New Addition to the Family

I am pleased to announce the latest addition to the family :) A 9'6" Gulf Stream Saunton Foil. Firstly sorry for the really rubbish pictures! It's so cold outside, there's just no way I was taking it out there to photo it. I will have to do some more when I take it out for a sesh.

This is the best one and this is the one I took in the shop with my phone. It's a mustard yellow with black and white pin stripes. Here's a another couple..

And if you look closely (again - rubbish pic sorry!), it says "For Rob by Jools" - sweet :)

This is hopefully going to be a life long relationship and I'm sure we will have our ups and downs. But right now, I need some nice small to medium clean waves so we can get to know each other a little better...

Big thanks to Skelly at Gulf Stream for being a great help in helping get what I wanted and helping Nic work out what design to have on it and a big thumbs to Jools for the shaping magic :)

Once we've settled in, I'll give Finshack a shout to line up some alternative fin action as well :)

Sunny September in the South West

Not long back from our regular September run to Cornwall.Two weeks this time, as opposed to the usual one week. It was great doing the extra week and we managed to relax and chill out (I believe the new word on the streets is chillax - real hip!).

The week started off well with our visit to see Gavin at Finshack and the purchase of a sneaky new fin. What a beaut! I tried it out at Polzeath and wow what a difference it made :) Honestly, I didn't think I would notice the difference - but the first wave and the board felt completely different - really nice and very happy :) That was one of the few times I got to use my board - more on that later...

Polzeath was busy, so after a major rain storm we moved on and ended up in the dizzy heights of Newquoi. We'd planned to stay near Constantine, but we got major demotivated with the horrific weather, leaking van windows, soaked awning and the red flags at the beach (especially after having the sea so nice in Polzeath). So Newquoi it was.

One thing lead to another and all our plans of cruising around and going to different places never happened and we stayed at trusty old Trencreek the entire time. To be honest, the waves in Newquoi were really nice, so we didn't want to risk moving and not have suxh good conditions. We ventured to Crantock and Gwithian (saw Jo & Andy while we were there of course) and both times convinced us that staying was the way to go!

We met Steve and Nick, who are from Manchester, at the campsite. They had a nice pimped out T4 and a puck (which fared well on a couple of the cooler nights - especially with heating and what have ya!). We had a great time with them, several beverages and a couple of bad heads (mainly me!). No doubt we will be catching up with them very soon :)

(Nick is sporting a slight toe injury in this picture - no more said about that hey Steve!)

Nic spent most of the fortnight on my longboard and made some really good progress. There's no excuse now, she has to come out with me next time we go in. So she had better use out of the new fin than I did. But I can hand on heart say that I got my first real good controlled nose ride! I think that was on the Monday night of the second week. I was made up. The board locked in on the wave, I moved forward and was about 15 cm from the end, held it for a good few seconds and then moved back as the board became a little unstable. Poetry in motion ;)

How did the van go? Up and down really. Still having overheating problems, but we at least managed to get down and back at around 60mph. Which is good, but not good enough! So there's still some work to do there. That aside, he ran around town really well and served us excellently for the whole 2 weeks. Can't grumble.

As we are now getting to be creatures of habit, we did the usual of going via Devon on the way home. So managed to grab a sneaky session on Saturday evening at Saunton (I got on my longboard this time!) and Nic managed a good few waves at Puts, on Sunday, before heading home (on our wedding anniversary).

An excellent two weeks, surfing, sunning and meeting great people :) Roll on next September...

Some other piccies I took...

What a difference the angle made - Nic preparing

A couple there of Nic coming back up the beach - the sky was amazing that night!

Some rare footage of me in the sea - paddling out at Fistral

Spot Steve's T4 and our Split parked up at Pentire

New Fin - Finally!

As part of our trip down to the South West over the next couple of weeks, I took upon myself to go and meet Gavin at Finshack to line me up with a new fin. Once we had finally tracked him down (he's proper in the sticks!), he talked me through the various styles. I ended up going for a Captain Fin Company model - and here he is:

A good all-rounder for me and something a little unusual - hehe :)

Made Another Fin

Having had a reasonably good success with Fin 1, I thought I would give another shape a go. We had a piece Alaia wood leftover from a table we made for the hallway so I used that - thanks to he guys at Loose Fit in Braunton.

I'm pretty happy with the way this came out. It was a much nicer wood to work with than the ply. In hind site, I think I would have preferred to have done the other shape with this wood, but it might be a nice addition to the underside of the table ;)

Making My Own Fin - Part 2

Hell what a busy weekend - Peter Kay, snowboard buying, a "B" and, yes, I have finished my fin :) See part 1 here... Given that I was clearly never going to be able to use it, it will be used as a nice decorative piece in the lounge.

I borrowed Pete's (the father-in-law) circular sander and got to work foiling the edges. I took it real steady so as not to screw it up and slowly got the finish I was after. Have a butchers...

This is the pre-varnished look:

And this is post-varnish:

It looks real nice :)

Things different next time: Make a better finish on the initial cut and possibly foil a bit further in towards the centre of the fin.

So I need to get my hands on another nicely shaped fin. This shape was kindly donated by Danny (who we will be seeing later in the year for Paddle Round the Pier in Brighton). Might see if the guys at finshack will shout me an outline ;)

Making My Own Fin - Part 1

I thought that I'd have a go making my own fin, so I got me hands on a sheet of ply and marked the shape I wanted to use.

I then started to cut it out using a jigsaw.

Having cut all the way round it...

I then sanded it to make the edge a little smoother. This, I think, is the first time I've ever used a jigsaw for a complex shape. Done plenty of straight line type of things, but getting round the curves was tricky. I ended up moving the ply as well as the jigsaw to get a rounder shape.

Yes, it's not amazing, but I think part 2 (when I get to doing it!) will hopefully remove the impurities ;)