'QS 2019

wheres a current list?

that sounds solid....all I know though is the waves for the Aussie leg of the QS have been beyond atrocious.

I can see now why Jack Robinson has struggled for so long.

It's like a different sport when the surf is so bad.

Basically unwatchable in my opinion.

Spent the arvo at the local sk8 park. Pros, Olympic reps(!), local rippers. Fucken sickest sesh of any kind and type seen and experienced (mostly seen) for a long time.

Camaraderie, group stoke, humble ripping, mentalness, boozed punkness...fuck, it had it all...and it was all good. Actually, better than good. It was affirming. And it was all there. Open-hearted. No searching required.

Surfing??

Back home, hours later, this bugs me a wee bit.

Only a wee bit.

For me, surfing culture has always been lacking. Expecially in the 'now'. Materially as well as in reality.

Sad really.

Apart from the act, surfing sucks.

Its strength!

Existentialism writ large.

And I love Surfers Journal. And Warhaw is too seppo-centric but he's having a go.

Kidman, yep.

Maybe even you, Stunet.

Yeah, you.

We are not well served though in the main.

In the main.

Therein lies the fucken rub, methinks.

Pissing up a rope.

Night night.

There was a time, a few years back now when the ASP was sinking, that I was curious what would happen if it went down and there was nothing ready to replace it. What ideas might develop in the void? Same same, or something different? As it happened, it was worse than I ever could've imagined but I'm long past caring about Ziff's cultural hijack. There are other things happening.

Drove down the coast really early yesterday morning after staying up late Saturday night talking design and wotnot. It hit me that other sports and lifestyles are having trendy reversions to the 'artisanal age'.

You know, you can now buy bespoke golf clubs, or you can fork out a few extra dollars to get your road bike made-to-measure. These people - golfers, cyclists, motorists, tennis players, whatever - are displaying their commitment to their chosen lifestyle by purchasing tailor-made equipment.

In surfing it's called a custom and they've been available long before guys groomed their beards and rode a fixie to the local microbrewery.

Custom surfboards are the beating heart of surf culture.

......... so what percentage of new boards are customs now? Never been smaller I would think. Might be time for us to check in with a cardiologist!

You might be surprised BB.

There has been a significant swing back to custom boards, at least for some manufacturers.

Depends a lot on the community concerned as well. Certain places have strong local board manufacturers and strong and loyal patronage.

Others are more transient and more in thrall to the big box players.

Interesting freeride, and probably no reliable data anyway, but no contest once you factor in foamies!

true, foamies have gone huge.

Each region would be different.

FWIW, my main "good wave" board is a custom from one local shaper, and I got my small wave groveller at a crazy cheap price when another local guy was clearing out his shelf stock because he was moving to doing only customs and not keeping any stock in-shop.

I agree with Freeride, especially the part about some regional areas having strong local patronage. I've spoken to some shapers who've played it right in terms of their product and market positioning, and they can barely keep up. Spoke to a shaper just last week who had a shop full of boards but he's considering selling the shop 'cos no-one buys off the rack and everyone wants custom.

Also worth reminding people that almost every single model the big names do can be pre cut by your local shaper, usually for cheaper and the money stays in town.

it seems like it's the younger ones (late teens, twenties), not older surfers, that are showing great devotion to a local shaper. like DP down on the coal coast.

I'v noticed as wave size goes up so do the amount of customs in the water...

How does the pre-cut deal work if the board to be copied is beat to shit ?

I’m talking 10mm deep foot wells and creases . Doesn’t the machine just record the shape of the board and recreate it exactly ?

Nah, they'll just get a CAD (or equivalent) file of the model in question and cut that. You can either get it exactly the same as the Big Name Brand version, or put your own changes into it if you like.

Board files are digital information, easily sourced and shared.

So no copyright on the designs Stu? Seems a bit strange.

Even if no copyright I'd still feel uncomfortable ripping off someones intellectual property so blatantly.

Can't copyright board design as the vast majority of boards don't meet the 10% novelty threshold. Most don't even go close. Speaking to a copyright lawyer a few years back, he doubts even Simon could've protected the Thruster, so good luck anyone thinking an 1/8 inch more tail lift is going to make a difference.

Can't name names but one shaper told me a model of his is exactly the same as a that of a big name American brand. His team rider liked the American model so it 'became' his. Another shaper who used to sponsor a CT rider notoriously bought a whole fleet of models then incorporated them into his range.

You won't read it in the ads but it's what is going on. And it's no great surprise, as digital board files are information like anything else. They get copied, shared, tweaked, ripped off, then shared some more.

I have an off the rack model from a shaper that is a blatant ripoff of one of Slater's boards. Even the name of the model gives it away The shaper straight out told me he saw an old board of Slater's in a shop in Bali, borrowed it, measured and scanned it into a digital file and boom...new model

Dont feel too guilty FR, they're all ripping each other off anyway. At that end of the market surfboards have become like clothes fashion, the companies have to put out new "shapes" each season. Most of them are really only new in the sense of name and marketing.

It's all very disappointing and makes me want to support my local shaper more than ever.

Of course it never happened pre-digital ha ha ha! All healthy I would think. Surfboards evolve. What works best is copied, modified and spreads.

I've never bought an off the shelf 'model'. I often wondered what the margin for error was? I mean most of the big brands are shaped by ghost shapers. Would JS or Darren H self shaped board feel any different than their ghost shapers? Is the tech that good now that it doesn't really matter?
(obviously removing other factors such as glasser, etc)

To a degree if you keep things fairly standard in boards, template, rails, rocker, bottom shape (etc Single to double) there must only be so many combinations possible, until things are all pretty much done to a degree.

Similar to construction of songs on a guitar, the possible combinations are huge, but end of the day what works is in a smaller ball field, just small variables that can make differences.

In some ways we must be getting close to the ceiling on board design within that standard small wave high performance short board.

Haha, sorry mate.
-Jack Robbo
I reckon it’s his time, he seemed
to be knuckling down and grovelling better than I would’ve thought.
- Connor O’Leary
- Reef Heazlewood
Would like to see Barron Mamiya qualify too

Is wilko still fully committed?

i'm going to say Jack Robbo now has a good chance with the start that he's got and the 10,000s in Hawaii at the end of the year. He looks good when it's solid but his small wave act still looks a bit laboured.
Connor O'Leary looked amazing in that 3000 at Avoca and could too.
Jordy Lawler has now got 6000 points and could too.
And of course Reef looks good all round but hasn't started this year well.
How's Jadson the frother pretty much requalified for next year already and the CT hasn't even started. That must totally take the pressure off.
Unlike lots of others i quite like watching pros do battle in small slop to see what they can do

And not sure about Wilko. He looked good at times at Manly. Has anyone else gone from top 5 in the world to not qualified inside 2 years before? Big fall from grace for a good surfer

I’m a big fan of Jack Robinson’s surfing , but how’s he going to go if he qualifies anyway ?

Most of the CTs are held in majority slop . If he can’t grovel its never going to work.