Too much tail to choose from...

Post Rockalyptic Landscape

Today Rebecca and I rode our bikes the roughly 15 miles to Rockaway Beach.  I loaded up a UPS/battery backup unit on the back (to help folks charge phone batteries), Rebecca packed some food and off we went.  Once we crossed the Marine Park/Gil Hodges bridge we saw lots of homes pumping water from the basement, and mud everywhere.

As soon as we hit 116 St things began to get weird.

The combination of flood and fire at 114 St has created a post-apocalyptic landscape that looked like a war zone.  Smoking, and in spots still flaming ruins of buildings and muddy sand covered everything.  Fences were twisted, cars were piled up on each other in parking lots.  Search and rescue crews from other states swaggered around, as if trying to project an image of control, but yet seemed conspicuously listless, as if under no command.  And that was just the beginning.

We arrived on 96 St.  The apartment we had been scheduled to move in to last Sunday had mud all over the door and exterior wall, and the high water mark was visible which immediately told us the interior had been flooded.  We opened the door to find muddy carpets and soggy sheet rock, and damage to the doorknob suggested would-be looters had tried to jimmy the lock.  We moved on.

The boardwalk is gone as far as the eye can see.  The only part remaining is the concrete foundations, which lends a surreal Planet of the Apes kind of feeling, especially with waves breaking peacefully in the background.

We arrived to 90 St and Rockaway Beach Blvd to find cars stranded in the middle of the intersection which is now a lake.

On 91 St, a massive section of boardwalk has come to rest atop a mini-Cooper, complete with intact benches and streetlight still erect.  Some local residents stoked a bonfire in the street, adding to the post-civilization feeling.

The bungalow is still standing, despite having taken on 18" of seawater, muddy surfboards were everywhere, having been stirred about by the sloshing, and the entry alley is one long sand dune.  Shaw kept us in a good mood with jokes but summed up what we were all thinking by admitting he didn't know where to start.

The last stop was the Rockaway Beach Surf Club and friends that live next door.  Brandon D'Leo was on site cleaning up, and told the story of watching the ocean send the boardwalk down 91st on Monday night's massive tide surge, to the point where the street light was bumping against his 2nd floor apt.  

The surge in the shaping bay hit nearly 5 feet, sending surfboards, containers and power tools everywhere.  Most of the fiberglass is ruined, probably most of the tools, and the cleanup is going to be major.  At least the blanks, mounted high up on the wall, were spared.

J Scott K told me Monday night was the scariest thing he'd ever lived through.  The neighbors piled into the 2nd floor of his house as water rapidly rose in the space of 15 minutes to become a raging river of seawater, mud, debris and sewage, swamping his truck and causing his first floor to vanish beneath the waves.  How must that have felt for him and Lois, to look down from the 2nd floor loft on rapidly rising water levels inside their home, probably in near darkness, I can scarcely imagine.

I have to admit being really impressed with the humor and strength of character I saw on display.  Hard times and a lot of rebuilding are ahead.  But as we dropped off some food and batteries and prepared for the long ride home, Keone paused from cleaning mud out of his place and stopped me.  "Have you seen the waves out there?  They're not looking too bad!"

And so Rockaway lives.

If you'd like to help, check out TimeOutNY's excellent list of places you can plug in.

DIY Surfboard Project: Final Chapter

(continued from Day 2: Art and Glassing)

 Yesterday.

Aaron knew his way around fins from prior experience, so after a bit of input from Albert, Ant, and others on placement, he and Max used 5 minute epoxy to get them attached to the board.  It took a bit longer than 5 minutes, but eventually they set.  We toed them in slightly - appx 1/4 to 1/2".  We had previously worked out the cant by eye and sanded the base at that angle.

We started to run out of daylight, but we had time to get two layers of glass on the outside of the fins.  Very important to get the air bubbles out, particularly on the base where it's easy to push the glass and create an air pocket.  Aaron here using a brush and generous helpings of resin to keep it nice and solid.  We did end up with an air pocket along one fin edge, which I fixed by cutting holes at each end and squeezing some fresh resin through with my fingers.  Then I copied Aaron's technique today and glassed the inside edges.

Making the leash loop.  Greenlight included a modern leash plug but lacking the tools, we found it easier to go old school with fiberglass rope.  I also find I prefer the way it looks.  The wax crayon is just something I found laying around that maintained the hole.  Once this cured - just a few minutes in the hot sun -  I went to town with my sander and got the edges and uneven patches into rough shape.

Everyone took a turn waxing the board and almost before we had begun to celebrate, Ant threw the board in his van: "Let's go!"

A few of us took turns, and with the sun going down, Albert dropped into a wave and threw a fat bucket of spray at me.  Mission accomplished!  The feeling is just unbelievable. It feels like a dream, that we accomplished this in a few days during a surf trip, and now there is a board that we will pass between us in the years to come, that will carry with it the unique memory of our time together.  Big, big ups to Brian Gagliana, and all the crew at Green Light Surfboard Supply for making this amazing experience possible.  GNASHERS USA!

DIY Surfboard Project Day 2: Art and Glassing

(continued from Day 1: One Board Shaped)

After taking a day off to surf, we got back to work.

We used lightweight spackle to fill in the little holes and dents, and lightly sanded.

Ant: "We're gonna call it the Chicken Petter."  And so it was.

We had red, blue and green tints.  We decided to make the tail green and leave the front a swirl of unmixed red and blue.

We only had 4oz glass so we went with two layers on the deck and one on the belly.

Team glassing, so much fun!  I now see I should have pre-mixed the red and blue with resin before combining on the board.  As a result some of the tint got clotted up in some small concentrated spots where the resin didn't mix with it fully.  But it resulted in some pretty interesting patterns.

Solarez.  Catalyzed by our good friend Sol, peeking out from under the board.  This is my first time working with this resin, and it's a great way to go since it kicks super fast in the sun.  As you can see, we went free lap cause we all like that look, but also because it seems right that the board celebrate its own handmade origins.

Once the belly kicked, we sanded the rough patches and laid two layers on the deck.  We were a bit sloppy with the rails so we did the deck glass one at a time.

Max did a truly absurd deck art piece that had us hysterical with laughter.  He did a bunch of test patches with different papers lying around like vellum, paper towel and cotton paper, and found that none of them laid flat after glassing.  Then he hit on the idea of using a coffee filter.  It worked brilliantly.

Jamie glassing the deck.  We had a bit of uv leaking in so he worked with some pretty fierce speed.

The waves were waist high but punchy.  At some point we just couldn't stand it any longer, dropped everything and went for a surf.  I borrowed Micah's helmet camera mount and chased him down a wave to get this shot.

As the sun was dropping in the sky, I realized that with rain in the forecast, I'd better paddle in and get that hot coat on.  I should have started a bit earlier, since the sun was getting pretty low by the end.  It was still a tiny bit tacky when it got dark, but hopefully we'll be ok.

Next up: sanding, fins and leash plug.  We're debating whether to sand the hot coat or do it after we put the fins on.  I think we might go with the former to make sanding the tail a bit easier.  We want to ride this baby tomorrow so we may risk working on it today even though it's a bit damp and overcast out.

One Board Shaped!

Location: Outer Banks, NC

One foam blank

Jigsaw, hand saw and rasp

No wood, nails or screws

But add 13 crazy artists + craftspeople and a DIY vibe, and what happens?

 A raid of a nearby construction site dumpster for some plywood scraps

 No nails?  No problem!

Enter the blank, kindly supplied by Brian Gagliana at Greenlight Surfboard Supply along with glass, resin and basic hand tools.

Jake puttin his back into it.

At left: chief instigator Ant.  At right: Jamie. This is his first stab at shaping, but as a sculptor is well at home working with various shapes and materials.

Final touches.

Done!  Total time elapsed, including shaping stand construction: 2 hrs.

Next up, art and glassing!

Greenlight Wants You - To D.I.Y.

I'm not interested in shaping.  It's best left to the experts.  It's too much work.  There's no place to shape.  It's hard to get blanks and supplies around here.  There's no one to teach me.

My kick-ass Honduran super lets me store and repair some boards in the basement of my Brooklyn apartment building, but no way am I going to get away with mowing foam and glassing a whole deck down there.

Enter Greenlight Surfboard Supply, known by word of mouth to surfers on the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic coast mainly as a place to order supplies.  Having heard from some Philly surfers about this cool dude who runs it out of New Jersey, Brian Gagliana, I ordered some resin and a few odds and ends last year from his tiny 500 square foot warehouse to repair my boards.  Little did I know they had bigger plans for 2012.

Now at a new Manasquan location, with a showroom, a shaping bay, and ample space for everything from finished boards, blanks, supplies and lessons, if you're within striking distance of the northern Jersey coastline, the argument against at least trying your hand at shaping is pretty much devastated.  For around the going price of a new board, you can get a blank, materials, space, plus one-on-one instruction, and shape and glass your own.

Matt Henderson (photo at right) explained how this process encourages people to experiment, and shape things you might not find on the racks of your average surf shop.

"It's nice, because we get to try out a lot of stuff.  For example, Kevin Rider (photo above) has been shaping double stringer shortboards, and you don't see a lot of that out there. Everybody's trying to add a little something else."

What I saw in the shop would seem to bear this out.  Such as this fruity double bump number.  True, it looks like a popsicle (do they still make the "Bomb Pop" that used to rule back in the pre-GWOT days?) but check out them rails!














Some chunky old school single fins, fins with winglets, a fat Simmons-style quad, a gorgeous step-deck log, and even an elegant asym model give this place a refreshing experimental feel, like a handmade east coast Skunk Works, minus the military industrial aroma.


The one thing they're missing is a teleporter to skip the turnpike and tolls (course given all the juice they'd pull, it would be a hard sell to my super without a third in Tegucigalpa).

Let's face it - this place freaking rules.  Let a thousand backyard shapers bloom. I wonder if they'll let me pitch a tent in their parking lot.

You can find out more at greenlightsurfsupply.com

One Quad fish delivered!

I've never had anyone make anything to order like this before, so I'm pretty excited as you can imagine. I had trouble making it out to Sayville, so Shawna from Nature's Shapes kindly dropped it off. Thanks Shawna!

Yeah Mike. That's a pretty outline. I was considering some tint but I just couldn't wait to get my hands on it.

Low rocker with a little kick in the nose.

Flat bottom.

Deep swallowtail.

Slight vee in the tail.

Send some waves, please. Soon.