Journal
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
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 past few years to craft their own wooden surfboard back to spend a weekend together surfing, making new friends over shared experiences, enjoying good food and having a few beers. We gather at Dunkirk Farm, where James made his first few wooden surfboards just a mile or so from the site of our...
Wherever you are and whatever you do, a little more space would inevitably come in handy. Since moving into our workshop at the Eco Park three...
It's always a great honour to be featured in a publication celebrating craftsmanship, and we couldn't have been more thrilled last week when a...
The premise is simple: twenty slides, lasting approximately twenty seconds each, sharing the backstory of the speaker to uncover what makes them...
Last summer we received an e-mail from one of our friends at Surf Simply; Kerianne, their logistics manager, was spending a summer on Long Island,...
Naming something is a difficult business. And, you only get one shot. Sometimes, a name comes instantly as if it was always meant to be, whilst at other times the right name takes a little longer to reveal itself. Every model of surfboard that we design and make here at Otter Surfboards is given a name, and this is standard practice not just here but in almost any industry that produces something, be it surfboards, watches or cars. It took us...
The 7’10” single fin pintail had been back from the laminators for a few weeks, taking up residence on the workshop wall whilst we waited for a...
With Christmas fast approaching and because of the handmade to order nature of many of our products, we need to let you all know when our last...
We've just taken delivery of our 2017 calendars, and they're available to buy now over on our products page. We selected twelve of our favourite...
Back in spring we visited Ireland and spent a couple of weeks surfing our way down the wild West Coast. One of the beaches that we stopped off to...
There's no entrance fee for the sea; it's a free natural resource that so many people get immeasurable pleasure from. At worst you might have to pay to park at the beach, but it's a small price to pay when you consider what you're getting. Therefore, when the two annual Surfers Against Sewage Beach Clean Series roll around (or any other beach clean events for that matter - it makes no difference who organises them), we see it as our chance to...
Late last spring we were visited by Chris, Rob and Matt, who were travelling the length of the British Isles documenting makers, producers and...
The Sunday of the first weekend in September has, for over a decade now, been the day that bellyboard aficionados converge on Chapel Porth beach...
Well not quite, but almost. This past week, Patagonia have been touring the UK showing their latest range of wetsuits; wetsuits that are neoprene...
Robert Chapman (known around the Otter workshop as Rob) joined us last November to make a surfboard as a gift for his son who’s currently living...
We drank a lot of tea during our May “Make Your Own” wooden surfboard workshop the week before last. Marcus and David were with us building and shaping their own boards – David made an 8’0” Pieces of Eight, whilst Marcus made the first “workshopper” version of an (as-yet unnamed) 7’9” classic down-railed gun that we’ll be launching later this year – and Marcus, being a true Yorkshireman, arrived on Monday morning...
James first met Hannah and Justin Floyd at last year’s DO Lectures in West Wales, where they were part of the team of volunteers helping the event...
Exploring the broad spectrum of worldwide contemporary surf culture, the team behind Gestalten’s latest offering, a heavy coffee table book...
This last week the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Ecology published some research that spells out a bleak future for British woodlands; a...
