Two Mid-Lenght Simm's, 8'2" & 7'6"

This 8'2" Simm-21 with a 4", chambered balsa stringer is for Dan Wenger of L.A.

This big wood, ultra-light and chambered, produced a board that is very nearly the same weight as one from a blue blank with a 1/4" stock stringer!

Dan's fin set 

This 7'-6" Simm is for my friend Geoff Bergen in Conneticut.

Geoff's fin set. 

Pavel Fish Fins

This set I just finished for Rich is going on a caramel colored fish.  I'm sure the finished board will look amazing.   But then, it's hard to go wrong when nature has already done most of the artwork.

Wood: Primavera

Wood Bling

This tri-fin set will go on an Al Merrick gun for Larry Fuller, but not just any gun.  This gun is shaped from solid Sequoia Redwood.  Larry procured the wood and Al is the shaper.  The wood for the board is from a 4000 year old Sequoia redwood that feel in the late 50's or early 60's.  The permit to mill and remove the lumber from the fallen tree was issued in 1962.  It was the last permit of its kind to be issued in the redwood forest.  When this tree was alive and standing it was taller than both the general Sherman and the President trees which are currently the tallest trees in the redwood forest.

Template: C.I. Gun  

Woods:  Redwood burl, Quilted maple with pinlines of Flame koa and redwood burl veneers.

The set below is for another Al Marrick / Larry Fuller Sequoia Redwood gun.  This Particular board was shipped to Washington D.C. to be auctioned off at a special event benefiting the Wounded Warriors Foundation.

Woods: Redwood burl, quilted maple, Flame koa veneer.

Two Simm-21 fin sets.

The first set is for an 8'2" Simm for Dan Wenger from L.A.  The board will have a 4" balsa stringer, opaque resin panels in a light bronze tone outside of the stringer, separated by 1/8" black resin pinlines.

This second set is for a 7'6" Simm for Geoff Bergen in Bristol Connecticut.

The board will have a 1/4" cedar stringer and a full tint in California gold.

New Life for a Classic '62 Gordie

A couple of years ago my brother Frank brought this early 60's Gordie to my house.  He had found it at a garage sale and purchased it for .......ten dollars.  Frank left it with me and asked if I would do some ding repair whenever I had the chance.  I immediately admired the board for the memories it evoked of my early surfing career and for its classic style, including the wide balsa and redwood T-band stringer, the curved outboard stringers and the custom fin that so identified the elements of surfboard design that were emerging during the first few years of the 60's.   The second board of my young surfing career in 1963 was a Gordie, a 3-stringer with sky blue resin panels on the outside rails and the same template fin, with a different glue-up pattern, as on this board.  I wanted it!

Fortunately, Frank was not similarly attached to the board as I.  I traded Frank a Simm-21 as I recall for the Gordie and it became mine.  This board was very straight and solid with no delam issues and the stringers and logo were in superb condition.  It was a great candidate for a like-new restoration.

So that is what I did, including Gordies original fin.   Check it out.

"Adaptive Surfing" Vehicle #2

I created the first adaptive surfboard as a contribution to the Wounded Warriors Surf Camp in Del Mar, California.  It was designed Specifically for the amputee soldiers having lost one or both legs that still wanted to take on the challenge of surfing with the hopes of enjoying its life-lifting fulfillment.  It had occurred to me as I spent time at the camp that struggling with the longerboards was certainly providing a daunting challenge, but what seemed missing was the pure enjoyment of becomming one with the wave or being able to easily control the board to acheive that end.  As most surfers have always known, standing is cool....but it is not the key to feeling the exileration and freedom that wave riding can provide (Ask Greenough).  The key I think is hooking up with the motion, speed and energy of the wave and having controll and command of your experience within it.

For those who have been left without the weight, leverage and propultion that most of us take for granted, the manipulating (simply getting it pointed from east to west for instance) from our lower extremeties becomes a much more difficult task.  The shorter, wider and more bouyant platform allows ease of manitulation of the board in the water while allowing the board to be paddled and catch waves without assistance much more easily.

Rusty stated simply in one of his surfboard-technology articles not long ago, "shorter and wider is faster".

Rusty was right.  Those elements, combined with the right planshape and rocker, produce unparalleled speed in average surf conditions.  It was my hope for this design that those elements along with some added control devices would reign king and provide the adaptive surfers their ability to connect with the wave, its speed and it's motion and provide the same exileration and joy the we all chase every time we paddle out.

Based on the reports I getting.....It seems to be working!

The board pictured in this post I shaped and outfitted for Julie Carruthers, a determined athlete and surfer who lost her leg in her battle with bone cancer some 13 years ago.  This board was made possible throught the efforts and generousity of K2 Adventure Foundation www.k2adventures.org.

Special thanks to Kevin Cherilla and Kristen Sandquist from K2.

Julie, as my friend Josh Hall would say, "Slide the glide!"

Aloha,

JC