WALLHANGERS

Relics.

I've been meaning to get these old dogs hanging on the wall for years..

From left: Dogtown - Jay Adams Longboard, Lazy Dog - Blood, Lazy Dog - Spiral, Dogtown - Jim Muir

1981

In hindsight 1981 was a bit of an in-betweener. Not much on offer at the time, and I was drifting away from the rock of previous years and yet still a couple of years shy of really latching onto American Indie. A few albums from the shelf that year included..

The Psychedelic Furs / Talk Talk Talk - Good for parties.

Grace Jones / Nightclubbing - Good for dark rooms.

Japan / Tin Drum - Good for smokey rooms.

Brian Eno and David Byrne / My Life in the Bush of Ghosts - Good for headphones.

Rickie Lee Jones / Pirates - Good for very, very late at night.

IT'S ABOUT TIME

In our house we still like to keep it analog style in a digital world...

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CAUGHT MY EYE

Seafoam

Bladderwrack by Jenny Butt

Kerry, 2004

Sunnyflowers

Wooden waves

(Useless) Wooden Toys

Fluffy clouds

SNAPS x 5

"NOTHING WRONG WITH THAT ONE!"

I went for an early one today. Couple of feet, clean, virtually no wind apart from a very light offshore. It was lovely.

A handful of old guys on mals (I guess that includes me) were taking turns on some nice lefts. I took off on a soft-ish one and a much older guy dropped in on me down the line.

It was fine though, a wave of no consequence, he apologised and I told him not to worry about it.

Over the next 20 minutes the waves got a little better, another foot or so in size and a bit steeper as they jacked up over the mid-tide banks.

I swung into a really nice left, a chest high drop with a smooth wall that stayed open as I came off the bottom.

But, lo and behold, my older friend had decided that he liked the look of this one too and dropped in a few yards ahead of me. It was kind of ok, he pulled down a bit of a section but the wave had enough juice in it to keep going and we managed a bit of a 'doubles' routine, cutting back and forth in front of each other as we cruised along to the shorebreak.

He was stoked; "Nothing wrong with that one!" he yelled at me as we paddled back out to the line up.

He was right there was nothing wrong with the wave. Apart from the fact that he'd dropped in on me, again... But, so what. We'd both had a good ride and shared a really nice wave, the lesson I learnt was that maybe sharing is caring, even when the choice is not your own.

Nothing wrong with that one, indeed.

ABOVE AND BEYOND

PT, blustery WNW, June sunshine - take a hike (click to embiggen).

SURFING LESSONS

Three things I learnt as a skateboarder from surfing in the olden days.

Lesson No 1: Surfing is primarily a solo activity - you're on your own buddy!

I remember when I first started surfing. At that time I'd already been skateboarding for a few years and it was natural to try and catch a few waves as well. A few of the skateboarders I knew were also good surfers and they let me borrow a board. But that was as far as it went - no advice offered, no coaching tips, no helping hand. I was given an old board and left to get on with it while they paddled out the back. 'Every man for himself' was obviously the surfer's code. I loved it of-course, who wouldn't? It was fun and exhilarating and totally different to anything I'd tried before.


Lesson No 2: The whole surf/skateboard symbiosis is a myth, they're connected in theory only.

I'd always read that surfing was the original source and skateboarding was the dry land equivalent for when the waves were flat. Well I must have been doing it all wrong, because it was certainly nothing like skateboarding, couldn't be more different in fact. The only relevance was that you were either regular or goofy. Aside from that you're operating in two very different worlds.


Lesson No 3: Surfing is a lot harder than it looks.

Skateboarding can be harsh & gnarly, but if you really want to learn it's relatively easy. Buy a board, find a smooth dry surface and away you go - quite literally. Within a few months you'll be okay at skateboarding. If you've got good balance and some natural ability there's no reason why you can't be ripping within a year or two if you've really caught the bug.

Learning to surf is a lot more complicated. For a start you'll inevitably be on the wrong board (it takes years of riding to even begin to understand which board suits you). You'll need the right waves and conditions for learning, but unfortunately waves don't appear on demand - so this will infinitely lengthen the learning curve. The sea is also deceptive, it moves and changes constantly, no two waves are ever the same, and sometimes it'll be scary and you'll be out of your comfort zone. There's a lot going on that you can't see, currents and tides need to be understood. It's exhausting work, you need fitness and stamina just to catch a few waves sometimes, and of-course you'll be competing with others for the same waves too. You'll also have to learn to 'read' the waves, which will take a ton of time and experience. The list goes on and on.. To summarise - it takes a long, long time to learn to surf.

ANDY GARNER INTERVIEW

Pic: Maria Cavalier

Andy Garner is amazing. He's been surfing for nearly 30 years and still retains the enthusiasm of a stoked grommet. He posesses a creative eye and a craftsmans hands, being an accomplished photographer, fine art painter and more recently the creator of fine handcrafted handplanes which he makes from his home in Cornwall.

These seemingly simple craft may appear humble in appearance, yet look a little deeper and you'll discover that these are quite possibly the best handplanes being made here in the UK currently, and with orders from folk in California, Australia and Hawaii who are now also enjoying the glide, they may well be some of the best internationally too.

The research and development that Andy puts into his products is quite phenomenal, hours and hours of water testing, refining and defining all providing direct feedback into the creation of his high quality watercraft.

He took a break from the workshop to answer some questions on skateboarding, surfing and the fun of handplaning.

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Andy where did you grow up.
I grew up in Cornwall, primarily Playing Place.

I know you were a skateboarder, what turned you onto skateboarding?
During the 70s there was a big influx of American TV programmes and products like American football shirts and suddenly skateboards appeared on the scene. So we all started making our own with roller skates stuck onto a board. At the time there was a housing boom and all these housing estates went up with perfectly smooth new tarmac roads which were fantastic for skateboarding and my Dad saw that I was into it and even made us a little driveway ramp too. I remember getting a combined birthday & Christmas present, I went into my room and can clearly remember the urethane smell of brand new blue Kryptonics and in another box a pair of blue and red Vans and they had a really distinctive smell too, the smell was so unique like going into a surf shop and smelling the sex wax - it was just fantastic!

Andy in the halfpipe at the Flamingo Skatepark with hand-painted hi-tops, late 70s.

Where did you used to skate in the early days?
In the early days we mainly skated in carparks. Hardy Carpets in Truro was a known spot, with loads of people doing slalom on Sunday mornings & Essjay turning up in his van with OJ wheels and California Slalom trucks for sale.

My Dad was keen to encourage me and the other kids and he actually pushed for the little skatepark in Playing Place. I’ve actually still got the original plans for how it was designed, those designs were changed unfortunately. There were trees that couldn’t be removed and it had to cater for other users including roller skaters which was big at the time too. The continuous wall that we wanted so you could carve all the way around the bowl had to go and the flat area was introduced too. But a lot of people put a lot of hard work into it and it was a good project and it’s still being used today.

Andy Garner with the original plans for the Playing Place bowl... at Playing Place.

Originally the 'skate board rink' had included a bowl with extended hip - click pic for enlargement.

ROB SMALL INTERVIEW

Rob Small grew up surfing the beachbreaks of Perranporth, the Badlands & Newquay and quickly developed from a hot local to a sponsored surfer, competing on the National and International pro circuits. Now with over 35 years of non-stop surfing under his belt he is still active as a sponsored surfer and SUP surfer and also runs Crantock Bay Surf School using his experience as an ISA surf and stand up paddle instructor and RSLS beach lifeguard. He kindly took the time between working long days at his surf school and SUP surf trips to the Canaries to answer a few questions about big waves, stunt doubling for Ewan McGregor and why maybe using a paddle could be considered punk!

Rob, where did you grow up?
Like a lot of us Cornish boys, I was born at Treliske in Truro and lived in Helston and St Agnes before my parents settled on Perranporth. Perran is really the place I grew up. There was a little pack of us running about causing mayhem and surfing. I was driving through Perran the other day and saw a little gang of surfy kids skating about and thought; "Nothing really changes does it?"

What got you into surfing originally?
My parents bought me a surfboard when I was very young, 7 or 8 years old. It was a 7’0” Graham Nile pintail single fin. Classic 70s board, brown with pin lines and a wooden fin with the old council insurance stickers on it. Like most of the older guys I wish I still had it today. The Surf Life Saving Clubs were going strong in those days and many of the local beach kids learnt to surf through them. We also learnt water safety and water knowledge. I’m not sure about sending kids out with a hundred metres of rope attached to a reel on the beach though... But they are great community clubs and invaluable for the youngsters. Of course as soon as the surfing started to become all encompassing the SLSC went out the window!

Do you remember your first green wave?
I don’t have a recollection of my first green wave but I do remember discovering cutbacks and getting under the lip for the first time. My first tube (ha ha, head dip) was at Perran Sands with Steve Cant and first cutback at Droskyn. Those lefts under the cliff are pretty good for figure eight cutbacks, they formed my entire surfing repertoire for a few years. When I first started surfing Aggie I didn’t have a clue what to do on the rights there, full pooh stance too. I get asked this question a lot by my clients and I’m not sure that they always believe I can’t remember learning the basics.

Was surfing Perran in the 70s & 80s very different to now?
It was really different, but then the sport itself was in a distinct phase. I remember the first thrusters that John Heath had in Piran Surf in ’81, after Simon Anderson won Bells, strange looking things. It could even have been ’82, things certainly didn’t move as fast as they do today. It was definitely friendlier, less crowded but on the downside the equipment was shit compared to that which is available today. I think that the generation that are in their 40s today matured as surfing matured as a sport, industry and lifestyle. It’s fun, traditional even, to give it the old ‘It was better back along’ to the younger surfers but I’m sure that there’s never been a better time to be a surfer than now. There are so many more possibilities within surfing than we ever dreamed of back in the 70s and 80s.

Rob, cranking off the bottom at La Santa Right.