The Green Room

With all the hype surrounding the finals of the Cold Water Classic, we almost forgot about another Northern California surfer competing against the world’s best the very same weekend (October 13/14). However, this contest didn’t take place in the water, but in the shaping bay.

Master shaper Marc Andreini of San Mateo represented Northern California in the inaugural “Tribute to the Masters Shape-off” competition held in conjunction with the Sacred Craft Consumer Surfboard Expo at the Del Mar Fairgrounds in Southern California. Read the surf column on Andreini here. Over 4,000 surfboard lovers attended the two-day Surfboard Expo.

While the word around town this week was that Andreini’s shape should have gotten the nod, Florida’s Ricky Carroll took top honors and the $1,000 winner’s check Sunday in the competition honoring Mike Diffenderfer. Aside from Andreini, the Floridian beat out master craftsmen Tim Phares (L.A.), Terry Martin (Orange County), Jim Phillips (San Diego) and Scott Ray, who traveled all the way from the Great Lakes to participate.

Above: Andreini with self-shaped “Hot Curl” boards, the old-school redwood planks ridden in the 1930s and 40s. Andreini is known throughout California as an authority on retro single fin boards, from the seventies and back.

“I’m just very, very stoked. What a great competition,” Carroll said in a statement, upon receiving his first place prize check in front of the packed crowd of surfers at the Expo hall. “This ‘Diff’ was a unique board to replicate, and all of the other shapers did a great job as well. I had made Cheyne Horan a few boards with a similar bottom as this ‘Diff’ back in the Lazor Zap days, but the ‘S’ deck and classic ‘Diff’ rails really made this challenging.”

Andreini was considered by many to be the favorite heading into the competition because of his extensive knowledge of the designs of Diff’s era and his work with SC shaper Doug Haut, a close friend of Diff’s.

Kudos to Carroll for shaping a beautiful blank, although it’s a little ironic that a guy from Florida wins a shaping contest honoring the late Mike Diffenderfer, who’s single fin pintails became the stuff of legend after proving themselves in the powerful Hawaiian surf. It’s safe to say that Carroll’s board will probably never be ridden to its true potential in Florida–unless of course someone decides to paddle it out during a rare massive hurricane swell. Double overhead Reef Road perhaps?

Below: Diff eyeing another nearly completed semigun shape that most likely wound up tracing a big bottom turn along the face of a heaving Hawaiian wave at someplace like Hanalei Bay or Sunset Beach.