Ralphs new 10’0’’ nose rider.

This is Ralph Freemans  new board 10’0’’ x 24’’ x 3 7/8’’ resin tint top and bottom triple pin lines gloss and polish single fin with nose concave.

What a great looking board.

Check out these sprays

Chris our sprayer doing some great work two  different types of the art on surfboards. One real punky and the others three together just classic pin line work real clean line making the boards look great.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Atlantic Surfers

Some news from Alex Williams…

“Just to let you know I have just published 'Atlantic Surfers'  through Blurb.com a self publishing group.I felt that it was time to let people have a look at my old B/W collection of shots from the 70's.

Atlantic Surfers is 150 pages of images from Devon, Cornwall and Scotland including Fraserburgh and Thurso - a mixture of trips and contests.

The link below will take you straight there to the book. There is a choice of types of cover, Soft, Image wrapped and Dust Jacket. P & P has different rates, normal rate takes about 3 weeks to arrive, as I experienced with the first copy I ordered.

I hope you like the book and please spread the link to all that might be interested. http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/invited/401803/98ec2a3917027b6573f459708fb76a5a 

All the best, Alex”

Nice one Alex – now where’s my free copy!

Thurso Uncovered

Article from Atlantic Surfer #4 1979. Article by Steve Daniels and photos by Alex Williams.

 

Twas 1978

Twas 1978, Phil was "wittering"  his way through South Africa, sampling J Bays finest, whilst Nigel was busy earning a reputation as

THE British surfer. Ben, Jason, Chris and Daz were all still twinkles in their parents eyes... well maybe not Chris (take that as a compliment Chris) Nigel had proven himself in Hawaii and had been getting into shaping at Ocean Magic under Moonies careful tutilage...

What I love about this article is the editorial mistake...  or was Nigel switch-foot back then?

 

 

 

1980 - Atlantic Surfer #6 - 75p

This is a scan from Atlantic Surfer Number 6... its a Vitamin Sea advert whose relevance lies to the left of the picture, featuring the Aku-Shaping machine expert and long time board manufacturing guru... One of the 1960,s early 70,s crew on Boscombe pier and one of the original surfers of Broad Bench at Kimmeridge Dorset .  He cut his teeth at J-Bay and later with a career spanning Vitamin Sea, Rockit, and now NS Boards at the Ocean Magic factory in  Newquay... the one, the only, and still 5 fin cinco-system champion of the World....  .Phil Clifford

For those who are interested the man in the middle is Tad Ciastula, and the one on the right is Chris Jones (CJ) and his dog "Bean" (RIP).

I'd like to claim the photo was taken by me in my "summer of resin" but that was  a year later so it was probably by Tad's wife Sue. Whilst I'm on the subject of Tad - sorry for being a little sh*t on occasions Tad - it was because you built me that potato chip as a "present" for working all summer but then took my original board in exchange. However I should have told you I felt ripped off rather than stewing on it and then buying a Martin Geary just to spite you. Phew - glad that's off my chest I've been carrying that for 29 years!

Blood'n guts resin tint

Technorati Tags: resin tint,ocean magic surfboard,nigel semmens,bonzer,gun,single fin

I watched The Master Glasser (Jason) do the blood'n guts tint on my 7'0 B3 gun today. Pretty amazing how little time there is to get a good glass job... so to get the tints beautiful takes a lot of experience. I managed to get my new trainers covered in resin and got high 20 minutes later on the fumes...

 

 

This board is the first with the new-old Ocean Magic logo on it - I'll get a better picture of it next week. The last photo really appeals to me as you can see the colourway that I did for Jase to work to in the back ground.

It's going to have a cool black to red bursts spray on the deck, with some dusted peace bubbles over the hotcoat, pinlines, and some custom black doodles by yours truly on the two modified boozer side fins in a smokey layup.

Its the only thing I'm looking forward to coming back from New Year in Baja for (and the dogs of course).

Merry Christmas all.

Nigel - warm inside!

 

It was 1979... the second oil crisis had just begun, the Christian World was rocked with the launch of the Life of Brian, the IRA  murdered Mountbatten, the Russians invaded Afghanistan... and Nigel was forced to surf the summer in a little Gul shorty...

Ocean Magic Advert circa 1979

Nigel - where was this photo taken? Looks like Leven to me and from that solid bottom turn must have been pre-twin fin days :)

I979 - Thurso

I stumbled across a box of old surf magazines in the garage this weekend. This picture is from Atlantic Surfer #4, photo by Andy Bennetts.

I asked Nigel about Thurso today as he shaped my new 7'0 semi-gun. Thurso is also one of my favourite breaks and location of my first deep reef barrel, and this is what he had to say...  "I became a bit obsessed with Thurso for a while - making 8 or 9 trips up there just to score some of those epic barrels. It was never really that cold but then I did normally go in Autumn".

What a girl - I used to go in March!!

Pods and Bees

We just got some pics of some interesting boards we had the pleasure of making with Malcolm Campbell last year. He came and took over the shaping room for a week and made close to 50 boards for a variety of clients in Europe. The boards then went through the factory under the guidance of Nigel, Phil and Malcolm's agent, Guy Penwarden. Daz had to get to grips with the delights of fixing and sanding Bonzer 5s and Bonzer 3s, together with a huge swath of gloss and polish. It was an interesting slug of boards and a process we enjoyed being a part of. The pic is of a 6'0 Bumble Bee and a 6'6 POD.

 

 

Where there's a Will there's a wave...

Will - son number 2 of Kelvin is the second lucky lad to get a new board for Christmas - similar to Nick's but 2" longer and with a hot red and yellow spray. 

Lucky Nick

Nick's Dad has gone all out for Christmas with this 6'8" 2+1 diamond tail. It's got a rad red and black spray to go on after the hot coat has been sanded. Watch this space...

PS Nick - don't worry - your "Nick" logo is to go on over the hotcoat before the spray :)

PPS Tim says he wants a ride on it!