This is a 6’8″ Openface hull made for a good customer of mine named Doug. He’s new to this type of design and will primarily ride it in beach breaks…

This hull is 6’4″ and has very foiled rails.  Since the board is so bladed out I was able the bring the wood paneling all the way to the edge and leave off  the wood strips on the rails. This combined with the R.T. Openface method increased the boards flex. Normally I can’t get away with this because the wood is too thick to bend around the compund curve of the rail. You can only achieve that with really thin veeners as with Surftechs for example. Really thin veeners though don’t do anything for performance, as it’s basically like laminating shelving paper to your board. Instead of the ride being lively and springy it’s has a dull thud and slap against the water. Hulls are supposed to have a bit of flex in them, which is why the best of them such as Liddles are glassed so light and have thin 1/16″ cedar stringers.  This is also why they unfortunatly get beat up so fast. The rail less method, combined with EPS foam, a wood deck and custom epoxy glassing enhances this flex characteristic without the worry of the board going ‘dead’ or dinging if you look at it wrong.  The stringer has been spread over the whole board so it won’t get flexed out and the deck is way stronger to boot. No more mushy hull syndrome. This particular board is avaliable at Wetsand in Ventura.

This is a new 6’4″ hull I took up to Sacred Craft in Ventura. It’s made with the R.T. Openface construction for extra flex and spring, same as the Lil Macho board I posted.  Sam George took a liking to this at the show and commented on how it combined the old with the new. That pretty much summed up what I try to do with my boards. Striving to build a better board using common materials, instead of expensive and unsustainable man made exotics. Thanks to my good friend Church for picking this board up. Enjoy!

This is the latest openface board. It’s a very short hull, at 5’11″ and meant to be ridden in beach break conditions rather than point surf. I thought the openface construction would lend itself well to hulls because of the flex and spring it generates. I built a redwood full compsand one about this long a while back and loved the pop I got out of it. I could feel the board load up coming off the bottom and spring out of turns. I wanted to reproduce that feeling even more with this board.

This is a 6’8″ hull made from sugar based Ice 9 MDI foam. It offers a bit more flex as well as being better for the environment than traditional TDI foam. This board also has a Fluid Earth corn based plastic/fiberglass fin box and leash plug. It represents the first in a series of more affordable boards, while still adhering to a sense of environmental stewardship. It’s available at Shelter Surf Shop in Long Beach.