The Greenest Surfboards are Yellow.....Because They're Old

I have been thinking about updating my quiver; my assemblage of surfboards, one for nearly every condition that South Florida has to offer. If you take a look at the boards, you may think that I need to update them as well. They are starting to yellow, have pressure dings, one of my fin boxes is starting to come loose. But the thought of replacing the boards is bittersweet. The boards that I mostly use, I made myself. I worked tirelessly for almost a week straight in a friends garage, trying to distract myself from a  frustrating few months and a particularly rough week. I shaped, hours on end, each stroke of the surform, every brush of sandpaper, until I had created what I thought was a good looking board. I scribbled the dimensions on the board, 6'6" x 19 3/4" x 2 1/4" . A little thick, but I was still developing.

I didn't get to finish the board until a few months later, and I got the first chance to try it out in a spot north of Jacksonville. I took off on the wave, dropped in, set for the bottom turn, and promptly fell right off the board. I was dejected. I had made a board that didn't turn. Months of hard work and lots of money wasted. BUT! As I caught more and more waves that day, I realized that the board did turn, it turned really well. SO well that it was really hard to control. I was stepping down 6 inches and completely changing my tail. After that session, that board became a work horse. Nicaragua, 5 hurricanes, countless Deerfield Beach sessions. All proudly proclaiming to beachgoers to "be ocean minded." IT has definitely aged .

Which brings me to last Sunday. TI was a beautiful day in Ft. Pierce. There was surf all throughout SoFla and Jess and I were going to take advantage of it. The first spot we checked showed potential. The inlet was protected by two long jetties. But it was too well protected. You could see the swell (11sec) but it just wasn't materializing. The tide was rising and was starting to affect the break. We found a spot a few miles south. The surf was inconsistent. But what it lacked in consistency, it made for in the fact that it was just Jess and I in the water.

The tide was starting to mess with the surf so we only had a couple of hours to try and catch a few. I caught a couple back to back after a 10 minutes or so but the opportunities were few and far between. The next opportunity that came in my old, yellow, but very trusty board, made the absolute most of it. It was a left and a late take off. The wave was breaking on me as I stood up and the section in front of me was collapsing. I made a bottom turn and went around it and what I saw in front of me was a clean and very fast wave. I set a line and  pumped once, and then twice. With every pump, the 6'6" gripped the wave and responded with lightning speed. Every pump accelerating me down the line. I made a quick top turn and found the line again still racing. The wave was moving so fast that it was now staking up against the shore pound. What was once a turquoise blue wave was now white with foam mixed with the dark tint of the sand. I had one opportunity to kick out. I jumped backwards over the lip and got mixed up in the whitewash. When it was all said and done. I was shin deep, half in the ocean, half on the beach. One second more on the wave and I would have hit nothing but sand. In the brief few seconds from my time on that wave, my perspectives had changed.

I often think what life would be like on a professionally built board. Shelling out $700 for a typical Channel Islands. But when I think about what I put into the board while shaping it, and how well it has treating me, not to mention how much I've developed on that board. it makes reconsider spending money to get new gear. Why don't I just repair? Why don't I continue shaping boards? It's worked out so far?
I may be the odd man out in Miami by not having the newest model each year. But I don't need that. You can bring up the fact that older surfboards are more sustainable and it's true. But when you have a board that works really well, it just doesn't seem like a good Idea to part with it...at least not yet. And I guess for now, I'm going to Google how to repair old surfboards.

On a very secluded Beach in Ft. Pierce. The orange line is the wave that changed my perspective on my old board. I was literally on the beach at the end of the ride.