I started Splinters Surf as a way for me to design and build a couple of hollow wood surfboards and paddleboards for myself and few friends out of my garage. But as I got nearer to the end of my first build I knew that this could be something some much bigger than that. Now I could lament about spiritualism, transcending cosmic plains and the transference of a piece of my soul to the board through my chisel. But I won’t. Instead I will tell you how cool it was to walk out into Cox bay with this board that I had built from planks of wood, catch the first wave I paddled into and ride back into the beach.
Growing up I had such a romanticized idea of what I thought a surfboard shaper was, and it wasn’t until last Friday on Cox bay that I actually understood what it meant to shape a surfboard. I remember when I was younger and my dad appeared in a TV documentary on fly fishing in Canada, called “Lords of the Flies”. In one of his segments he was discussing how when you tie a trout fly you are able to create the ‘illusion’ of stonefly or dragonfly nymph to the trout you wish to catch. When you are able to cast a spell on that trout with a fly that you tied with your own hands it somehow becomes this magical experience. In a similar way, that feeling of being ‘stoked’ when I caught the first wave I paddled for on a board that I shaped with my own hands, was my own ‘magical experience’.
As hokey as it may sound, the thought of being able to build something that could affect those same feelings and experiences for someone else is pretty darn awesome. Of course the handful of surfers and retailers that caught a glimpse of “Lydia” and asked me ‘How long for delivery?’ is also pretty cool….
So to share the proverbial ‘stoke’ I have designed an entire quiver of hollow wooden boards all of which are in or will be in production by June 2011.
“Seabass”
- 6’ 8” twin fin fish with a
- Flat rocker
- Carries its 2¾” thickness right to the rails
The Kingpin
- 9’ 0” longboard
- Performance oriented hull shape changing from concave in the nose to flat through its waist to a mild vee at the tail.
- Set up as a 2+1.
“Lydia”
- The original old school, 9’ 6” longboard
- 60/40 rails
- Retro hull shape
- Set-up as a single fin
The Boom Stick
- An ‘homage’ to the westcoast logging industry
- 11’ 6” stand-up paddleboard
- 4” thick and almost 30” across
The Bonfire (designed by my 9 year old son)
- A low rocker skimboard,
- made from scraps and off cuts
- laminated to marine plywood, glassed and polished
