Circle Back

I have free time lately. I have less disposable income lately. I have wanted to get a 7' hull. I have wanted to try the VeeBee. I am intrigued by the MGB Bonzer. Not having the money to invest in any of these interests I have instead circled back on my existing quiver. I'm lucky enough that I haven't had to sell any boards, and to have put away quite a little stock for myself to play with. A few days ago I brought my 10'2" "JOneill out to OB. The waves were small and clean, just right for getting the feel of the board again. I've ridden two of my fathers longboards recently and my success on them gave me confidence to give the JOneill another try. First, a bit of explanation.
The JOneill is a remake of an early 60's board my dad owns. The original board rode well for me and I wanted a railbanger longboard. My dad had an exact replica made as my M.S. graduation gift. It's 10'2", tri-band stringer. Big round and fairly parallel rails, big ole skeg, lotsa belly and flat rocker. Not quite a D fin, but nearly. Most notable is that it's made with classic Clark foam and a heavy glass job. It weighs in somewhere in the upper 20lbs I guess. The original board was branded Oneill, but Junod did the remake. So, JOneill.
The board worked fairly well for me. It has weight to help it punch through waves at OB when there's no way around them. When I get a wave with some energy I can turn the board and handle it fairly well. When I get a wave with even More energy, I get into trouble. I can handle most situations if they don't require a big change in direction. I made a mistake of fading into the peak too far and not being able to swing the board around quick enough to change direction and not go face first into the pit at the peak. Lesson learned. It also doesn't whip around and drop in when I decide at the last minute that I want the wave right in front of me. Most of the waves that day were short rides going to nothing after passing over the sandbar. I got many waves in an hour and a half, and was more able than most to paddle against the current. The current was ridiculous for how small the waves were.
After surfing that big board I stopped in at Mollusk to check out the Liddle boards. Surprisingly, I was not too impressed with them and credit my sudden lack of interest (ending a 6-month streak) to ridding the JOneill. It doesn't travel as well as a 7' board would because I can only carry the JOneill in my truck while a 7' board could squeeze into my sedan. That right there is enough reason to still invest in a mid-length board for small waves. But, for now, I can ride the JOneill when the waves are small.
Or, OR, or I can use the mat. I continue to put the 4GF (5GF model) to use. I had a small surf at Rockaway on the mat. Nothing special except I wouldn't have enjoyed surfing very much on any other board. I've also been meeting up with a guy in SF who is interested in mats, and also makes handplanes. I let him try the mat and he liked it. He's made one attempt at making a mat and will try again with the gained knowledge of seeing my mat. It got me motivated just enough to try to repair the valve on my Neumatic. I think I messed up the repair, but I'll keep working on it until it's good enough to use.

A Surf Mat kind of weekend

I surfed Mi4le Friday mid-morning hitting the sweet spot between the dawn crew and the late morning crew. The tide was really low and the dawn crew wasn't having much luck on the inside reef. I was, though, on my 5GF. Late drops with occasional lip launch belly flop then run the inside hollows. I did this on fast rotation for about an hour before the hard board surfers caught on and started competing with me for waves. I took the opportunity to take some waves at the outer second peak. Then the late morning crew came out and pushed me off that peak too. I ended up at 1st peak dumps, which was showing potential for connecting all the way in. I was tired by then so I took one in and called it a successful session.
As I was first heading out a board surfer coming in stopped to ask me about the mat. He had plans for a vacation to Mexico and wasn't sure he could bring a board. I told him the mat is difficult at first, but plenty of fun. It travels well, and I gave him a few fin options with a quick lesson on how to choose. I directed him to the 4GF website, but also offered the option to pick up a Krypt in town at Sawyer if he didn't have patience to wait for what I told him was, in my opinion, a better mat for most people (4GF.)
Friday was fun and fulfilling, so I didn't feel a need to challenge the in-town Saturday masses for marginal waves. I checked at dawn and didn't like what I saw at Suicides. I ate a big breakfast and cleaned up the house a bit. I was ready to leave town but made one last check of the conditions. On my way to the beach I ran into another surf matter suiting up and decided to suit up too, site unseen. We ended up disagreeing on the best choice and he went to Sewers while I went to Suicides. I think I made the better choice, because I got quite a few waves in one hour while he got three in the same time. While I was out surfing I got a few questions from some board surfers in the water.
Things have changed for mat surfing in the last 5-10 years since I first tried a mat. At first the questions were more like, "What the F is that thing?" Now the questions are more like, "Is that one of Paul Gross's mats." and "Where can I get one?" I still get a snide remark just about every time I ride, but it really doesn't bother me because I'm usually having a great time riding tons of waves away from the main peak!

A Fuca waves

Took a trip to the Great NW to visit the parents. The weather was great and there was a small swell in the water. It was a bad angle for the side of the Strait I was on, but we set off anyway. The first few stops showed no signs of any swell and we had decided to just look at spots. We got to one of the more obvious spots and there the swell was. The normal wave was too small to ride but showing it's form. I jumped in the water at the other side, where the main wave normally blows out the shoal ruining that other wave. It was just big enough to surf on one of my fathers 10' boards, and the wave was a quick section to a channel, but I surfed by myself for an hour in knee high waves. Only the largest wave of the set was knee high, but I had fun. The tide change was enough to kill it and I came in and sat on the cobbles and ate Spam out of the can with my dad. He took a few photos of me surfing, but I promised to not make them public.
The rest of the trip was more landlocked. I tried fly fishing casting with my father, did gardening with my mother, and we all worked together to split some logs for next winter's firewood. I spent one day walking around Seattle and found it pleasant enough to explore further.
I gave a surf report to the Js and JB has family closer to the surf spot that my parents are. He showed interest in making a surf trip in that area, and it would be easy for me, so I'm down. JZ had a great trip to mainland Mex with consistent (if not epic) surf the whole trip. If I can convince someone to pay me to use my skills (job) then I'd like to mex it up too.

The long wait continues

I was terribly optimistic at the time of last posting. I figured I had a new job "in the bag" and I was counting chickens. Well, that one didn't pan out, nor did the next one of similar description. I have continued to apply for jobs but I have gone through a drought of responses. Who knows, maybe they will all reply at once.
In the meantime, I've been able to surf a bit. I've had some pretty good sessions at OB, and even SC. I spent a few days down in SC mid-week and took advantage of new sand at a normally crowded surf spot. The new sand and the bit of swell combined to make a new wave with far fewer people than normal. I rode the GeeBee to get a feel for the hull style. With a very flexy fin it bogged on turns, which was fun in a way. With the proper fin in the center of the box it ran just fine. With that same fin at the front of the box, WOW! The thing surfed more like it was a round disk than a surfboard. It certainly opened my eyes to what can be done with fin movement. I think it's especially sensitive because the overall board length is so short at around 6'. And then last week I caught the rising of a swell with the dropping of the tide and had some good lefts at OB. The wind was offshore which helped make the waves hollow.
And to continue the drought theme, California is in a serious drought. It's our first year to have a vegetable garden at our home and I feel conflicted about watering the plants. Besides the vegetables we're trying to grow, the rest of our yards are low water needs. Not fully succulents, but mostly tolerant plants. I am still moving forward with planting food, just with a twang of reluctance.

Closing in fast

I want this:

Plus this:

 

With some of these:

 

tapered pinlines and deck patch.

 

The shaper is Andreini. The board is his somewhat-mellower-but-still-very-much-a hull. The dimensions are to be decided, but will be around 7'. The goal is a good paddler that still can duck dive if needs be. It's been tough for me deciding between a knife railed hull and a down railed gunnier type board. I've ridden both, had good waves on both. I think a hull would get used more, and I have a slightly too small downrailer that I can use if I am really needing that feel.

 

The artist is a friend of mine, Katie Owens. You can find her work on Society6.com and other similar places. The art will be printed on rice paper by a company like boardlams.com. I'm think either smaller on the deck near the nose or very small mirror images in the same location. Larger on the bottom a bit forward of center, maybe lined up with the wide point.

 

I believe the glassing is out of the Haut shop, although I'm not sure what the glassing company calls themselves. There is always a high quality of work coming out of that shop, so I'm confident they can do the pinlines I want.

 

I'm not sure of the final cost but I'm afraid it'll be near $1K. Andreini suggests his boards finish with a sand coat for the water shedding properties. I think that would wash out the artwork, so I will ask first and go with gloss if the glasser agrees with my idea. I just want the pinlines along the rail covering the glass wrap line, and maybe on the deck patch line. The deck patch wont look like what's shown above because I want it to carry to the tail. I'd love to have the fin glassed in for "style points" but I don't know if I'd be able to fit it into my Sentra. If I can't, I wont surf it as much so I'm going with the box. Glassed leash loop, or none and I'll get one of those glue on ones.

 

 

 

Where am I going?

The job interview was crap, or at least that's the way it made me feel. The upside is that I've decided to take a 1/2 day off and go surf this Friday. Forecast is small and clean, the kind of waves that a mid-length egg would go well in. Why do I say that if I don't even have a board that matches that description? Well...
A few weeks back JZ took me to go look at a mid-length single fin pintail. I thought the $700 price tag was too high, even for a new board, but the visit stirred an interest in a style of board I hadn't given much thought to before. A long time ago I got washed around trying to ride an 8' egg at various surf spots. I couldn't duck dive it, I couldn't outrun the waves to the channel, and so I was a sitting duck getting repeatedly beat down by waves. I decided that mid-length boards were for suckers.
Since then I've ridden smaller mid-length egg like boards in more appropriate conditions. Down around 7'6" I can start duck diving a board but still can glide into waves early. At 6' most of that glide is gone but a certain maneuverability is available. A wide, hulled bottom gives more glide, flow, rail hold and smoother or easier turns. Hulls are better in non-barreling waves. Downturned rails and narrow tails allow control in steep sections and more abrupt direction changes but at the cost of difficulty controlling the board. Still, down rails and narrow tails are better in hollow waves. Single-finned boards don't handle late drops as easily as multi-finned boards, and so early entry is key.
All these facts/impressions I've recently gathered in my head and tried to figure out what board I would want next. Part of the problem is that I have so many boards that there isn't a gap to be filled, more like a nook or cranny. So do I want a hull that's a longer version of the GeeBee or do I want a beefier version of the Buttons? Looking at pictures of surfboards I'm drawn to the pointed spears that work well in perfect large hollow surf. The kind of conditions that are so rare that it would be unlikely that I'd find those conditions AND have the board close by. But I'm still going to surf OB, so I need to be able to handle difficult conditions if I ever expect to bring it to the beach. Where does that leave me?
Something in the 7'2" range, +/- 4". Something like a double-ender but less egg shaped and more drawn. Some examples:
7'2" Liddle Death

 

 





7'8" Christianson Flat Tracker

7'0" Andreini Vaquero

And I could go on for hours just based on the Mollusk website. Many shapers have some version of a basic beginner's egg and most also have some "tuned up" version as well. I know I want a tuned up version, but is that a knife railed hull or a narrow tailed hard railed? There's many examples on shapers websites, but there are very few on craigslist at the moment. And that's what I should be doing, looking for a cheap way to explore this range of shapes.
The fact is that even though I have some money in my surfboard account, I don't yet know how to spend it.

Yard Work

Three days drafting, three days slingin' Joe. Mornings and evenings spent working on the shed and yard. Sunday revolves around watching the 49ers. It leaves no time to surf and surprisingly not enough money to pay the bills. Next Tuesday I have a job interview. County job, great pay, further inland. At least I'd be able to pay the bills, and pay someone else to make home repairs and improvements and do it right. And I would be able to pay for a vacation and a new surfboard. It's a difficult life trade, but it represents a major improvement in my situation. I wont be moving towards the coast any time soon, might as well bank some $$