04 . 10 . 22
For anyone new to our Boardrack Briefing series; it’s a chance for us to take a closer look at our range of wooden surfboards, with a detailed and accessible overview of a different shape each episode. In the video below, James talks us through our new 9’6 Tea Tree longboard.
If you would like to join us to make one of these wooden surfboards, click here!
Video copy:
“Hey, everyone, welcome to the workshop. I’m James Otter, from Otter Surfboards. And in today’s Board rack briefing, I’m going to talk to you about one of our new models. This is called the tea tree longboard, so called because it takes its inspiration from the boards of the 60s that were being made in Queensland at Noosa at the time, we worked with with a board that a local pro surfer Sam bleakly brought to us in an attempt to, to kind of to really tip our hats to the boards of that time and real traditional longboarding.
So you’ll notice when you look at the template of this board, it’s got its wide point slightly moved further back. So what that does is creates this rounded template at the back end, which makes it easier to manoeuvre that curved outline helps with the turning, but you’ve still got quite a wide tail which generates lift as you’re getting into waves and you’re paddling and moving around. Then as we move down the board, you’ll see that the rails taper in ever so slightly towards the nose. And what that does is allows them when you start moving up the board allows them to engage with the water and give you real good hold and invites water back over the back end of the board to let you get to the nose with lots of control. And then to help once you’re up there you’ve got quite a shallow big area of the concave at the front end here. And that really gives you that kind of security once you’re up in trim at that front end.
When we look at the rocker line you’ll notice that there’s a little bit of a kick in the tail. And what that gives us is, again, a little bit more manoeuvrability because once you’ve rolled back on the back of the tail, you’ve got a lot of board out the water that you can swing around. You’ll notice as you move down the board as well the rails are quite pinched. That allows the water to wrap onto it nice and nice and easily. It’s kind of holding the water once you’ve found trim and gives you that comfort and stability as you move up the board. And then towards the front end. There’s a little bit of a little bit of flipping the nose but not a huge amount. So it’s a relatively low rocker.
This board is nine foot six in length. It is 23 inches wide and it’s three inches thick. So it’s a fairly typical board of what we make in our long boards. It sits in between the nine four seesaw and the nine six pier. The pier is similar in outline so a little bit straighter through the round a bit thicker. So this one really lends itself to the person who’s used to traditional onboarding really enjoys walking the board, but wants something a little bit a little bit more responsive.
We would surf this in anything, anything from really kind of one foot up to about four or five feet really once you get up to head high, it may start to struggle. Just because that wide tail it’ll try and slip a little bit might not give you the hold you really want.
You can either join us on one of our five day courses to come and make your own or have us custom make one for you. That’s two ways you can get hold of one. This one here was made on a workshop by one of our customers. You can follow us on all our social channels and we look forward to seeing you again in our next of our border briefing series. Cheers!”
3 new workshoppers are at the trestles this week as Ben, Eleanor and Christopher make their own wooden surfboards, check out how they are getting on!
A mess of choppy whitewater greeted us at the beach this morning, but there are always corners to be found!
