Classic Malibu Newsletter

Classic Malibu Newsletter: Retros rock, Pack your board, Resin to live, more

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 3 June, 2009 : - - Brrrrr… We’re rolling into the chilly season hard and fast and wetsuits have suddenly become the hottest seller instore. This time of year also means fickle swells of all or nothing. For loggers, there’s usually a ripple to ride somewhere, but those of a shorter persuasion have to tear their hair out until the readings start rising. So here’s a bit to help out…

This Issue: Retros – There is a lot of fun to be had out of retro boards, but there’s nothing old about them… Heading O/S – Travelling with surf equipment and readying yourself for a wave-hunting sojourn is a fine art. We give you some key tips to making it flow smoother. A Resin To Live - Another of our resident Pomgolians is Jake Bowrey; resin whizz and tormented soul...
 
Yesteryear’s Comeback
Along with fishes, singles and retros are coming back in full force. Eggs, bonzers, stingers and single-fins are the new favourite for people of all persuasions. Longboarders are grabbing the fuller shapes as a way to go short and take on beach breaks or hollower waves, shortboarders venture into the retro realm to gain that paddle advantage given by more foam and the ability to still go out when the waves wouldn’t have a hope of pushing a 6’1” x 191/2” x 21/4”.

Available in all manner of styles, there’s a retro out there for everyone, whether you want a shorter board that will still cruise or a shredder that will still paddle. One look in your average lineup will show the diversity out there, and it’s not just down to a nostalgia trip or a will to be different.

With more than a handful of contemporary elements thrown into their design, these boards may look like ‘70s throwbacks but they’re every bit as practical and functional as anything else on the market. Here’s just two of the ways we do retro at Classic Mal…

Stinger : photo Classic Malibu

 
Single-Fins
There’s something about a single fin that defines it amongst its peers - a certain flow that is unmatchable. Single finned boards work beautifully down the line, with reduced drag and increased trim making a long face the perfect place for them.

They can tend towards a little stiffness through turns, but this is often as much down to the board as it is the fin arrangement – just look at Mick Fanning’s displays at Rip Curl’s MP Classic events… Single fins open up your turns, give you more hold and generally give you more time to enjoy your waves. And with an increased volume and flatter rocker, your wave-count will go through the roof.
 
The Stinger:
The stinger is what you might call an eye-catcher. The outline template isn’t too dissimilar to many single fin designs. But flip it over and the differences become clear. A high flyer is coupled with a step in the underside to allow the tail to sink for more drive through turns, as well as creating cavitation, or dirty water.

Set up with either a twin or two-plus-one fin arrangement, the larger fins give hold, preventing the board from sliding out, but keeping that looseness. But one of the main advantages with the stinger is that, due to the thinning out of the tail, volume can be kept through the mid section of the board. This makes for easy paddling, superior wave-catching and, with a little extra pressure applied up front, the ability to trim through flat spots. All this adds up to around six-foot of fun for someone who wants that shortboard manoeuvrability without forfeiting paddle power.
 
Baggage Handlers:
As the water temperature begins its downward spiral and the cold southerlies start chilling us to the core, some of us dust off the neoprene but the clever, or financially fortunate ones among us head to foreign climes. Here, we give you a couple of choice tips for packing your bags and making your trip run smoother. And for the unlucky ones staying at home, we’ll be covering wetsuits next month…
 
- Wherever you may be heading, odds on you’ll be jumping on a plane. Give them a call in advance to check their policy on boards, even before booking tickets. Policy varies from airline to airline, some are great, some don’t even allow boards. Check length and weight restrictions and insurance details.
 
- When you’re packing, think rationally. You’ll be taking up to 20kg in boards alone so pack light, giving you more weight allowance. Hopefully, you’ll be surfing most of the time, so two rashies and two pairs of boardies are all you really need!
 
- As we mentioned last month, O&E Solarcure is great for simple repair jobs. Pack at least couple of tubes and visit your local shaper for some offcuts of glass for those all-too-likely patch-ups. Even better for small jobs is FCS’s instant ding putty. Just mash the green with the grey putties, squish into the ding and leave for ten… et voila – instant fix.
 
- Your health is vital, especially if you’re travelling to more exotic, isolated locations. Check with your local doctor on shots or tablets you may need, such as malaria pills. Nothing’s better than peroxide for reef cuts, and you’ve got to keep that sucker dry. Spray-on bandage is good, but a waterproof plaster is better. A topical antiseptic cream is also crucial. And always remember to slip, slop, slap.
 
- Packing your board is always tricky. Invest in a decent cover, preferably something heavy-duty, like FCS’s Explorer range, and pad your board with clothing and a layer of cardboard, paying special attention to nose, tail and rails. Remove fins or, if you have a fixed fin board, buy some high density foam from a hardware store or rubber factory, press onto the fins and slice where they mark, creating a good, solid cushion.
 
- Pack spares: spare legropes, spare fins, spare FCS lugs and keys… Do a quick spot-check on your luggage of all the things that could get lost, broken, stretched, torn, bent or damaged and double up.
 
- Reef booties are a good idea if you’re going to any rock or coral-infested breaks. There’s a wide range available, usually fairly reasonably priced. Make sure you try them on and be aware of the comfort vs. durability compromise.
 
- Wax doesn’t grow on trees, so make sure to take a good stockpile, along with a comb. Make sure you get wax to suit the conditions you’ll be surfing. Cold water wax won’t last a second in the heat of the tropical sun.
 
Next Month: Wrap yourself in rubber. A buyer’s guide to wetsuits.

Jake “Sticky Feet” Bowrey - Our Resident Resinologist -

Jake Bowrey’s dark and chequered past will follow him to the grave, a history as unshakable as the abnormal growth on his lower back which, rumour has it, is his Siamese twin, Hugo, and the brains behind the inseparable duo.

At Classic Malibu, we believe in forgiveness and second chances to make first impressions. So when we found young Jacob, wallowing naked in a pool of his own vomit late one Saturday night, we decided to harbour the illegal immigrant and train him in the fine art of glassing.
 
Escaping war-torn Barnstaple in the South-West of England, Jake moved to Westward Ho! and allegedly invented the exclamation mark, originally solely for the purpose of drawing attention to the quiet backwater and not for punctuation at all.

The orphaned refugee, at only 5-years-old, sustained himself by suckling on the teats of wild squirrels, their sweet milk, a potent concoction, causing the loss of all Jake’s teeth. The innovative rugrat crafted a new set of gnashers from hazelnut husks but learned his lesson and realised it was time to integrate himself into human society.

At first, his pungent odour and effeminate ways made him the target of much abuse. But the joke was on the Nuns Of Her Holy Divinity, their attempted drowning of the feral heathen child spawning his love for the ocean and an ability for holding his breath up to nine minutes, 27 seconds.

Jake soon made a home on the beach out of driftwood and porpoise saliva and, seeing the frolicking tourists enjoying the waves, decided to craft himself a bodyboard out of washed up Barbie Dolls.

Befriending a local band of rebel dolphins, Jake not only began fighting for cetacean equality against the tyranny of seals, but was taught the art of stand-up surfing. But the tricky pranksters didn’t trust their four-limbed brother-in-arms and convinced poor Jake, now a strapping teenager that a passing humpback whale was on his way to Big W for cheap lollies. Climbing aboard the spouting behemoth, Jake had no idea that he was embarking on a 15,500km odyssey.

Arriving on Queensland’s north coast, Jake inspired the renaming of Goniria, the local Unluki tribe’s word for ‘he who must not pro-create’. The town became 1770, so named for the 1,770 barnacles removed from the young lad’s posterior.

But Australia wouldn’t immediately be a land of hope and happiness for Jake. Having developed webbed fingers during his oceanic voyage, Jake was taken in by a passing circus not, as some might suspect, as a freak show act, but rather as a dummy audience member, his resonant clapping whipping the crowds into an appreciative frenzy.

The miserable existence of sustained applause burst the major blood vessels in his hands as well as causing him to be deaf to all music apart from Liza Minelli’s warblings. Jake still retains to date the ability to recite the entire scores of every Gilbert and Sullivan operetta verbatim.

His hands became as rough as 240-grit sandpaper, depriving him of all human contact, as well as many of his personal hygiene requirements, causing the young hobo, now entering his 21st year, to redevelop his overpowering aroma.

Ostracised from rural areas, Jake ventured inland, feasting on the abundant mineral deposits of the Great Sandy Desert before a sage-like prophecy from a passing goanna told him to fondle a nearby log with his chafed digits until he had whittled it into a perfect replica of Greg Noll’s Miki Dora ‘Da Cat’ model noserider. Little did he realise that he had misread the goanna’s divination, which had, in fact, been merely a bad case of gas from the previous night’s feast of termites and fermented koala urine.

Fortunately, fate would smile on Jake for the first time in his hollow and meaningless life when Kelly Slater, attempting to reach Bells Beach, made a navigational faux pas, reading the map upside down.

Seeing the sun-scorched ruffian with his beautifully crafted Noll reproduction on the outskirts of Woop-Woop, Slater plugged his nose with Mrs Palmers special menthol-blend wax to combat Jake’s hideous stench and offered him a lift to the longboard Mecca of Noosa Heads.

After a quick dip at Noosa’s Main Beach, Jake was far less offensive on the nose and soon befriended a deaf mute girl by the name of Gordon. The couple swapped stories as the sun set, a slightly one-sided, unresponsive affair, but as Jake, despite being fluent in humpback song and with a faltering knowledge of the local goanna dialect, could only converse in grunts and moans, little spoiled the peaceful evening.

Taking a stroll along Hastings Street, Jake plucked up courage and decided to take Gordon’s hand, but due to his calloused paws, he lacerated his lover’s fingers, resulting in her severe loss of blood. Shortly before losing consciousness, she miraculously developed the ability to speak, the first poetic words to pass her lips being, ‘hell dawns joyfully after a day with you.’

Mustering the last of her strength, she slapped the forlorn Don Juan before succumbing to death’s icy grip. Devastated at the loss of the only person he had ever loved, Jake syphoned the contents of 27 cars’ fuel tanks and unleashed a rampage of woe upon Noosa’s CBD. Clumsily staggering into a passing smoker, the petrol-soaked Romeo ignited, forcing him to remove all his clothing, and involuntarily, though fortuitously, unleash a wave of vomit and so extinguishing his flaming leg hair.

Passing out in an unsettled morass of self-pity and rejection, Jake lay dormant on Hastings Street until, on a quest for a lady-of-the-night, Classic Malibu owner, Peter White, took pity on the retched creature and nursed him back to health. White, or Papa Bear, as Jake now lovingly refers to him, educated his newly adopted protégée in the ways of the glassing bay and, despite a few repeated incidents involving an excessive thirst and a 20-litre drum of laminating resin, the young upstart has had a successful glassing career ever since.

Now an established member of the Classic Malibu team, a whole new chapter begins in the life of Jake, and karma is sure to come up trumps sooner or later… or is it? 
 
Next Month: Wax On, Wax Off: we connect with Jesse Watson, our very own in-house Mr Miyagai…

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Tommy Leitch /Classic Malibu
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