Joel and Sam's Excellent SB Alaia Adventure

Long overdue, thanks Joel!

Hey Dude,

We made the board mostly at my dad's shop. Finished and oiled it up here. Took it out twice that week with my bro and it was cool. the board felt good, and got slippery in the water. I caught a few prone, and Sam caught a bunch and stood on quite a few. many times when he started to stand up it would do a 180 by the time he was up, but he was able to ride it normally on a few. Then we reshaped in Fallbrook again last weekend. Made the curves underneath more pronounced, and gave it a fish tail. I took it out on Tuesday, I think in some fun shorebreak at pesky's(in IV close to campus). I was paddling into some, and jumping in to others. Then on a nosedive it hit sand, and when it came up there was a chunk missing from the nose. It broke at a weak spot we knew was there. Anyway, I'll cut about a foot off the nose, and it should be about my height 6'3". After the first day we tried it, Sam wanted to get started on the other blank to make a board about that long with a fish tail, but decided to wait and ride this one a little more, And I've been eager to try a shorter one too, so I think it's fine. Sam's in one of these pictures. There's also a picture of a bar of surfboard wax Dean(my dad) and I made from pine resin we collected around the property, beeswax, I think that my dad got from the property too, and some coconut oil. It's not supposed to plasticise the linseed oil on the board the way regular wax can I guess. It says"wholesome goodness" from the cat food container we cast it in. Ha ha.

Joel's Single Fin Repair

Joel in Santa Barbara:

Went out yesterday with Sam(my brother),

Caught a few tsunamis, It was pretty fun, bigger than normal, but nothing too crazy. The surges made it look like low tide one minute, and high tide a few minutes later. My first board, that I tried to learn on 15 years ago is a 7'7" single fin. I think rounded tail, or maybe rounded pin, from maybe the 70's or 80's. It had a wooden, I think mahogany sandwich with clear stuff in the middle, glassed in fin. It got broken some time back, but just bought a cheapo fin for it, waiting for a fin box. Sam showed me his new short board he just shaped. Looks nice to me, but what do I know? He's saving his pennies to get it glassed, or the new style which I think is epoxy.

Hung out with Sam, his girlfriend, and her dad last night, he heard some good stories. Back in the day, He flew from Texas to Hawaii for a vacation, and ended up staying for 11+ years to surf. Lived on Maui, and rode all kinds of boards, mostly long boards I think, including a board with holes in it that would squirt you in the face when you rode it.

evolving...

2003 Wategos, Byron Bay with Domenico and a sweet 9'2" longboard that I bought for a month. It snapped at Tallow Beach on a powerful wipeout. My pal Andreas, a German working and traveling in Oz, drove me to an industrial park outside of town in his van where I got the board repaired and got a chance to visit Mctavish Surfboards.

2006 Santa Barbara. This will probably be the last custom board I'll ever have shaped. Hunt Customs 8' egg. It was a blast but my heart was stolen by a Neumatic surfmat.

just remembering my past boards this evening. funny how length gave way to surfmats and bodysurfing.