If you look down the left rail, the left one, not the right one, mind you, there’s a subtle but also distinct kink roughly halfway between the nose and tail. A discerning board buyer might spot the difference with their first glance; the unintended asymmetry a deal-breaker. But they’d probably notice the yellowed repairs on the deck first, added before the board even saw water, a tedious fix for poor laminating skills. Or, they’d notice the pock-marked hotcoat. Or the chip in the fins.
But this board isn’t for sale. It’s been in my childhood bedroom for 10 years. And it just caught my eye.
You think the board looks a bit rough around the edges? You should try to ride it.
My first session, or at least the first one I remember, was at slightly overhead soft left pointbreak north of LA. Over ten years ago. My first wave, I paddled into a soft peak. The square of foam and fiberglass took off down the face. From a low crouch, I leaned into the feathering wall, lining up an easy bottom turn that would project me around the first section. I had six and a half inches of keel fin under my toes. I had loads of speed. I was Tyler Warren at Trestles on his Bar of Soap. I was Ryan Burch on his Lord Board, flying on an impossible surfcraft.
I was a floating body, a hundred feet out to sea. I went left, the board kept straight. A missile heading for the shorebreak, up and over and onto the sand. I hadn’t glassed in a leash plug. I didn’t know how.
A long bodysurf in. Picking pebbles and sand out of the wax. A long paddle back through the lineup, avoiding eye contact with everyone except my friend Russel, who saw the ordeal from the shoulder. “Nice.” A wry grin.
When was the last time you rode a board that didn’t work? I mean really didn’t work. Not just a shortboard that lacked a bit of pivot, or a log that was unstable on the nose. I’m talking about a board that shatters your intuition of how a surfboard should work. Ducks instead of weaves. Zigs instead of zags.
I would have sold this board if I had bought it. Probably after the first session. Cheap.
Oh yeah—I made it. Sanding blocks and a hot knife on backyard board racks, the blank the inner core of a snapped foam board, five feet of styrofoam at my disposal. Shaped on racks my dad made as a kid for his own ding repair, globs of resin dripping the legs. I must have been 17.
That paternal connection made me determined. I was going befriend the skittish kitten.
I adopted the same low crouch on my second wave. My right hand grabbed my outside rail on the bottom turn, nursing the rail through the water. The inside skeg gripped and the board was planing, friction free, flying straight and fast out from the foam and way, way out on the shoulder. Cut back, I thought! My shoulders opened, gently. My heelside rail pushed against the pressure—tracking again! Where was the curve to dig into the face? Where was the rocker to lift the nose? Oh yeah—I hadn’t added any.
Two seconds of track—still standing somehow—and then an audible pop, as the pressure of my heels overcame the resistance of the water and the right fin was free, the board began to spin, hey, it stopped tracking at least, and again I was swimming, the board spinning and skittering away over flat water, coming still thirty feet away. God damn!
I spent the rest of the session going straight.
I spent the rest of the summer figuring this thing out.
This was a time where surfing was a given. Home from college, working at a surf camp, brown skin and bleached strands hair, calloused feet from the hot sand. A blown wave just meant another chance. A blown session redeemed tomorrow. Top turns in two foot slop got boring. And this board was anything but boring.
The low crouch persisted for about a month. I couldn’t seem to ride this thing upright, my weight in all the wrong places, a dug rail here, a pearl there. At 4’7”, my back foot often missed the tail, leading to a full split and comical wipeout. I was a kook!
Eventually, I started standing up straighter when I rode. My back foot started to land an inch before the back of the board, rather than an inch behind the tail, plunked in the ocean. On the takeoff, I learned that if I gave it a pump before I got speed down the face, the toe side fin would release, the nose would reorient and aim down the line, and I’d be flying. A substitute bottom turn for a board that couldn’t bottom turn.
The fins used to hum at high speed, until I ran aground in the shorebreak enough times that they stopped. Problem solved.
I was getting the hang of it. I was making it look fun. I was having fun!
I’d race down a one foot closeout and make long sections on waves usually reserved for soft tops and beach beers. I learned that if I put my foot in the back left corner of the 18” wide tail, I could overpower the toeside fin and pivot into a crumbling lip, flying off the top with rhythm. If I was going fast enough, if the wave crumbled in just the right direction, I could fly out of the lip, a lipline floater disconnected, the cube of foam (barely) airborne for a split second.
I’d get a good one. A friend would ask to borrow the thing. Then they’d do the splits, the board skittering amid the foam to the shore. Then they’d try and do a bottom turn. The board had other ideas. Another bodysurf. I’d be cackling. I’d want my board back.
One waist high day in the late summer, the beach hot and the wind onshore, short period waves doubling up and running on a weird sandbar, I took off on a wave. Pumped around the first section. Pivot into the lip. Snap again. Again. A long low stance floater in the shorebreak, knees bent low when I landed in the trough. Echoes of my original, desperate, forced low stance, but this time a functional conclusion to a good wave. The fins ran into the sand. I ran onto the beach.
“Nice wave”
I looked up. Hulking shoulders, full beard, 777 glassed across his longboard. Known for riding single fins leashless in giant surf at the nearby jetty. Known for shaping classic longboards that fetch a high price.
“Thanks,” I said as I picked up the board, the slot concave suctioning to the sand and releasing only after some effort. Ten years later and it’s the only compliment on my surfing I can remember.
Sorry, where were we? Oh yeah—childhood bedroom, board catches my eye. It’s been there for 6 years or so. The original wax still on it. So yellowed it almost looks like a resin tint.
I’ve been feeling stuck recently. Trying to only surf good waves at the good spots. Mostly doing other things, out of the water. Going to work and coming home and going to work again. In a mundane rhythm and out of sorts. Feeling restless when at home. Feeling unsettled when out in the world. Seeking change, small or big.
I pull the square chunk out from behind the bookshelf, the hardened wax pooled along the left rail from a hot day in the sun long ago, or maybe a long afternoon in the car. The ding in the tail I never fixed. The chips in the fin down to the plywood core. “Mini Simmons 001” scribbled where the stringer would be. I closed my eyes and felt the holes in the hotcoat as I ran my fingers down the rail. I was Tyler Warren at Trestles on his Bar of Soap. I was Ryan Burch on his Lord Board, flying on an impossible surfcraft. I was putting the board in my car to take home.
I’ve been feeling stuck recently. Maybe this board will get me out of it.
My first wave a week later I did the splits. My second wave the board skittered out a cutback. My third wave I adopted that low crouch and the board projected around a long, crumbling section.
God damn!
