Dude, Lightning Bolt?

As I finished prepping an old board for sale this week, a pretty rare opportunity presented itself.

I grew the quiver to a fair size this year, picking up interesting cheap used boards to experiment with. Now, as I'm looking to sell off a bunch to narrow the quiver to perhaps 4 boards, a semi gun was on the list. I'd envisioned more of a 7'2-7'4 pintail thruster, but suddenly what appears online?



A 7'1 single fin pintail semi gun. With a Lightning Bolt on the deck. At a good price. After a quick consult with the helpful, Bolt-obsessed Damion Fuller over at Boardcollector.com (thanks D!), I immediately began a campaign of begging the seller via email for first crack at this piece of history. I imagined he probably thought me a bit weird.



I showed up at his place and not only did it turn out we'd met briefly at my home break a couple weeks prior, he turned out to be quite a nice guy and very interesting - a German photographer named Marian living and working in NY.

After he helped me pack up the bolt in cardboard for the subway ride home, he was kind enough to take his quiver down off a high shelf, and here (pictured below) are three more Lightning Bolts! At right is a classic Vespa he and a friend dragged 5 stories up a narrow Chinatown staircase to his studio apt for restoration.



My new acquisition has a number of layers and unsightly (though watertight) repairs. The green bolt and pinlines are made of some kind of thin, very strong tape that's bonded tightly to the top. A thin layer of resin below the tape is an "Ed Angulo/Hawaii" decal. Who knows what the story is behind this board? But it's clearly been around for a while, and as I'm a rider not a curator, at 7'1 x 19.5 x 3, my new friend looks like it's begging for some big hurricane waves. And I hope that maybe, just maybe, on the right day, my feet will feel a soft whisper from 1975 Hawaii.

Wednesday, a day at Rockaway and en evening in the Lower East Side

Freaky Born Wings and I met up for an optimistic trip to Rockaway this past Wednesday. The report was calling for 2+3 feet with poor to fair conditions. That is a remarkable improvement over FLAT!

8:00 a.m. there are surfer in the water and every now and again something resembling a wave rolled through. Freaky Born and I were hopeful.

I wish I had pics from our session. Our optimism and patents payed off. Freaky Born got the wave of the morning. Dropping in early on a nice three footer and trimming out all the way in to the amazement of the surfers that just got out of the water. As I was watching Freaky Born trim out I caught a glimpse of the dropping jaws of our land bound friends. The ocean was being a bit of a prankster that day. Swells would start to jack up only to disappear into dribble. We did have a moment, it lasted about twenty minutes where things seemed to line up. The waves were slightly bigger and breaking a little nicer. I managed to get a couple of solid rides in on the Finline MP. Freaky Born was getting wave after wave on an old Plastic Fantastic longboard. I gave it a shot but anything over seven feet is hard for me at this point. I plan to work on that. Having a longboard is a must if you call the east coast home.

After our session I drove back to 90th while Freaky Born biked with his surf rack enabled beach bike. It's super rad!

The Plastic Fantastic!

That night we met up and went to the New York premeir of Sigh|Sound directed by Mikey DeTemple. I’ve been waiting for this film to come to a big screen in NYC for some time and glad I waited to watch it in a theater for the first time. It’s a stunning film with a great sounds track. There is no dialog, just surfing and music. It’s a surf film in the purest sense. The locations surfed include Central America, Maritime Provinces, New York, Bahamas, Baja Mexico and Main. Notice two common location are left out, that’s right no Hawaii or California. Mikey is a New Yorker and made a film that shows the quality and variety of waves to be had up this way while also scouting more tropical locations. Which is what us east coasters do when the surf is flat. I have watched a lot of surf films but this one stands out because it goes beyond the subject of surfing and into that which it is titled Sight|Sound. Even if your not a surfer this is a great film to experience.

SIGHT|SOUND from High Seas Films on Vimeo.

Afterwards there was a Q&A with Mikey, he is on the right.

Tracking

I have to see this film. Single finz!

tracking a new surfing film by jimmy james kinnaird - trailer from James Kinnaird on Vimeo.

Tracking - a new surfing film by Jimmy James Kinnaird

featuring Ellis, Ericson, Jason Salisbury, Niah and Mia

supported by Deus.

Heavily influenced by the transitional period in surfing , specifically 69, 70, 71..
follow our voyage as Ellis and Salsa hand-shape single fin trackers and surf them through wild indonesia with there gals.
"tap into the source and feel the juice"

via Endless Wave blog.

Shark Jumps Surfer

This is my home brake in FL. I can testify that it is really sharky.

SUP is the call of the day.

If the waves continue to stay down I may just have to break down and get an SUP.

Dude was hanging out way outside and snagged a nice little peeler. You can't see it here but he went up to the nose and hung out for a while.

Building Surfing? Yes!

Maybe, for a minute, you entertained the idea of snowbank surfing? How about skyscraper surfing?

This is from my artist/dancer friend Gayle Madeira's blog, where you can see more great images that she draws on her office window overlooking the lipstick building, like the glass matte-painters of pre-digital effects. Truly have a look, it's great stuff.

Mollusk @ Makers Market in Socrites Sculpture Park

Today C and I cruzed up the way to check out the booth Mollusk put together for the Makers Market in Socrites Sculpture Park.



The green board is an 6'0 Anderson Farberow Slid+Glide



On the far left is a Brownfish hand plane. Super lite and smooth.




Tees! I have too many Mollusk tees. I can't help it. Even C has one.



Yum and yum! On the left is a 5'8 Hydrodynamica channel mini Simmons. On the left is a 7'1 Fineline PHD.



Channels on the mini.



Keels on the mini.




Hand crafted hand planes by Danny Hess.




Super carvy and rip able Two Birds Fly skate boards. They are made from repurposed decks. Smaller that your average skateboard but quick and carvy for city streets. Looking forward to adding one to my quiver.

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Location:Long Island City, NY