I grew up in the desert. To my knowledge, no one in the history of my family has ever ridden a surfboard. Certainly no one in my family made surfboards. I was 30 years old the first time I touched a surfboard. I had been living in NYC writing films and novels and when I moved to South Florida surfing changed the entire course of my life. Board design immediately fascinated me. I basically started shaping the instant I started surfing. I didn’t have anyone to show me anything. I had no access to legacy teaching. I had no concept about what I was supposed to do. I didn’t know what was a conventional design and what wasn’t. The only person I knew who shaped was this kid who surfed in corduroy shorts and was always covered in jellyfish stings. He said he shaped a mini Simmons with an axe and if he could do it then so could I.
There was a lot of trial and error in the beginning. Many ideas that were, at the time, beyond my ability to complete. I always wished I had some sort of mentor or teacher but I never found one. Even when I moved to California a lot of shapers shut me down when I asked to visit their bay, when I asked for help. It just made me want to work harder. To this day I’ve still never seen anyone else shape a surfboard in person. I would study photos of planer passes and think, ok what do those shadows mean, what are they creating with those lines, how do I make my rail bands look like that? I was just absolutely obsessive about learning. Practice, practice, practice. There’s no substitute for that. Learning to create with my hands what I see in my head. Still have a lot of work to do but I’m getting closer all the time.
