Journal
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
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 to run smoothly. Hannah and Justin are from Buckfastleigh in Devon, a town that was once the centre of a thriving woolen industry but which has since declined as demand for the coarse wool of upland hill sheep to make carpets has fallen when the local factory closed. Much of that wool is now...
Surfers Against Sewage are a charity very dear to our hearts here at Otter Surfboards; based just over the hill in the neighbouring village of St...
Exploring the broad spectrum of worldwide contemporary surf culture, the team behind Gestalten’s latest offering, a heavy coffee table book...
Last Wednesday James took on the drive from Cornwall up to London, pushing his way through West London traffic at rush hour to arrive at...
In the middle of March, James and our good friend Tony took a few weeks off the making of Tony’s wooden surfboard with us to head over the Irish...
This last week the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Ecology published some research that spells out a bleak future for British woodlands; a review of the Ash tree, Fraxinus excelsior, by Dr. Peter Thomas predicts that eventually the ash tree is likely to be all but eradicated from Europe thanks to the twin threats of ash dieback (Chalara) and the larvae of a beetle called the emerald ash borer which is spreading west across...
George Greenough is the barefoot genius and inventor whom many people argue was the catalyst for the shortboard revolution of the mid-1960s. Born...
Living out of the back of a van seems to have become incredibly en-vogue in recent years. A sure sign of that is when a parody film, such as the...
It’d be fair to say that we’re fans of a proper tea break here at Otter Surfboards; downing tools for ten minutes a couple of times during the...
It's fairly common for visitors to the Otter Workshop to comment on James' lack of footwear. For most of the year, in the workshop, on the beach and...
Surfboards vary in appearance as much as the human beings that use them; many become a vehicle for expression both in the way that they are ridden but also in the way that they are decorated. But then most surfboards are made of laminated foam, and all start out as blank white “blanks” (the industry term for an unshaped slab of foam) that beg to be personalized with paint because otherwise they’re just a shapely piece of plastic....
Over Christmas and the New Year James and Liz finally headed off on their slightly belated honeymoon, trading the wind and rain of the northern...
We’ve had a rather unusual surfboard stored in the workshop for the past year or so; it’s a twelve feet long replica of a Tom Blake style...
Our first “Make Your Own” workshop week of 2016 has just finished up, and it was a great way to kick off this year’s series of courses. We...
We’re excited to share with you this week the news that, this spring, we’ll be heading up to Surf Snowdonia in North Wales to run a week-long...
Abandon all hope of glory Let it fall from your hand, Float through grit And settle to the sand. Swim on comrades The Closeout is come. Breathe in Earth’s aura, The magnificent clear. Where you go you’ll stay Held under your fear. Swim on Comrades The Closeout is come. Kick with resolve The most euphoric whim. Hoots and shakas Outlook is grim. Swim on comrades Closeout...
The roof of our workshop has been a bit noisier than usual this past week. That’s because when it wasn’t drilling down with rain, we could hear...
As the New Year begins, it’s nice to take a moment to reflect upon everything that happened over the past twelve months. We think that applies to...
Well, Christmas Eve has well and truly crept up on us again following a flurry of activity throughout December. We’d like to wish all of you a very...
