Played out

Played out...

The expression, written on Facebook: "Yewww"
The word über used in any context at any time... anywhere- ever.
This: "I know, right?"

Thank you.
Goodnight.

Board for Sale: 8'6 Rusty, Wing Round Pin

My friend Kelly's got a sweet board for sale. This thing's pristine, Kelly takes great care of his boards and turns them over frequently so you know this one's got very little use on it. Check it out:

Here's what you need to know: Custom shaped Rusty Stand Up Board in excellent condition- water tight, no dings... pristine, brah.

If you're in Southern California and you can get down here to San Diego I suggest you do so- this thing will go fast. Here's some more info on the board from Kelly:

$900

Rusty custom

Wing round pin

8-6 x 29 x 4

EPS/Epoxy, light with 6+4+4oz center patch, 6 bottom

2+1 Futures, Liftsup handle, DaKine pad

Contact Kelly at ecitykelly@gmail.com 

See it at Emerald City

1118 Orange Ave
Coronado CA 92118

619-435-6677

 

Packed, racked... and, once again, it's late.

Always the same thing- doesn't matter how much prep I do, the night before a big trip I'm always up late. Here's the scoop, tomorrow I'm taking 25 highschool kids camping along the Santa Barbara coast. It's a science field trip but I did manage to rack up five stand up boards- I want these kids to give it a shot. The surf report is actually looking pretty good and the weather supposed to be perfect. Who knows? Maybe the little right hander that we're camping in front of might actually come to life. Wouldn't that be cool- a combo surftrip/field trip. We'll see what happens.

Spicolli-san: Jon Kinley's New Infinity Rip Stick

My buddy Jon Kinley up in Dana Point kills it at DogPatch. He's a style master and you'll know it's him because he's the guy laughing his ass off out there. The guy stand up paddles for all the right reasons- and the stoke and attitude has rubbed off on his kid, CD, too. CD's the guy busting the airs and ripping full rail cutties on his super short Infinity stando. Here's a couple shots and captions of both the Kinley's, CD ripping and Jon showing us his new custom board... Spicolli-san. Love it!

Here's the younger Kinley absolutely shralping in tropical waters... I will not name the spot but I did have a nice conversation with David Boehne about it and it's on my shortlist (Hey Jon, let's get our asses down there!).

And Papa Kinley with his new stick. Dude, where's the checkered slip ons?

Here's Jon's thinking behind the shape:

8-5 x 28 x 4 TL Carver but with a Blur/Thumb tail-nice hard rail at the tail. Went with 5 box so I could go Thruster or Quad-love the new smaller I-3 Boehne Bros Fins-fast and loose. Pretty standard rocker-this will be my better conditions board and there are some beach/point breaks around that get fast and steep so just enough rocker to bail me out of a late takeoff but not too much to scrub the boards speed and drive. Slight to  moderate Vee near the tail to make it pivot real nice on the turns and bring the nose around fast-pretty flat mid board.

Bottom shot.

Frickin' sweet spray...

And a little ride report from Jon:

Took it out at mid-high tide dogpatch and still caught waves-very stable. I'm 175-180 so I wanted enough foam that I didn’t struggle just standing there. There are 2 leash plugs that I run Kevlar sailing string loops in so if I walk  long distance I can carry the board by holding onto the paddle-less forearm pump traveling long distance than carrying with the hand well.

Fantastic board-Infinity knows their stuff- Go get one!!

PauHana Adventure Paddling... stay tuned.

Wow- just talked to Todd at PauHana and found out that the guy got wacked by two or three different diseases from his paddle trip into the equatorial tropics (what the hell is wood rash poisoning?). Evidently, team PauHana has some cool stuff brewing and it's obvious they'll suffer to get the goods (dude, double pneumonia... are you kidding me?). Here's a shot of a project/quest/race they're involved with- I'm sure you'll be hearing more about it soon (at least I'm keeping my fingers crossed):

Forehand schwack, check. Backhand schwack, check: Ted Robinson and Peter Brouillet and the 1,2 combo

Just got an email from my shaper Tim Stamps... seems like he's been getting back up to speed too, chilling out down under- where it's summer. Anyway, he passed along these killer photos from pro snapper Peter Brouille of Ted Robinson just killing it on his Stamps Ninja Bump. By the way, I've been riding a slightly larger version than the one Ted is on and I can attest to the board's killer nature... loving that board right now. Check out the shots. 

I dig the how clean the water is coming off the swallow tail here. More than anything speed is life when you want to really hit the lip cleanly and you can tell Ted's blazed a speedy little line right into this rebound. Smack! Photo: Brouillet

Anybody can hit the lip on their forehand- punching it on your backside is another story. Good backside surfer is the telltale of the truly talented surfer. Take notes and check out how far back on the pad Ted's foot is... get the foot back and the turn becomes a little bit more manageable. Photo: Brouillet

Diversions: Dirt Surfing

Well- at least that's what I call it. Dirt surfing is trail riding. My "surf" spots? California's killer deserts and OHV areas. I've mentioned this before but the whole moto thing is new to me. I've been learning a lot about riding and being safe and when the weather has been cold (a lot lately) and the surf crap (right, Jon Kinley?) I've been heading out over the hills to get in some dirt surfing sessions. 

Racking up... with a DRZ400s instead of a 9'0 Stamps... kind of the same feeling, kind of the same anticipation, a lot of the same excitement.

Surprise #1: Riding moto trails is pretty technical- it takes skill to ride smoothly (kind of like developing your style in surfing- you don't want to look like a barney). 

Cool to do with my brother Mike- he lives in Santa Cruz, Ca so to Jawbone OHV area it's about five hours for him and four hours for me- a nice half-way spot for two brothers to have fun and catch up on life. And rip around on cool motos- check out his RAD KTM 400 EXC.

Surprise #2: Trail riding for a day will leave you worn out. Riding motos is physical and by the end of the day, I'm ready to pass out. After a couple cold ones around the camp fire, of course. 

You can get wayyyy back out into the desert- and it's is beautiful. I'm a slow, boring rider- I just like to get out and site-see. Kind of like cruising a 12' stando down the coast, just taking it all in and feeling it. Cool stuff.

Linking turns, cutback after cutback. Mind surfing the dirt.

Surprise #3: California has some beautiful spots to ride- it's nice to get off the coast for a little bit and range out. Dirt surfing is like stand up- you're free to go off and explore. Freedom. Love it. 

And then there are the cool little watering holes... Jawbone Store.

Hiatus

Been awhile since I've sat down and gave you a shot of what's been going on in my paddle life. Took a little break. You can kind of blame it on mainland Mexico. Once you've been surfing down there in the middle of winter, you don't feel very fired up to jump right back into your normal, 54 degree Fahrenheit, surfing life. 

A good sign. A drying wetsuit hanging outside my bedroom door, sunshine and light winds- time to get back into the groove of surfing things.

I guess you could also say I just needed a little time-out from paddling. I don't know about you but in anything I do, I reach a saturation point where it all starts to feel the same. I'd go for a surf, the waves would be kind of blah and I'd find myself getting stale, every turn kind of a mirror of the ten before it. When that starts happening I know it's time to back off and find new inspiration. 

Same thing happened to me here. I'd write a piece, post a pic... but the excitement and joy wasn't quite there. Don't be too gnarly on me- there have been over a thousand posts put up onto this site... almost all of them penned by yours truly. But, same story, I needed to take a little vacation for the site- get re-energized, refueled. 

Which is what happened today. Let me set the stage: sunny, high tide, building little southern hemi blip of a swell- just enough to put little crumbly, right and left wedges up onto the beach. Sometimes you just know in your guts that YOU ARE OUT THERE. There's no weighing the options, no teeter tottering back and forth about that lawn you have to mow... you don't even hesitate, you just react. Well, that was me. Nasty cold and all, I just bolted home. Grabbed the 9'0 x 29" Stamps Ninja Bump that I "borrowed/stole" from my buddy Steve and paddled out. Jeez did it feel good out there. 

Very small, really clean- dang fun.

The board was the perfect choice, more of a longboard shape with all the Tim Stamps double barrel, hyper-turbodrive, bottom contours... kind of like a log on steroids wrapped in a K-car, I'm-just-here-to-get-the-groceries skin. You know, a board with that hot librarian kind of look. I surfed ten waves, carving bottom turns that zanged off the fin flex, stalling for the pocket and cross stepping it up to the nose. It felt like coming home. 

And thus the wettie, slowly drying in the court yard. Swinging in the wind. My surfing flag of victory. I'm definitely back.

Mikey's Board Room - Lighted SUP Project

Going to the Plus One factory is like a kid going to Disneyland. From the rack of expermental boards, customer rides, and the killer shaping machine, these guys have it down. Everything stays in house, from the day the blank arrives to the day it leaves in your ride.


One of the many Plus one Projects, this one here is an experimental Asymm surfboard. These guys are always down to experiment with new technology, reinvent old designs, and really like to push the limit to see where they can go next.


The crew are definately stepping it up this time with their latest out of the box project.

When George told me what the plan was for this board, I knew this was going to be my first Board Room write up. Lights in a SUP? If anyone would be willing to do it, it would be George and Joe. The customer wanted to use this board off his dock in San Diego Bay at night. The lights are capable of 7 hours at full intensity on a single battery charge and will be set up to flash at I believe 3 flashes a second to attract night life. To keep from overheating, the lights are set to turn of when they reach 130 degrees to keep bad things from happening.


That's the light housing, mocked up in scrap divinycell. The lighting system is custom, from the same manufacturer who built the lights for the underwater vehicles that explored the Titanic. The lights are capable of lighting up 15' of water.


Pre-glassing. You can see the three divinycell inserts in the board. Divinycell is the trademark name of PVC foam. PVC foam doesn't soak up water like EPS and is stronger. George and Joe used the divinycell to reinforce the area where the lights are being installed for strength and to keep water from being absorbed into the EPS foam core of the board if damage to the glass around the lights were to occur.


Post glassing, definately a work of art...


You have to be nuts to want to take a router to a board like that...


The light holes drilled out.


The light housings getting mocked up.


Test fitting the light housing.


Glued up and ready for glassing.


First layer of carbon laid up.


The hatch opening that will house all the components.


The hardware: More about this later.



I can't wait to see the end results. Still much more to do with the wiring and reinforcement of the light housings. Keep checking in for more updates and its first ride in the water!

Mike P - mike@surfcraftint.com

Mikey's Board Room: The Stand Up Experience

Back in 2006 I was living on the Big Island of Hawaii, Kona to be exact, and there wasn’t much surf while I was there. I was cruising around checking the surf at Banyans and that is where I saw stand up paddling for the first time. I introduced myself to the paddler after watching him on a the board for almost an hour and found out that he owned an SUP board company, Hypr Nalu. They were some of the first production boards back then, complete with flashy graphics, shiny paint and what I thought to be some pretty aggressive designs.

Hoping on for the first time was a challenge, it wasn't very wide, under 29” for sure, but I was determined to get the hang of it. I didn’t do much surfing while I was there but I did a ton of distance paddling. If you haven’t been to the islands, the underwater sights are amazing, I was paddling with everything from little brightly colored fish to sea turtles. I fell in love with Stand Up.

When I got back to San Diego 6 months after my first SUP experience, I did my research and found THE SUP guy at the time, Steve Boehne of Infinity Surfboards. Steve had experience building big boards from his days building tandem surf boards and had a great transition into Stand Up in the early years becuase of it. A deal was struck and I came home with a 10’6 Infinity Ku Ku Hoe Nose rider and an Infinity Ottertail paddle. I wish I had pictures of the thing, it was heavy for today’s standards, no handle, constructed bomb proof, and was a tank on the waves, but it was a blast!!! It still lives on at a local lifeguard station as physical training equipment.

Fast forward to 2012, I’ve been on more boards than I can count, seen a ton of different constructions, built boards, been to overseas factories, paddled in amazing places and worked with some great people in the industry. The experiences I’ve had and the contacts I’ve made over the years has turned me on to builders doing great things for the sport of SUP. So I asked John if I could do write ups on all the different boards, designs, and creations I’ve run across over the years, SUP or not, and with his blessing Mikey’s Board Room has been created!

Stay tuned for the next installment of Mikey’s Board Room!

Wow- haven't seen this one in a long time...

Interesting to look back at the posts and see what we were riding and how we were surfing two, three even four or five years ago. Check out this video- I think it's "old school" already. But it's still cool:

Works Over: PauHana Paddles (and surfs)!

One of the great things about having this site is getting to meet the site sponsors. Especially, when the guys are surf-crazy, like me. Todd and Royce, the owner/founders of PauHana Surf Supply definitely have their priorities straight when it comes to water time. Here's how it went with these guys: 

Email from me: "Hey guys, I'm going to be in L.A. tomorrow do you think we could meet- maybe go for a surf." 

PauHana: "Yep, we'll bring all the boards and paddles- see you there!"

Wow, that was easy. Pau hana means, "after work" but for these guys- testing their boards and paddles in the surf is all part of it- so "work" includes surfing. Genius.

PauHana: Royce Hanamaikai (Left) and Todd Caranto (Right). We met up at a surf spot close to PauHana headquarters. The surf was small and fairly clean- perfect to try out a bunch of their boards.

One thing I quickly learned about these two guys is that they're always working on improving their product line. I was really blown away by the paddles they're developing with German kayak manufacturer Robson. Check this one out:

These paddles are going to be sweet. They are just as light as carbon without the brittleness of the material or the clunkiness of fiberglass. Todd was wacking the thing on the rocks and basically shoveling gravel with it- laughing the whole time and telling me how the material was some space age impregnated foam. Kayak stuff. I've seen the damage that a race paddle can go through when you're clacking blades with a bunch of stock-class racers right next to you- this may be a solution. The colors were pretty damn cool too. The guys are hoping to bring out this PauHana/Robson paddle this year- I'm hoping I'm in line to test one out.

At PauHana, Todd started designing boards back in 2007 when they were stuck with a couple of one-off stand up designs that basically sucked. After paddling the noodle thin stand ups and falling all over the place it became obvious that the boards could be designed better. The shortcomings of those first boards led to their best selling model, The Big EZ. This thing is giant... and wide. The Big EZ is perfect for learning to stand up paddle, for rentals or for just goofing around on. The board was a hit and was swooped up by Sandals Resorts as their go-to rental board. It's cool that PauHana can legitimately claim that their boards are all over the Caribbean with every Sandals Resort holding at least two or three of these big boys. 

The Big EZ Hawaiian- a great board to have around for when your linebacker cousin shows up from Idaho.

The two boards I enjoyed the most that day were their trainer/racers. The CrossFit and their smaller trainer. The CrossFit would be a great board for a weekend warrior racer who was also doing some coastal cruising or adventure paddling (did I just make up a new paddling niche?). I zipped around on the CrossFit and found it to be very stable and quick, especially coming downwind. The smaller version is more suited to a smaller paddler and would be perfect for somebody who didn't have the room or desire to transport and store a full, stock class race board.

The boys brought out a full quiver of PauHana shapes, the two I enjoyed the most were the CrossFit and the small trainer board in the background. Check out Royce- he's stoked! How sweet is that die-cut deckpad that will be available on all PauHana boards- pretty darn cool looking.

I really got a kick out of all the ideas that the PauHana crew was hatching/scheming. These guys are definitely innovators. I'm sworn to secrecy, so I can't mention all of the projects and products that are going to be brought to market but I can say that for PauHana stand up paddling goes way beyond designing boards and paddles. A big push for the company will be into the realm of river paddling. Their two riders, Nick Troutman and Emily Jackson are dyed in the wool freestyle kayaking super heroes- they are both World Champions! Todd has designed specialized boards for these two to compete on this season- the designs are the reverse of what you'd expect in a surfboard. Kind of hard for me to understand- but hey, if you've got two of the best in the world willing to help you out, you don't turn it down. 

Like I said before, a highlight of this whole internet/blog site deal is getting to meet the living humans behind the keyboards and computers. And when I get a chance to actually surf with people like Todd and Royce and see how passionate they are about our sport, I feel really good about having them as a site sponsor. With guys like this, paddlesurfing is in good hands... now go back to work!

Paddling and Surfing with the Boga Boys and Gals (in the land of the great white toothy guy)

Got a chance to snag a few bumpy ones with the Boga crew up in Nor Cal. We've been having our own white shark problems here in Southern San Diego- these guys live with it on a day-to-day basis. The spot we paddled felt sharky (oh, that's right there've been confirmed shark attacks there) but that didn't stop the gnarly water filmer from hopping right in and swimming around in that living pot of seafood stew. Anyways, I am amazed at the what the put together here- I mean I really dig the vibe of this clip. Pretty rad what real pro video guys can do- damn cool. Check it out:

Ummm- whoa.

Check out what my friend Jeff Wallis photographed yesterday:

Jeff snapped this guy lurking right outside the break at my home beach... a few local guys in the water saw it too.

This was posted on the beach today... made me think twice about paddling out. Did anybody hear the dinner bell ring?

Kelly Kraus King of the Cobbles

Poached this shot of Kelly Kraus- northern Baja spot we call Cobbles...

It's cold...

I live in San Diego, land of palm trees, golden sand beaches and girls in bikinis. Well, not lately. Yesterday, I got into my truck, 5:30am, frickin' sheet of ice on the windshield. I hit the wipers and they just shushhed and grated across the thing. WTF- am in Fargo for god's sake? There's good surf in the winter but it ain't easy.

That J.O.B....

Anybody else get the Solspot So-Cal short range forecast for tomorrow (Friday, 13th)? I'm getting the feeling that it's going to be FIRING at the beach... sounds like a crossed up swell, the right tide, low wind... hmmmm.... sometimes you just get that feeling.

Solspot's a great, free, surf forecast site... check it out.

Problem is always the J.O.B., fortunately I live and work about four blocks from the beach so when I've got a little sneak away time I always make a run down to the beach to check it out. Yesterday, I scored four super fun, head high, beach break grinders... had to wait a bit for a corner among all the closed out walls coming through but I got those waves and that made my day a winner. I think it's going to happen tomorrow- if you've got a little window of opportunity to sneak away... do it and don't tell me how it was, I don't want to know!

All is not quite lost... (but most of it is!)

First of all, thank you everybody for the tips, offers of help and sympathetic thoughts about my hard drive disaster. Yep- I'm the bonehead who will now go right out and buy a back up drive for everything on the thing once I get it back. Promise. 

But in the spirit of the New Year (you know, a fresh start and all...) I'm just gonna get over it and move on. On the bright side, I did find that I had a couple of photos still on SD cards that I hadn't downloaded yet. And, I'm going to take my GoPro SD card and see if they can pull any of the clips off of it. I mounted up the good ol' paddle cam (remember that from way back when?) and shot some cool clips of the wave at the Point. You'd laugh at how long of a ride that wave offers up. So we'll keep fingers crossed and see what happens. 

A lonely left and right. We actually bypassed this spot on our way to the main event peak (this is a mainland Mex wave)- in retrospect, I think we should have charged it. Damn, that wave looks fun.

On the paddle surfing side of things: Damn, did everybody score waves these last ten days? My email and phone were popping with reports of giant bluebird swoopers all up and down the coast. At our own  big wave spot, I was told that Kelly Kraus was killing it on his custom Rusty stand up paddle gun. Local boys Kiwi and Stuki reported that Kelly was waaaay out the back hunting down the biggest, nasty ones and then legitimately tearing them apart with surgical slices and gashes, Hannibal Lecter style. Steve King had his fingers humming, texting me like a madman about how good the Cliffs have been and with reports of all the phantom, Northern Baja reefs coming to life. That was a good run- can't wait for a bit more... anybody got their crystal ball warmed up?

Ah! Meltdown... !

Well it happened- lost all of my photos (and some damn cool writing projects I had partially completed) to a hard drive melt down on my MacBook Pro. Thing just stopped working- now all I get is the little, spinning thing with a prohibited sign above it on start up. SUCKS! I ran the diagnostics/start up disc that came with it and it says there's a hardware problem so I'm off to an appointment at the local Apple store to see what can be done (it's not even a year old). 

Really hope I don't lose everything off the drive. What? Of course not. Who backs things up these days? Oh, yeah... everybody does. Someday I'll learn. Some great stuff could be lost: photos, go-pro footage and a play-by-play guide I'd been working on for surfing mainland Mex. We'll see what happens- keep your fingers crossed for me.

On the plus side, I found my new favorite fin set up for head high and under surf: Nectar Thruster set from Futures. It's in their 2012 line and I'm fired up on it. As you know each board and each wave has their own set of demands- for the 8'4 I'm on now in fun, little waves- this set is it. More to come. I hope.

Merry Christmas... 2011!

Go to the beach, surf, boogey board, body surf or just build sand castles...

Christmas Morning