Journal
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
As we near the end of another year, before we start looking ahead to what’s to come in 2019, we like to take a moment to pause and reflect on the past twelve months. It’s an opportunity both to celebrate our high points, and note the lessons to carry over to next year.
I’ve spent a fair chunk of my adult life now at sea on wooden vessels – be they surfboards or sail boats. Holding the line of a 5'5, 8kg...
“It has taken seven years to write and it’s only 27,000 words long but I have finally finished the thirteenth book that will have my name on...
Every year, as summer gives way to autumn, we invite all of our previous wooden surfboard workshop attendees back to Cornwall to celebrate their...
Last Friday we were lucky enough to host the UK premiere of The Plastic Project’s film Dispatches From a Plastic Planet at our annual Boards, BBQ...
New Year, New Model Sometimes we set out to design and make a new wooden surfboard model, and sometimes one develops seemingly organically. The Barque is a new addition to the Otter Surfboards range and is one such shape; the quickest way to describe it would be to call it a smaller version of our ever-popular Island Hopper model, but that would be doing it a disservice. Developed over several workshop courses as the result of a number of...
As one calendar year clicks over into the next, we like to take the opportunity to pause and reflect on the twelve months just passed so that we can...
Last weekend, we held our Annual Gathering of Makers. It's a special occasion for us, when we invite all of the makers who have joined us over the...
On Friday June 23rd we opened up the doors of our workshop, and of the Eco Park's barn opposite us, and were joined by an amazing crowd of people for...
It’s easy as a small business to always be looking forwards; to plan for the future and keep on pushing ahead. It’s all too common to overlook...
The 6’10” Jetty was one of the first shapes that we developed here at Otter Surfboards, and it's one of the most recognisable surfboards in our range. A classic "egg" style surfboard, the Jetty borrows some of the the best characteristics of longboard design such as a wider plan shape and higher volume, and transplants them onto a shorter board for easier manoeuvrability.
One of the really special things about sharing what we do through our workshop courses is the fact that we almost inevitably form new...
This deep into winter many of us rely on the woodburner in our front rooms to provide warmth through cold evenings. At Otter Surfboards we also rely...
Tonight the clock will tick over past twelve o-clock and we'll all be entering a brand new year. It's a time to be looking forward and making plans...
One of the most important parts of the design cycle is evaluating the final product: does it meet the original design brief and how well does it...
September signals the start of autumn for us here in the Northern Hemisphere. Whilst we cling on to the sunny remains of summer for as along as possible and anticipate larger, more powerful swells generated by Atlantic storms, our friends in the Southern Hemisphere are looking forward to hanging up their thicker wetsuits and spending days enjoying the beach. We heard from Shane recently, however, and his stories of winter surfing on the...
It’s been a good summer this year. Memories of past years of howling nor’westerly winds and incessant mizzle were banished and we spent the...
This past month it has finally felt as though Summer has arrived here in the south west of the UK - on some days at least! And when we get a high...
Let us introduce you, a little more formally, to The Island Hopper. At 7'4" it's the Otter Surfboard's "one board quiver" model, perfect for...
