Thursday, September 29, 2022

 Hi there as you can see I have not posted on here for a while, but the information and ideas that are in the posts below are still relevant and a great source of information and inspiration. Over 1.8 million people have viewed this blog over the years and I am sure it has helped many on their journey to building wooden boards. Please share what you learn from building boards with others so that they to can advance the ideas and processes that they discover on this journey. You will learn a lot about yourself and the pleasure you get from surfing. And then you will know that you have joined the Splinter group.



Wednesday, March 16, 2022

SAM MEETS SETH first day of a building cyclone swell at Kirra with Sam Yoon on his 9’5” Flying Soul twin fish.


Wednesday, January 27, 2021

A new process for Grain Surfboards - Green Rail


 

Back in the 80's, our favorite TV shows were interrupted with countless ads telling us that “plastics make it possible”. Fast forward to today and plastic pollution has become one of our planet's biggest environmental disasters as 17 billion pounds of plastic enter the ocean each year.  We feel a responsibility to participate in a circular economy, helping to find solutions, and keeping plastics out of the environment. We’ve done this for years by offering apparel in 100% recycled cottons and PET. Now it’s time to find a genuine use for recycled content in our surfboards.

We’re excited to introduce our New 'GreenRail' construction method. Hand built in our shop in Maine, these boards are built using the same local sustainable cedar that we’ve always used. But you'll find a significant sustainability upgrade in the perimeter rails of these boards... We’ve engineered a new construction method that marries the best of our wood board construction with the benefit of a solid, hand shaped GreenRail made entirely from recycled plastic bottles.  Not only that, but almost all the waste produced from these rails is recycled to complete the circle. 

 Even better, this new line of boards is available at a new low price, dramatically below that of our original all-wood construction. We plan to keep as many of these in stock as we can, so if you just can't wait to ride a Grain board, this may be your play, because we ship in-stock boards to you just as soon as we can crate them.

 
www.grainsurfboards.com
 

Thursday, June 25, 2020

Wooden Board Day 2020 cancelled

Sorry guys due to the virus and the Queensland border being closed we will have to cancel this years event. So while you are home more often and looking for something to do, build more boards. Experiment and try new things so that you can share them next year. Looking forward to catching up next year. Stay safe.

Wednesday, April 1, 2020

Surfing Hawaiian Redwood Boards at Lorne 1920





Rare footage of Victoria's first surfers in 1920 - “Surfing Hawaiian Redwood Boards at Lorne”

27 March 20

From Craig Baird at the Australian National Surfing Museum: “The museum is closed to the public (for a while) but we are still here digging through the archive and putting together pieces of the surfing heritage puzzle.
 “This vision is part of an exhibition called First Wave we had planned to launch in time for Easter, celebrating Victoria’s first surfers and the centenary of surfing in this state.
 “This footage from Lorne in the early 1920s showing the earliest surfing in Victoria. Wealthy Geelong sports enthusiast Louis Whyte travelled to Hawaii in 1919, spent six months learning to surf at Waikiki and bought four surfboards from Duke Kahanamoku before returning home to surf at Lorne and Anglesea. 
“The footage was recorded by Frank Beaurepaire (who would go on to become Lord Mayor of Melbourne) a world- class swimmer and good mate of Duke’s.
“We will be following this up with a video about creating and surfing a 9’ replica of one of the Hawaiian boards - and the story of the four boards and their history (all four still exist!)".
All four of these boards still exist.

With thanks to Craig Baird Australian National Surfing Museum and John Brasen / Pacific Longboarder

Tuesday, November 12, 2019

GOLD COAST HOSTS THE 6th BIENNIAL GLOBAL WAVE CONFERENCE 2020 A significant International Ocean Conservation event seeking sustainable solutions for now and the future. 12th November 2019

BOB Hawke's granddaughter and climate change champion, Sophie Taylor-Price, will discuss growing threats to waves and ocean conservation when she opens and addresses the 2020 6th Biennial Global Wave Conference to be held 10th - 14th February 2020 on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.

A key international ocean conservation event hosted by local organisation Gold Coast World Surfing Reserve Inc on behalf of International partners, Save the Waves Coalition, Surfrider Foundation, Surfers against Sewage, and Wild Coast.

The Conference will make its Australian debut at the Gold Coast Campus of Southern Cross University at Southern Gold Coast during a landmark year which coincides with surfing's inclusion into the Olympic Games in Japan.
A Landcare Ambassador and Senior Manager at E&Y Climate Change & Sustainability Services, Ms. Taylor-Price will join environmental and social scientists, world surfing greats, conservationists, surfing industry stakeholders, and the sustainability and eco-surfing conscientious at the 2020 conference to investigate ways of making our oceans safer, healthier, and cleaner for future generations.
Global Wave Conference was established in 2011 and has been hosted in France, Mexico, United Kingdom, and most recently in 2018 at Santa Cruz, California.

The 2020 event which was secured by Gold Coast World Surfing Reserve Inc. (GCWSR), with the support of Queensland Government Department of Tourism, Sport and Environment, Tourism Events Queensland, Destination Gold Coast, City of Gold Coast Council, Southern Cross University, and Griffith University, is expected to attract up to 400 people, including 200 international delegates.

Part of a new generation of climate leaders, Ms. Taylor-Price made headlines last year when she urged Australians to take a greater stance on climate change during her speech at a memorial for her late grandfather, former Prime Minister Bob Hawke, at the Sydney Opera House.

Ms. Taylor-Price, a competitive sailor with a great love for the ocean, will be the opening key speaker at the Global Wave Conference hosted in Australia for the first time.
She will be discussing issues and trends around the role of oceans in relation to climate change and how individuals can become involved via projects such as CoastCare – Landcare’s coastal dune replanting/restoration initiative at Curl Curl, on the northern beaches of Sydney, when the conference opens on Tuesday, 11th February 2020.
"I grew up having almost all family holidays down the NSW south coast, and while I did my fair share of boogie boarding, the waves lost out when I convinced my parents to buy me a horse. While it was only holidays, my happy place of my childhood was riding on the beach and in the bush, and even today I am happy in, on, or near water." 

The conference will also hear from 13-year-old ocean warrior Shalise Leesfield, who represented Australia at the recent Parley Ocean Youth Uprise Summit in Hawaii, and joined by multiple World Adaptive Surf Champion Mark 'Mono' Stewart, from Byron Bay.

Two-time world champion surfer Tom Carroll and his author brother Nick Carroll will discuss issues around crowding, while former World Tour professional surfer turned Olympic surf coach Bede Durbidge will share insights into Australia's preparation for surfing at the 2020 Olympic Games in Japan. 

Peruvian big-wave champion and Surf Till 100 program co-founder Felipe Pomar, wooden surfboard shaper and artist Richard Harvey, and fellow local shaper Nev Hyman who is better known these days for his NevHouse Housing Humanity initiative, which turns waste into low-cost housing, also feature among the conference's diverse range of speakers.  

Larissa Rose, director of local environmental consultancy business Glowing Green Australia (GGA), an adjunct lecturer on Climate Change & Environmental Management at Bond University, will discuss renewable energy. Larissa is also part of the team working to ensure the conference meets its STOKE* certification requirements.
( *STOKE is the Sustainable Tourism and Outdoors Kit for Evaluation. It’s the world’s first sustainability certification body with standards built specifically for surf and ski tourism operators, destinations, and affiliated events).

The GWC 2020 program will see a wide range of hot topics up for discussion, including artificial reefs, wave pools, shark management, ecofeminism and the ethics of surfing, sewage and water quality, sustainable surfboards, the fight against plastics, surfing as therapy, health concerns regarding sunscreen, surf tourism, relationships between surfers and fishermen, measuring human/environmental interactions in surf ecosystems, the importance of 'surfability' and legal protections for surf breaks. 

GCWSR chairman Andrew McKinnon said he was stoked with the calibre of speakers locked in to explore future solutions to issues such as surf sustainability, recycling surfing products, the removal of plastics and advances in artificial reef and wave technology.
"Some of the most qualified minds in surfing from all over the world will be speaking on ocean conservation, climate change impacts, protecting beach and surf amenity, the economic and environmental value of surfing, gender roles, adaptive surfing, artificial reefs, wave pools and what we can do to eradicate the plastic problem from polluting the ocean," he said.

Mr. McKinnon said the conference program would highlight the growing threats to waves and surfing habitats worldwide, facilitate global coastal environmental and sustainability initiatives and increase leadership from the surfing community on the protection of waves, oceans, beaches, and marine ecosystems.
"We are totally pumped to be hosting the 6th biennial Global Wave Conference at the Gold Coast Campus Southern Cross University, which just so happens to be in the World Surfing Reserve destination," he said.

The Conference will also host World  Surfing Reserve workshops, surf tours and wildlife tours,a Save the Waves surf movie festival, surf conservation photo exhibition, fitness sessions, live music and a paddle out as part of the conference program.

Surfrider Foundation USA CEO Chad Nelsen and Surfrider Foundation Australia chair Susie Crick will also address the conference and attend an international foundation meeting on the Coast.

The International Association For Surfing Researchers will also hold its third annual meeting on the Gold Coast to coincide with the conference.
"This conference will be a significant International ocean conservation event offering sustainable solutions for the issues and concerns facing our future," Mr McKinnon said.

The Global Wave Conference 2020 runs from February 10th -14th, 2020 at the Southern Cross University Gold Coast Campus, Southern Gold Coast, Queensland Australia.
Visit globalwaveconference2020.com.au to register.
Gold Coast Surfing Legend and skipper Tony "Doris" Eltherington has donated a 12 nights boat trip to the Mentawais worth $4,500.00 for a lucky registered ticket holder to be drawn at a finale party at The Collective Palm Beach with live music from local rock and roll act Mason Rack Band that includes a fundraiser for like-minded ocean conservation groups.
Please find draft copy attached program of speakers, topics and other activities during Global Wave Conference 2020 Mahalo.

For more information contact
Andrew McKinnon

Professional Conference Organiser















Sunday, October 20, 2019

Sustainable Surfboard Videos all in one place

David Sandoval has created a specific channel on Sustainable Surfboards on Vimeo. 21 at the moment. Great idea to gather them up in one place to make it easier to find them. Also if you have made some that fit his criteria you may want to send him a link to add to his list.

Check it out : https://vimeo.com/channels/1503048

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Wooden Board building classes in the UK and Europe coming up.

Paul Reisberg of Arbo Wooden Surfboards has been busy getting used to being a new dad to son Otis. He has also relocated his studio/workshop to central Newquay in Cornwall. He has started running workshops there and had visitors from around the UK and Europe over the summer who made boards with him when he was not there in Cornwall. He still offers workshops on the road in changing locations around the UK and Europe.




In usually three days, participants create their own functional hollow wooden surfboards. He has a big choice of tested shapes that can be adapted to surfers weight, skill and need. He loves retro-shapes, fishes, mini-simmons, single fins, malibus, mini-malibus, eggs, and anything that isn't a HP shortboard... over 500 boards have been built with them over the last ten years!









The next on-the-road sessions are:
22-24.  November  /  Frankfurt
29  November  - 1 December  /   München
17-19  January  2020  /   Bristol
7-9  February  2020  /  London
28  February - 1  March  2020  /  Berlin

" In between those dates, individually arranged sessions here in cornwall are possible. Get in touch!
Like the last few years, around Easter next year we are planning a workshop trip to France. It will be in the Bordeaux / Lacanau area. Get in touch if you interested in that! " 

More dates for 2020 will be published on the usual channels: 


0044(0)7927302409
0049(0)1771585354 

Sunday, August 25, 2019

The 11th Annual Wooden Board Day Currumbin Alley , Gold Coast.

 Once again we were blessed with a great winters day here on the Gold Coast. Lots of great boards and guys pushing the envelope of ideas and builds to a new level. Lots of interest from the public as they dropped by throughout the day. Thanks everyone for the continued support.