I'm also modeling my explanation on two influences: San Francisco based twitter bud @zachsnowthatsme's quiver page, which is pretty dope. I'm also modeling the way I approach the list of my quiver the way Rick Kane learned how to surf under Chandler (which is the way I approached learning to surf as a person who taught himself later in life. Yeah, I know it's kook, but I'm proud to say that Chandler taught me how to surf too).
Also, to put in perspective how my body fits with my boards, here are my specs: 5"7 1/2, 180 pounds (of pure B.D.).
"The Kamehameha" a.k.a "The Destroyer"
8'6 x 22.5
This was my very first board. I guess you can call it a fun board, but it's the closest thing I have that resembles a long board. I found this board at a garage sale around the corner from my home in the Bay Area in April of 2011. The owner wanted $80 for it but I got her down to $50 by saying "Your going to change my life if you sell this thing to me, you know that right?" I got destroyed out at Linda Mar with this board. When I figured out how to ride a face, I took this board to third bowl at The Hook in Santa Cruz and rode the first decent wave of my life on this thing. The board is made out of one solid block of epoxy. It's not glassed or anything, which makes it indestructible (hence "The Destroyer). Even though the paint layered above the epoxy block is all chipped away, this board still rocks and catches waves when they are in their infancy. I rode this board out at Cowell's on a pretty epic day for Cowell's standards. I shared a wave with three other people, which sealed the deal that I'd be surfing for life. Now days, either this board is being used by a beginner friend or getting layered by dust waiting for visitors. I use it in the summer out in San Elijo at Turtles. Great board for ankle slappers.
The "Arrow"
7'4 x 20.5
This was my first transition board after surfing the "Kam" for three months, probably around June of 2011. I bought this on Craigslist for $100. I remember first surfing this board at the Groin in Bolinas. I was all nerves that I was going to eat shit and all. But on my very first wave, I popped up and rode it right, all the way into The Channel's infamous left. Luckily, I didn't go head on with some one that day. I rode the shit out of this board at The Hook. I rode it in anything including Linda Mar, The Hook & Indicators in Santa Cruz. I didn't know any better. The only place I couldn't ride it was at Cowell's because there is no damn push there. I keep this board at my brother's place in San Francisco. Towards the end of using this board, I was using it in bigger surf at Ocean Beach in S.F. and at Linda Mar. It's a great board with some deep channels on the bottom part of the tail. It freakin' flies down the line! This board's core is P.U.
Update: I keep this board at my brother's place in San Francisco. I use it for bigger days at S.F.O.B. when I'm in town. Rides really well in 8 - 12 ft swell. Still hard as hell to duck dive.
The "Webber"
6'6 x 21 3/4 x 21 1/16
I bought this board brand new from Dan at Sonlight Surf Shop in Pacifica, Ca. I think I bought it during the fall of 2011 for around $600. Funny thing about this board is that the first one I had was dinged several times. I addition to that, one of the fin plugs (& fin) got torn out by a floating kelp leaf. I was pretty frustrated by the board and the lack of durability in the glass work and complained to the board's company, giving the board a bad review on their website. Well, within two days I was contacted by the representative of "Global Surf Industries" and they shipped me a new board! Ever since then, the second board (exact replica of the first) has been an awesome board and super durable. Anyways, in the beginning stage of my surfing life, I got bored easily with boards, and that's why after a few months of riding the Arrow, I bought this. I caught probably the most epic wave I ever rode on this board out at Sewers in Santa Cruz. I caught this well overhead macker perfectly and watch the sun glimmer through it's thin sheet top all the way past first at Pleasure Point. I still use this board often. It really glides into waves, which is useful on days when I'm super lazy and don't want to wait on waves to make late drops. I use it for mushy waves that have a lot of slope. Mainly, I use this board on average days at "that reef around the corner from my house" which I mention a lot and at North Garbage. I also use it at Scripps on days of 2-3 feet at higher tides. I refer to this board as my "Fatty" or my "high performance long board". I roll with FCS G-AM's on this board because all I really need is drive. This board can turn pretty good for a how fat the rails are, but they are usually pretty long, drawn out turns. My back foot always has to be situated slightly on the opposite side of the face if I'm going left or right. This board is "super light" epoxy. And it is super light for how big it is. Surprisingly, I can whip it around pretty good. One of my best friends, Old Panama Red, swears by this board. And he dings the fuck out of it too ;)
The "Go To" board.
6'4 x 20.26 x 2.75
This was my first board I bought as I moved into the more high performing sticks. I bought this on Craigslist for $135. It was in superb condition. I fucking love this board. It is awesome. I trust my life with it. I first rode this board at Three Mile in Santa Cruz. And from the second I stood up on this board, I immediately did a pretty shitty cutback (one of my first ) back into the wash, stalled a bit while I waited for another section (that's just how Three Mile goes) and rode that wave into the beach. I decided to not ride this board in the Spring & Summer and wait on Fall and Winter to use it. I caught some of the most epic waves on this board and also received some of my most brutal beatings with it too. This board is still pretty fat, but for the waves I intend to ride this board on, it's totally perfect. I usually bust this board out when the waves are 6-10 feet (10 feet is my threshold). If it's ever bigger than 10 feet, either I'm taking pictures from the shore or I'm out by mistake. With that said, I have caught waves that I consider bigger than 10 feet on this board (Why? Because sometimes you just have to go!). And it's never let me down. I use this board mainly at reefs and point breaks. But I have used this board on bigger days and S.F.O.B., Blacks and Scripp's. When I start to feel the butterflies and nerves, I grab this board and I feel a lot better. This board's core is epoxy. I heard that Geoff Rashe, who hand shaped this board for somebody, was first a Black's surfer and later moved to the West Side of Santa Cruz. So I guess you can say that this board's creative influence came from the two places I've surfed the most. I use medium FCS PC-5's on this board. Since this board is a round tail, drive already exists and I wanted more performance out of it, and the PC-5's gives me that.
The "Sunset"
6'0 x 19"
I bought this from James at Sunset Shapers off of Noriega in San Francisco. He posted this board on Twitter for $180 dollars. Manav grabbed it for me and I rode it for the first time out at Three Mile in Santa Cruz in some pretty good sized surf. This became my everyday board in the end. I rode it a lot out in Santa Cruz at all the breaks on the west and east side. I rode it in beach, reef and point breaks. This is the board that I used when I really learned how to surf. I surfed this board pretty much all the time when I moved to San Diego. This was my board when ever it got good (4-8 feet usually at any tide). I also rode this board all the way down Baja and on Mainland Mexico last year. I got my first front side and back side tubes on this board. It's a perfect short board for my body and style. It can surf a mushy wave like Pleasure Point and steep waves like Blacks and La Pastora in Baja. It's just a sick board. I gave it to the little guy above when I left Mexico. He was stoked on it and according to my friends out in Sayulita, he still surfs it every day at La Bahia and El Burro. Lots of the locals were jealous of him when I gave him this board. But this kid is tough and can hold his own. Good for you kid! This board is P.U. As for fins, I used Future JC1's. I rode Manav's Hess, which is a similar sized board that had JC1's on them and I enjoyed the extra skatey feel, so I bought me a pair and stuck them on The Sunset and it was a perfect fit.
"Air Drops"
6'2 x 18 3/4 x 2 5/16
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| Future JC1's |
I bought this board for $160 from Bird. After I came home from Mexico, I searched for a board just like The Sunset but with less width. I got the idea of less width after I surfed a session with The Duck at Linda Mar when I went back to The Bay for a weekend. The Duck let me use his M-10 which is I think is 6'6 x 18.5. Anyways, I caught a pretty good sized, steep wave. That board just stuck to that steep face with a lot of stability, like I was on a plank! I digged that feeling and wanted a board for San Diego that was similar. I also wanted a board with more rocker than The Sunset. I talked to Bird about my preferences and we looked in his used board stash and found this. Since then, I've been riding this board mostly during low tide at beach breaks. This board is awesome at Blacks. It hold's great to the face, gets me in tubes and sometimes out. It hold's really well when I'm in a tube on those steep faces. A lot of times when I use boards with fatter rails, they sink when I'm in the tube and I get pummeled by the lip, but this board holds the line. It's also great on late drops, hence the name "Air Drops". I'm starting to use it a lot more at reef and point breaks too. I recently used it at Uppers and Lowers, and it just killed! This board turns really well. This board is super light for a P.U. and which allows me to toss it around pretty well. I rode this board about 100% of the time in my last video. Plus, it's a great board to hike down trails with as it's pretty light and fits under my arm with ease (not rubbing against my arm pits). I generally ride this board in 4-8 feet (sometimes bigger) surf in lower tides both for beach breaks and point or reef breaks. It's becoming one of my more trusted boards. This board is P.U.
Update: Sold this board to a nice guy who's daughter wanted a high performance board.
The "Rusty"
6'2 x 19.15 x 2.4
I bought this board at Bird's for $200. I got this board because I was struggling with "Air Drops" at the time and really missed The Sunset. So I bought this board which is as close as I could find to the specs of The Sunset. As soon as I bought this, I really started riding Air Drops, and I started to love that board more and more everyday. Well, the more I fell in love with Air Drops, the more this board stayed in the corner. But a few weeks ago, I was about to sell it at the Cardiff Board Swap. It received a lot of lookers but not takers. After I got home, I went out to my local beach, and since it was already in my car, I decided to surf it. And since than, this is the only board I surfed over the last few weeks! I can't believe I almost sold it. The board is epoxy and super light. The rails are really thin and there isn't much rocker, so this board just flies down the line. This board surfs really well when I go backside. I can totally whip this board around on backside hacks, so far around that my front knee goes into my chest. I'm still figuring this board out, but I think this board is going with me on trips to faraway lands with warm waters. I haven't really rode it in anything above five feet yet, but I'll let ya'll know how it goes. I don't use a stomp pad on this board (it didn't come with one) and I'm probably going to keep it that way. On really good waves, I can feel the wave under my back foot and judge when to turn just by the feel of whats going on under the tail. It's a trip, but hard to explain. Plus, I don't want to add much weight to the board, as it is pretty thin and I think it barely floats me properly. But when conditions are good, this board is what I've been using recently.
Update: I sold this board to a guy that was down visiting from S.L.O. Great board, but I needed some dough to pay for a newly shaped board that I had to pick up in The City during fall of 2014.
I found this JS while up in Santa Cruz last week. 'Ol Panama Red and I were just cruising down memory lane on the East Side and I came across this board in the Rip Curl shop on 41st. The price was right, with an additional discount. Had to jump on it. The board is a bit bigger then what I usually ride. I have plead mercy to riding boards with a bit more foam around the reefs in San Diego. "Foam is your friend" is what one of the old timers told me during a summer session at South Bird. This board rides 6'6 x 20.5 x 2 3/4. It's a round tail as you can see, but the tail is so perfectly shaped. An old timer at my high tide reef inspected the tail and in his assessment, he said to me quietly "that's one of the best tail outlines I ever put my old eyes on". With that nice, perfect round tail, instead of getting ahead of the wave as I did with my M-10 and making those rounded out cut backs, I'm able to cut back right in the pocket like my everyday short board. And like I wanted it to, it catches waves pretty well. This board was sort of an unplanned buy. Well, it was a compulsive buy for many, many reasons (as my wife says, "surfer problems"). This board is primarily for reefs when it is head high to double overhead this winter. When it gets bigger, I may be out there, but I may be on the rail, taking pictures. I don't really like fucking around with those days bigger then double overhead. But who knows, I might get crazy, and might need a bigger board.
This board on the other hand was a well thought out process of a purchase. I've been talking to James out at Sunset Shapers in San Francisco for a while about this board. I always stop by his shop when I'm in City while visiting my family, and talk story, mostly about what I want in a board. He knows what I like to ride, how I ride, and what I want in a board. I bought one of his first "P-Rocket" boards back in the day, and that was my go to board before I gave it to a deserving kid out in Punta Mida in Mexico. This design is a refined version of the earlier P-Rocket that I had before. I dig it's PU, thick, has kind of throw back nose and it gets me into waves no problem. This board runs 6'0 x 19.5/ 15"x 2 3/4. Before you judge, I am a big guy that runs at around 185 pounds. And like I said, I'm all about foam now days. And even with foam, this board rips. Just the way I wanted it too. During my first session on this board in San Diego a few days ago at Scripp's (when we had some fun and hollow short period waves at low tide) I stalled right in the pocket and got my hair wet in a little tuber, came out clean with a grom smiling on the other end. Can't wait for some more short period stuff so I can have more fun with this at the beach breaks. This will primarily be my board for beach break stuff, at about waist high to a little bit overhead.
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| "The Darth Vader" |
And this is what I found. The Darth Vader, 6'3 x 20ish", somewhat thick, but not too thick, and pretty darn light for how much glass and foam it was born with. My buddy Steve in The Bay put me on to this shape. He inspired me to think different and be more open minded about what I ride. Steve surfed the heck out of a board just like this during some pretty heavy days while we were out at the Cliffs few years back.
So that's my quiver. Most of my boards are used except for the Webber. I try not to buy new boards because they are too expensive and need to broken in. Used boards are the direct opposite, and just needs an owner who can appreciate their quirks. Plus when I ding new boards, that frustrates that crap out of me. I also think it's more of a sustainable way of surfing by buying used boards and recycling them for use by the new owner. Yeah, you can buy a sustainable board, but that board is using at least a couple new things from mother earth while used boards are orphans that just need a loving home.
I need a proper longboard and a fish, but you know, not really. But we can never have enough boards, the wife just has to O.K. it, and that's not going to happen anytime soon ;)
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