As boards get shorter, design becomes more critical and it doesn't take any great powers of observation or analysis to recognise that there are many surfers currently severely limited by their equipment.
"I don't think I've come across a surfboard that I couldn't save."
You've probably never heard of Levi Jones as he has one of the surf industry's more obscure jobs. That being, surfboard restorer. Levi Jones' job is to bring classic old craft to life and he's very, very good at what he does.
The 11-time champ opens up about his recent interest in Greg Webber's highly rockered banana boards from the early-90s.
After watching 1992 footage of Shane Herring, Kelly Slater has ordered two boards from Greg Webber. Is the design pendulum about to swing back to thin, highly rockered banana boards?
NPJ channels Baddy Treolar, doing the shaping, surfing, and playing the soundtrack to this short clip.
Simon Anderson's name is forever linked to the Thruster, as you would expect, he invented the damn thing. Yet Simon is often seen sporting a quad under his arm and his range of boards also includes a few quad combo models. Recently, blindboy had a chat with Simon about the difference between 3 and 4.
It's been a big twelve months for Gold Coast shaper Gary McNeil. The one time production manager at Nev and JS has struck out on his own. Unencumbered with the politics of business he now concentrates on the business of design creating the best surfcraft he can for test pilot Dave Rastovich and anyone else who waltzes through his factory door.
Mark Riley has all the requisite qualities of an exacting tradesman. He posseses a keen eye, skilled hands, and wherever he goes a small cloud of sawdust follows. Swellnet recently spoke with the fella behind Riley Balsawood Surfboards.
Recently Swellnet's Coffs Harbour surf reporter, Tom Woods, watched his brother Joe make a pair of mini-Simmons boards. It was a first time operation so Tom grabbed the camera and filmed Joe each step of the way.
For over fifty years centre stringers have been the construction standard in surfboards. Geoblanks are a sharp step the left for board making, being the world's first modulated foam blank. Swellnet speaks to the inventor of Geoblanks, Guy Walker.
"The channel bottom has its rightful place in Australian surfing history. It's easy for a lot of shapers to dismiss them as a fad simply because most modern boards come out of a machine and is all too easy. They fit perfectly into today’s high performance modern surfing."
In 1985, Rusty Preisendorfer, an accomplished shaper at Canyon Surfboards with a visual arts major from UCSD, launched Rusty Surfboards and created what has become one of the most iconic logos in all of surfing.
