicity of traditional methods. The long term environmental and health damage. I try not to talk about any instances where my boards perform better than PU/Polyester or EPS/Epoxy. Being the age I am I wanted to do a Twin Peaks ”wrapped in Plastic” parody. Agent Cooper looking forlornly at the conventional board washed up on the shore… Okay, that last one would probably only appeal to me but It doesn’t matter because I’d never make it for fear of someone thinking I’m having a pop at THEIR boards.

Friends have pointed out, that if I believe in something I should shout about it. That their reaction isn’t my responsibility. . A whole raft of really kind, positive takes that really do make a difference to my headspace and encourage me to pull my head out of my arse. To some extent, that was the final push for me to do this blog (yeah I’m pinning this shit on you lot already). The perfect wuss-out, soft solution. Not even shouting into the void but shouting into a small box and posting it to the void under cover of night.

Personally, I still absolutely froth on people’s work whether it’s “eco” or not. A well laid down resin pinline is still a work art. A crisp cutlap or a perfect polish still set my heart a flutter. New curves and contours have my mind racing regardless of their origins. Innovation in board design is innovation for all surfers. New ways for us all to explore our ocean canvass. I want to be the kind of shaper “vegan” who can appreciate the marbling on the steak whilst raving about his veggie kebab and I think it would be fucking rad if the board building “carnivores” could do the same. It’s okay. The corn on the cob isn’t out to get you.

Anyway. I promise that this isn’t the only sort of twaddle I’m going to be posting. I’ve got a really nice (if bloody frustrating) board project that I’ve had to keep under wraps for a while that I’m hoping to show on here, warts and all. I’ve got a few mates who’s rad shit I’d like to show off. And after half term, I’ll be updating this with more in depth stuff about my day to day board building.

Still pretty fucking niche but then I did warn you.

Thanks for reading.

TTFN X

“Wrapped In Plastic” ;-)

No Filter

Social media killed blogs, right?

Things move on, sure. The all pervasive “hot new shit” arrives and sweeps us all up in it’s splendour. But the hot new shit inexorably becomes the everyday shit and if it doesn’t watch it’s back, it just ends up as plain shit.

Like email killed the postal service, downloads killed vinyl and video killed the radio star (sorry Buggles), some things don’t really die, they just find their niche.

For me, the idea of a space where I can honestly share stuff in as long a form as I fancy, without the frantic pace and algorithms of social media or a “brand image” dictating terms really appeals. The fact that the only people reading it will be people interested in it seems like such an insane concept in the age of promoted ads and customer engagement that I’m surprised it’s even allowed.

While it IS allowed, however, I figured I’d give it a shot.

“The UnScene” will hopefully be exactly that. Not an airbrushed surf scene utopia but instead, the oft-hidden reality of being an angst ridden, overthinking 40 something surfboard builder making niche surfboards out of niche materials for a niche part of a niche market in a surfing backwater. There is a strong possibility of swearing, politics, religion, sex, drugs and violence all rearing their heads. There will certainly be wood shavings, surf nerdery, baked goods and tea. Beyond that? Who the fuck knows.

You in?