The Green Room

Heads up! M10 Surfboards currently has a new batch of premium series model surfboards available at their showroom. For the first time this year, shaper Geoff Rashe and crew have caught up to demand from custom orders and have had the opportunity to get some stock boards out on the rack at the showroom, all available at a reasonable price.

In addition, the shop has a plethora of used boards from other top labels such as Rusty, …Lost, Mayhem, Stretch and Channel Islands, all still in good condition and available at great deals. The used boards are piling up as surfers around town take advantage of M10’s trade-in incentive: bring in a used board in good condition and M10 will offer you credit towards a brand new M10 surfboard in exchange.

Swing by the M10 factory [401 Ingalls St. at Swift St. on the Westside] and see general manager Marco Foreman to find out if your next magic board just might be in stock…

"What you need?" 5'6" Hogfish to 8'0" guns, M10 manager Marco Foreman has got you covered.

On Saturday, Santa Cruz board builder Ward Coffey was locked inside a Southern California shaping bay and asked to replicate a classic 1979 Bill Caster surfboard in an hour and a half.

Today, his shape will vie with five others to be declared the winner of the second annual Tribute to the Masters Shape-off at the Sacred Craft Consumer Surfboard Expo in Del Mar. Each of the five boards will have been crafted by an esteemed shaper representing a different surfing region from both the east and west coasts

Last year, San Mateo’s Marc Andreini represented Northern California in the shape-off. This year the honor was bestowed upon Coffey.

“I’ve known Ward for a long time,” event producer Scott Bass said. “He came down last year to cheer on Marc Andreini. Santa Cruz has so many facets to its surf culture, but one of the greatest things about the town is there’s tons of great shapers up there. [Coffey] is one of them. He’s totally into hand-crafted surfboards.”

Even if he hadn’t been asked to participate in the shape-off, Coffey said he wouldn’t miss a gathering like the Sacred Craft surfboard expo. Last year he was one of the few shapers from up north who made the eight-hour drive south to attend the inaugural event.

“From a shaping point of view, and surfing point of view, you can walk into anyone’s booth and check out a board and know where to surf it and when to surf it,” said

Coffey, who made the trip along with fellow Santa Cruz shaper Michel Junod. “You basically want to ride everything. It’s like, ‘Where’s the wax, I’m ready to go!”I got to see Terry Martin [Orange County master shaper of 45 years] shape. I got to talk story with him, discuss new ideas. I came away from the show feeling like I’m walking in the footsteps of the masters.”

Coffey shaped his first board in 1979, a year after relocating to Santa Cruz from Alameda. But it wasn’t until 1983 that he began his formal introduction to the craft, under the tutelage of Arrow Surfboards’ Bob Pearson. Coffey was surfing out at Four Mile when Pearson noticed Coffey’s self-shaped board. After admiring the green shaper’s work and comparing notes, Pearson invited Coffey to come by his shop and watch him shape some boards. Coffey wound up working in the Arrow surfboard factory for the next 10 years, learning each step of the production process, from shaping to glassing to sanding.

“The time I spent at Arrow, I would hang that on the wall as a proud time of my life,” Coffey said.

In 1990, he left Arrow to start Ward Coffey Surfboards. Now 48, Coffey continues to shape all his boards by hand. Nearly every one is a custom order from his loyal following of surfers between Big Sur and San Francisco.

The five other shapers competing with Coffey in this year’s Tribute to the Masters Shape-off include: Matt Calvani [Los Angeles], Timmy Patterson [Dana Point], Chris Christenson [San Diego], Ned McMahon [San Diego] and defending champion Ricky Carroll [Florida]. Carroll’s winning design last year replicated a classic Mike Diffenderfer shape.

This year, the winner receives $1,000 and a full-page ad in Surfing Magazine.

Whether or not his shape is selected as the winner today, Coffey said experiencing the camaraderie and new ideas spilling out of the Sacred Craft surfboard expo was the real prize.

“In a nutshell, we have a really small industry, and it was started here in California,” Coffey said. “The people who have been doing it a long time, we’re all craftsmen, we’re all artists. When we get together and look at the stuff that’s made, you realize how special it is. We make the coolest toys around.”

Logjam logs stand at attention. photo: Neil Pearlberg.

Few surfing contests are better suited for small waves than the Big Stick Surfing Association Logjam.

If a standard shortboard surf contest had attempted to run this weekend at Pleasure Point — which saw hot and glassy conditions and a nice low tide, but relatively small, weak waves — there would have been a lot of bobbing around, griping, and surfers pumping their boards spastically in futile attempts squeeze some juice out of the little waves.

However the “logs” at the Logjam — which requires contestants to ride leashless boards made prior to 1970 and weighing at least 20 pounds — were perfect for catching even the most meager little lines that lapped through First Peak Sunday, allowing surfers to dance gracefully up and down their planks as they sped down the line.

Back-to-back women’s champion, Chris Chiechi. photo: Phil Matthews

Big Stick member CJ Nelson had no problem catching waves, as he navigated a 1967 Hap Jacobs aircraft carrier to victory in the Senior Men’s division. Nelson decided that the contest was as good a time as any to test out the antique longboard.

“I’m borrowing the board and I’m potentially going to buy it, so I wanted to try it out,” Nelson said. “I liked it. I’ve been doing this contest since I was 14 and had the opportunity to ride hundreds of old boards. This contest is all about finding your dream board.”

Nelson beat out good friends Vince Felix of Ventura, who took second, and Marciano “Chango” Cruz. Felix gave Nelson a good run after he somehow managed to cram his nine foot, six inch Hap Jacobs noserider circa 1966 inside a quick First Peak barrel and score the only tube ride of the event.

“He stuffed a turkey into a toaster,” Nelson said of his friend’s feat.

With the Logjam’s board requirements limiting surfers to often hard-to-find and expensive antique longboards, many competitors relied on the aloha of others to borrow a stick for the contest. Kai Medeiros, 15, surfing in just his second Logjam, said he was especially thankful to Mark and CJ Nelson for providing him with a beautiful 1966 David Nuuhiwa noserider for the event. In the process of surfing the Nuuhiwa all the way to the Junior Men’s finals, the young longboarder said he fell in love with the board.

“It’s one of the best noseriders I’ve ever ridden,” Medeiros said tenderly. “I think of the board as being innocent since it was made before the shortboard revolution. I’m thinking about buying it. We might have to dip into the college fund.”

Quinn Pearlberg surfs with his father Neil Pearlberg in the Aloha Team final of the Big Stick Log Jam. photo: Dan Coyro/Sentinel

In the Women’s final it was Big Stick’s Chris Chiechi taking first place for the second year in a row, picking off a number of set waves and scoring some nice tip time. Cathy Meyerhoffer, meanwhile, took the Junior Women’s final against a talented field that included Santa Cruz’s Micaela Eastman and Nelson’s girlfriend, Jill Hansen. Hansen, who grew up surfing in Hawaii, said the small surf was an adjustment, but that she enjoyed her first Logjam.

“We’re kind of a team,” Hansen said. “To surf with CJ in the same contest was really special for me.”

Another team at this year’s Logjam was the father-son duo of Neil and Quinn Pearlberg, who rode together in the “Aloha Team” heat, where two members from the same club surf the same wave at the same time.

“Instead of him dropping in on me, now we have to share the wave,” Neil Pearlberg joked before the two paddled out together.

“But I’ll still be in front,” added Quinn.

Keeping with the theme of celebrating surfing’s past, this year’s Logjam also featured a “Super Legends” heat of surfers all over 70 years old. 72-year-old Vince Pando of the Pedro Point Surf Club has been surfing since he was 24. Surfing, he said, has helped keep him feeling young.

“This is the first time they let guys our age surf,” Pando said. “Anything we can do to help encourage senior fitness is great. If you don’t keep it moving, you’re gonna lose it, and surfing definitely is moving it.”

Vince Pando, 72, talks about his super legend session with the other seasoned surfers at the Big Stick Log Jam Sunday in Pleasure Point. photo: Dan Coyro/Sentinel

Bill Bragg, 71, of Ventura, surfed with Pando in the Super Legends heat on the biggest, and possibly oldest, board at the event — an 11-6 Hobie shaped in the 1950s. Bragg said the camaraderie and community of the Logjam reminded him of the way surfing in California used to be.

“It reminds me of coming up here 45 years ago, when Kelly’s Cove in San Francisco was the place we always went because that was where you could always find somebody to surf with,” Bragg said. “Back then you were always looking for someone to surf with, as opposed to now where you go to check the surf and it’s like, ‘Oh, there’s too many people out.’”

Click here for the full results from the 2008 Logjam

As one of the longest-running “old board, no cord” surf contests around, the Big Stick Surfing Association Logjam — technically an offshoot of the original Surf-O-Rama — has created plenty of memorable moments over the years for contestants and spectators alike.

Along with Surf-O-Rama — which still runs every Labor Day weekend — and the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in February, the Logjam is one of the few surf contests that celebrates the spirit of surfing’s past by requiring contestants to ride boards made prior to 1970 and without leashes.

Between the graceful, old-school longboarding that goes down in the water, the antique boards on display from collections up and down the coast, and the legendary surfers in attendance — past winners include a who’s who of longboarding, including: Joel Tudor, Robert “Wingnut” Weaver, Ashley Lloyd, Terry Simms, Bob Pearson, Jay Moriarity, Dane Perlee, CJ Nelson, and Michel Junod — the Logjam is brimming with surfing history.

The latest chapter will be written April 26 and 27, when the Logjam returns to Pleasure Point for another weekend of classic longboard nostalgia, camaraderie and fun. This year’s contest will also include a “Super Legends” heat of surfers over 70 years old — and one as old as 77! — as well as “Aloha Team” heats, where two members of the same team will surf the same wave at the same time.

To get everybody in the mood, here’s a random sampling of memorable moments and classic stories from years past, offered up by Logjam surfers young and old…

Michel Junod, 59, veteran Logjam surfer and past winner:

“There have been a couple of rainy, funky ones, and there have been some with really good waves. I guess the one that stands out the most was the one I won. I’ve got a trophy around here somewhere, I don’t know where it is. I think it was ‘95. But the surf was great the whole day. It was head high on the sets and just perfect. The waves were breaking at First Peak and going through to Second Peak. It was just an open contest back then [no separate divisions] so everyone surfed against each other, from the young guys then like CJ [Nelson] and Jay [Moriarity] all the way to the older guys. It’s super fun because it’s competitive, but not dog eat dog.”

Sierra Partridge, 19, surfed in her first Logjam last year:

“My dad and I had to share the same board for the contest. It was an old Rick Irons longboard. It wasn’t a problem in the beginning of the contest, but later on his final was right before mine so we had to switch off. After his heat, he forgot that I was going to be waiting on beach to switch off with him, and he rode his last wave all the way past Second Peak down to 38th. He just blanked and forgot. So I had to run all the way down to Second Peak. He finally saw me running and realized what was going on and started running towards me with the board. I ended up only being about five minutes late, but I was so tired during the heat. I got fourth place out of six, I think. He apologized later. It was pretty funny.”

Pete Ogilvie, former BSSA president:

“Big Stick’s Logjam is the only surfing competition that features an ‘Aloha Day’ in which competitors of all ages and genders are in the same heats, not competing against each other but just trying to surf each wave with as much skill and power and fun as they can bring to that moment. Surfers don’t even know who will be in their age/gender division when and if they advance to the semifinals on the next day. Everyone surfs twice and their scores are totaled to determine who goes on to the serious competition, but the divisions are gerrymandered so that almost all of the surfers in the contest make it to the semifinal rounds and earn points for their clubs.”

Terry Simms, 2006 Logjam. photo: Phil Matthews

Robert “Wingnut” Weaver, four-time Logjam winner:

“Back in the old days, when it was the Surf-O-Rama, first place used to be a ticket to Hawaii. I used that ticket to go to Hawaii with my then girlfriend — she had to buy her own. We went to Kauai and I proposed while we were there. Eighteen years later and we’re still married.”

Gioni Pasquinelli, 34, former BSSA President:

“When I first competed in the contest [2004], it was really like no other contest I had ever seen before. In the same heat we had contestants of all different ages, women and kids. Everyone was friendly and saying hi. So that was my first impression, I was just really shocked to see people hooting for each other out in the water, saying ‘go for this wave,’ in the same heat. It was fun. You really don’t see that in any other contest. It’s a very different attitude.”

Kackie Cohen, current BSSA President:

“My first Logjam — and first Big Stick event — was in 2006. I’d seen a posting on Surfline recruiting volunteers for the contest, and I figured since I was going to be hanging out at the Point watching the contest anyway, I may as well pitch in and help. I worked a shift selling raffle tickets and set up tables and chairs for the banquet with Gary Silberstein [Big Stick Secretary for Life] and Beth Colyear. Every single club member I met that day had so much aloha and was so welcoming that it was totally love at first sight for me. Long story short, I joined the club, and in the summer of 2007 I was asked to join the Board of Directors. Now I’m honored to be serving as the first woman president in the history of the club. I can’t say enough good things about this group of people. Pete says there’s a lot of heart in the contest, and that is because the club itself is all heart.

“BSSA has awarded over $50,000 in scholarships to local surfers from funds raised by Surf-O-Rama and the Logjam. This week, when Gary Silberstein and I were out hanging a few contest posters in surf shops on 41st Avenue, we ran into a previous winner — Hunter Young, whose dad Dan Young is running for County Supervisor. Hunter is an EMT instructor at Cabrillo and works one day a week at the Freeline shop. He saw our poster and told us both he and his sister had been awarded scholarships from Big Stick. It was really great to hear that and to see what a positive impact this club and — indirectly — this contest are having in the community.”

If You Go

WHAT: The Big Stick Surfing Association Logjam, one of the premier classic longboard surfing contests in the world. More than 100 competitors from the top Coalition Surf Club organizations up and down the West Coast will be in attendance.
WHEN: April 26-27, 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday.
WHERE: Pleasure Point (Saturday is in front of Jack O’Neill’s house at East Cliff Drive and 36th Avenue and Sunday is at First Peak at East Cliff Drive and 32nd Avenue).
ON THE NET: www.bigsticksurfing.org.

Sustainably harvested balsa cores. Indestructible epoxy and wood veneers. Hemp cloth glass jobs. Plant-based resins. In the wake of Clark Foam’s dramatic December 2005 shutdown, which saw the surfboard industry suddenly missing between 80 and 90 percent of its surfboard blank supply, “eco-friendly” innovations in surfboard materials and designs have garnered an increasing amount of attention.

Somewhere in the middle of this growing spectrum of green surfboard designs is Ice-Nine Foam Works. Founded by a coalition of plastics engineers and aerospace industry veterans in January 2006, Ice-Nine saw the sudden shutdown of Clark Foam as a prime opportunity to improve upon traditional surfboard blanks.

By substituting a few critical ingredients in their foam recipe, Ice-Nine has developed a line of blanks it claims is better for the environment, safer for factory workers, as well as a stronger, more flexible foam.

(more…)

A couple of years ago a family friend, Judy, gave me a beautiful old single-fin surfboard that belonged to her late husband John. John was a surfer throughout the sixties, seventies and eighties until he passed away from cancer. Judy had held on to all of her husband’s old boards and they represented a lot of fond memories. The single-fin was the only one she ever gave away. I was honored.

I promised that I would take good care of the board, fix it up, and one day ride it. The problem was that it needed a lot of work, repairs well beyond my tiny rail ding and Solarez capabilities. So the board, still beautiful, just sat in my garage for the last two years collecting dust.

Occasionally, when I grab one of my thrusters in my regular rotation from the garage, the light from outside will reflect off the single-fin’s heavy glass job, and the beautiful triple stringer, and the blue glassed-on fin, and will make me want to take it out and give it a spin. When I look at the single-fin and visualize riding it, I get a fast, loose, butterfly feeling in my stomach.

But then I’ll remember that if I take it out in its present condition it will be ruined forever, water logged with ten extra pounds of saltwatery-soaked foam.

To say the fish is in need of a little TLC would be an understatement. Full on rehabilitation is more like it. There are so many dings on the poor thing I don’t know where to begin. Rail dings, nose dings, deck dings, many patched with black electrical tape of all things. God knows who did that, certainly it wasn’t John.

Like any old fish, the two swallow points on the tail are both ground down and chipped pretty bad. The big, beautiful blue-glass fin also seems to be a little fragile where it meets the bottom of the board, and there is a mound of more black electrical tape bound around here as well.

Just describing all these dings makes me feel like an unfit surfboard steward, undeserving of such a beautiful vintage board. Really, I’m a terrible caretaker. If there was a surfboard equivalent of Child Protective Services, the single-fin most certainly would have been confiscated from me after so many years of neglect. But that’s why I decided to come clean about it. It’s time I did right by this board.

The sheer volume of work needed is probably what has prevented me from just rolling up my sleeves and getting started. The other reason is because I don’t want to ruin a beautiful vintage board with my amateur ding repair skills.

There are no dimensions visible anywhere under the glass. It’s possible they were painted over in the black or blue of the board, forever to remain a mystery. It can’t be any larger than 5′5″ or 5′6″ max. It has a very flat outline with hardly any rocker. The rails are thick like a longboard but hold a sharp edge almost the entire length of the board. The leash plug is made of resin. My favorite feature of the board is the triple stringer, one straight down the middle of the board and two coming up at an angle from the two tips of the swallow tail. The three lines meet in an apex at the blunted, fishy nose of the board.

The decal is one of the most modest I’ve ever seen, simply “The Brotherhood” in small, conservative type in the middle of the board. It looks like it was written onto the board with a typewriter.

One time I took it in to see if the guys at the Haut Shop could tell me anything about its origins, but nobody was certain who might have shaped it or where it came from.

The coolest thing about old surfboards is that they carry with them an entire history. This just isn’t the case with many modern boards which are mass produced overseas, shaped mostly by a machine, and often wind up in a landfill within a couple years (sometimes months!).

Sometimes I try to imagine who designed the board. Who crafted it. Who mowed the foam and where. Someone’s garage? A busy shaping bay in Southern California? Who painted it and put the white racing stripe along the outline of the rails. Where John rode it. Pleasure Point in the seventies? Empty Ano Nuevo? Who else might have ridden it before him and what exotic locations might the board have traveled to. Did he ever get this short, stumpy, rockerless thing inside the tube?

In my mind I can create and recreate an entire historical narrative on the life of the old Brotherhood single-fin, precisely because I know nothing about its past.

But my curiosity is too much and now I’m determined to trace the genealogy of the board. I’ll try talking to experts around town and sending photos out to board historians via email. Hopefully I can find out who shaped it, when and what they were going for at the time, and maybe even talk to them.

If anyone has any info on The Brotherhood surfboards, please let me know.

I’m also finally going to bite the bullet and try and do the repairs myself. Who cares if they aren’t perfect? John’s board will ride again.