Flex-tail Sidecut Fish ::
Designed to be super specific in wave type and quality (really fun lined up Rincon), I ended up surfing this board a whole season almost exclusively - it works in everything thats decently clean..hates onshore conditions. It feels like a snowboard; lots of load-up and projection off the long supple flex-tail. The edge bottom contributes to that feeling quite nicely, making the water release nice and crisp nose to tail. I made a couple variations, and the one pictured to the left was the best of the bunch - the smaller versions were very finnicky and needed those really specific conditions to be just right (clean, chest to head high reeling point waves).
Variable Bottom Shape Edge Guns:
Only two of these have been completed, the construction process likely too complex for me to try to type out here - a mix of composite layering, molding and subtracting of material, then rebuilding the structure all in hopes of a board with a variable depth bottom shape (as you load it up, the concave gets deeper), that loads and springs/projects as you weight and unweight the board. The goal is a twisting, torquing, morphing board that soaks up what the wave is giving you, and transfers it into positivity and projection at high rates of speed. Ridden by Camel below, from the pages of The Surfer's Journal.
Flex Spoons
George Greenough's Flex Spoon design remains, decades after it's inception, ahead of it's time. There are new processes which we can use to attempt to gain more from the design, though with George being who he is, often we as builders feel that we are grasping at straws. This pair of vacuum bagged carbon fiber spoons were custom ordered and they are something I've passionately and curiously pursued for a number of years. These are neutrally buoyant craft, meaning they will float themselves but nothing more - they are loading, twisting, torquing sheets of material used to bend with the wave, and maximize your energy output in conjunction with the wave face.
Sam's 9'6 Edge Gun
Making a variation of Greenough's edge concept somewhat my own is one thing, but making one to be slotted into massive waves by a pilot who's placed total trust in you and 100% creative freedom is a whole other level. Sam said he wanted to surf bigger waves, and needed a 9'6 to do it, and gave me free reign creatively to make him what I would consider the most appropriate board. To see some of the waves that Sam has stroked into on this thing in the last two years is a dream come full circle... he's still alive, and surfing the board more aggressively each session it seems.
The few changes I made to the design were to moderate the nose rocker, and give it a little more tail lift with less reverse rocker than George's - I also muted the edges in the front third of the board to help it keep from catching in chop (the angled edge can be seen well in the second photo below). The board was build out of stringerless 2lb EPS foam, and glassed extremely heavily.
