Journal
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
Spending a week making a wooden surfboard here at Otter is, for most people, going to be a step away from their day-to-day. The differences between this and a day job ranges from adjusting to spending a week focusing on learning to quite simply spending a week on your feet doing manual work. These adjustments can be challenging, but the reward on Friday afternoon is (we think) well worth it. You can get a good idea of the processes that go...
Our August Bank Holiday workshop had a little bit of everything in it, and as such was a fantastic representation of what makes our “Make Your...
It feels somewhat counterintuitive to drive away from Cornwall and head up to London in the middle of August, but last weekend that's exactly what we...
Chris and Rikke drove from Denmark to make their own surfboards with us last week. They took their time and made a road trip out of it, spending some...
The week of June 19th-23rd was the ideal time to be in Cornwall as the southwest basked in a heatwave that included the hottest June day since 1976,...
Mike and Peter travelled from Guernsey to join us at the workshop the week before last; it was the last week of Peter’s school Easter holidays, and Mike had taken a week off work to spend some quality time with his eldest son shaping a pair of boards and surfing or swimming in the sea.
Ordinarily, it’s only James who keeps a pencil tucked behind his ear. This past week though, all three workshoppers arrived with the same habit; a...
One of the questions that we always ask anybody who joins us to make their own wooden surfboard, is where they think they’ll have their first...
A couple of Saturdays ago we packed the workshop into the back of the van and drove half an hour up the coast to Watergate Bay Hotel for our first...
Last week the workshop doors here were flanked on a daily basis by two pairs of boots drying in the sun, and an enormous (yet beautifully docile)...
Our “Make Your Own Wooden Surfboard” workshop courses have become a core part of what we do here, and as with every thing somebody had to be the first person to go through the process. Steve Iliffe is the Neil Armstrong of Otter Surfboards, having enquired about ordering a surfboard back in 2011 and asking James if, actually, there might be a chance for him to have a hand in making his surfboard. Just over five years later, Steve’s been...
When a person says that they intend to take a blowtorch to their freshly finished wooden surfboard before it goes off to be laminated, you could...
Neither Brian nor Ben are strangers to working with their hands to create something; Brian is a garage owner and mechanic from North Wales who...
No two workshops are ever the same, and the people that arrive here on a Monday morning and end up stood out in front of our big blue doors holding...
During the last week of September, we were joined by Jac, who was celebrating his 21st birthday by making a 5’10 Fetch with us. He travelled to us...
Having somebody join us from overseas for a workshop week to make their own wooden surfboard is not uncommon, but having a completely international group of workshoppers join us for our most recent workshop has been a first. As August transitioned into September we were joined by Larry (French, of American descent, who lives and works in London), Marc (from Switzerland) and Henrik (from Sweden but living and working in London), a wonderful...
We've spent a fair bit of time over the last month loading and unloading bits of our workshop in and out of the back of our van, as we've spent a...
Our friend Tony had quite the complete workshop experience with us over the first six months of this year; he fitted in sessions and days at the...
We’ve always been fascinated by those most ancient of Hawaiian finless wave sliding craft, alaias and olos. Without fins to hold them straight...
