Bonzer Guys

Check it out on Drift - http://www.driftsurfing.eu/surf_article.php?id=1881.

Alaia’s and Baguettes

Recently embarked on alaia project and was lucky enough to have our good friend and talented shaper Steve Croft of http://www.empiresurfboards.com/ to come around to shape it. Decided to build it from Obeche timber due to it's similarity to paulownias and it ease of availability in the UK, you can read a little article I wrote for Drift about the timber here http://www.driftmagazine.co.uk/index.php/archives/6392#more-6392. The finished board looks great but it seems we fell into the trap many have fallen into and made it too thick, so it is not flexing enough.

At the moment, Alexa and I are in France on three week trip. We have so far scored some fun waves whilst exploring Crozon in Brittany, checked the beautiful and chic wine producing town of St Emillion, surfed Hossegor with Dave Rastavich and lucked into scoring perfect point surf in the Basque Country. The weather has been perfect as the waves but now we are sitting out a little storm.

Spreading The Hand Plane Stoke

My mate Chris the Ginger Carpentry Ninja, has already stealthily finished his cedar hand plane complete with rocker, concave and modern rails, whilst I was at work. His is now in the process of being oiled and is just awaiting the fitting of an adjustable velcro hand strap.

Mine still has a bit to go but hopefully will be ready for some testing this weekend.

Diddley Bo!

Surfboards are for kooks!!!

I've become really stoked on hand planning recently and had a nice session at a low tide river mouth wedge near where I live on Sunday morning. It just seems to simplify surfing so you can have a good time just catching a few waves and not get preoccupied by performance as we all do in one way or another. Bodysurfing is something that has always fascinated me since seeing footage of it in varoius films over the years then when a friend, Karl, told me he was making and surfing handplanes I had to give it ago. You can check out what Karl has been upto on his blog http://cloudsalt.blogspot.com/ or his wepage http://www.karlmackie.com/

My friend Chris and I are making some Cedar hand planes at the moment and can't wait to try them out. If you want check out some hand planes have a look at http://hand-plane.blogspot.com/ or http://www.brownfishhandplanes.com/.

You'll understand the title when you watch this video...

Sunday wasn't quite Hawaiian style but it had me stoked!

who won?

Don't know who won the Boardmasters but I know The Gallows, Seasick Steve and Xavier Rudd rocked Watergate Bay on Friday night!!!

Malcolm Rips

I hooked with Malcom Campbell and UK Bonzer tour instigator Guy Penwarden for an interview last night and a feature will be appearing on Drfit very soon. I got the Guys to talk more about themselves than surfboards to get another angle for the article, also talked about many other things including Taylor Knox's surfing feats on Bonzers and the amazing legacy of the Bonzer design as it reaches it's 40th anniversary.

In the mean time here is some vintage footage of Malcolm on a Bonzer and if you have ever watched much surfing from the seventies then you will know this is cutting edge surfing for that period of innovation.

Not forgetting a bit of Taylor as well.

Malcolm, on some rights from Campbell Brothers Surfboards on Vimeo.

Taylor Knox - 5 Fin Bonzer - Mexico from Campbell Brothers Surfboards on Vimeo.