Journal
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
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 couple of weekends at the Art in Action and Port Eliot festivals whilst attempting to carry on as "business as usual" in between. We're back and properly unpacked again now following a weekend at the incredible Port Eliot literary festival last weekend, and have had a chance to reflect on a really...
We like to keep in touch with everybody who has ever joined us to make their own surfboard, and it’s incredible when we receive an e-mail with a...
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...
It's festival season once again, and with the hope that this year's quota of rain has already fallen on Glastonbury, we're making preparations to...
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...
The Friday before last, on the evening of June 10th, we held our second annual “Boards, Bangers and Beers” open workshop evening. The weather was overcast and threatening thunder again, but the rain held off so thankfully Ben and Darren didn’t have to barbecue in a downpour, and we had a great turnout. Stories were shared, a lot of sausages were eaten, and the beer went down very well indeed. All up, the evening was a great success....
We’ve always been fascinated by those most ancient of Hawaiian finless wave sliding craft, alaias and olos. Without fins to hold them straight...
You don't have to go very far, or for very long, to feel as though you've broken out of your routine and had a bit of an adventure. A couple of weeks...
You're all invited. In a couple of week's time we'll be sweeping up the workshop and lighting the bbq outside the big blue doors for an evening of...
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...
Two weeks ago, whilst the surfing population of southwest England stared in frustration at the small, wind-blown, waves lapping on their shores, James was enjoying an hour of regular shoulder-high waves every day at the push of a button. He was spending the week at Surf Snowdonia, where we had been invited to run a “Make Your Own” wooden surfboard workshop course, and ironically enjoyed better waves than Chris and Mat who stayed behind at...
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...
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 Sea and explore the West Coast of Ireland. Following a hurried re-fit of the Otter Surfboards van to allow them to call it home for the next 14 nights, they loaded as many of our demo boards into the back of it as possible and set off to catch the ferry from Liverpool.
This last week the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Ecology published some research that spells out a bleak future for British woodlands; a...
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...
