Journal
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
Over the course of the last year we’ve been developing a range of three flat-water exploration stand-up paddleboards. We spent this summer refining and testing these three models and two paddle options and are now (having dropped a few teasers and left them in the background of some workshop photos) excited to be launching them for sale and as a seven-day workshop course.
Surf wax is as necessary when surfing as the surfboard itself, but it’s also a small, consumable product that is often overlooked. Most surf...
June, July and August have been busy months so far here in the workshop, with “business as usual” colliding with the culmination of various...
Allow us to introduce Ally. Ally is one of James’ best friends, and the latest member of the team here at Otter Surfboards. For his 30th birthday,...
Easkey Britton, PhD, is a pioneering Irish surfer with a fascinating story: an academic and world travelling professional surfer, amongst other...
Surfing is often referred to as “The Sport of Kings” thanks to its ancient history as the preferred pastime of Hawaiian kings and queens, but it is not only the Hawaiian royalty and nobility who enjoyed riding waves – our very own British Royal Family have been known to also. Great Britain, the Hawaiian Islands, and their Royal Families have had a long and interesting relationship through the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. The Sandwich...
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...
Last week, Joe and Mat joined us for our June wooden surfboard workshop week. They’re identical twin brothers, and back in January they had a big...
The summer solstice is fast approaching, and with it our annual “all are welcome” open-workshop evening of Boards, BBQ and Beers on the evening...
A couple of weeks ago we were lucky enough to be featured on Kate Humble's new series of Back to the Land, which has been shown on BBC Two over...
Yesterday, on Saturday the 19th of May, HRH Prince Harry married Ms Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle. Amongst the wedding gifts they received was a traditional wooden bellyboard made by us, from English grown poplar and cedar, commissioned by Surfers Against Sewage and presented to them as a gesture of thanks for being selected as one of the seven charities who will benefit from the royal wedding.
The Benefits of Making Most of us work with our hands every single day. But because the majority of developed economies are now based on...
It was our Chris' birthday last week but despite him having the day off, he came in to the workshop anyway. Why? Because the surf in the little bay...
Sometimes, and completely coincidentally, we have an “International Week” here at the workshop when all of the participants on a wooden surfboard...
All of the people who walk through the big blue workshop doors here are multifaceted; everybody has more than one interest, and the same goes for...
We’ve written before at the close of a workshop week about how, over the course of these five-days, the learning flows both ways. It’s rare that this isn’t the case; almost without fail the people who join us to spend a week learning to make a wooden surfboard have knowledge and skills that they share with us in return. There’s a lovely balance to the exchange of information here. Last week we were joined by Robbie, who travelled down...
Riding a wave on a longboard is far from a passive activity; the size and weight of the surfboard means that the surfer must be dynamic and move...
Take a scroll through social media, and if you didn't know any better then you could perhaps be forgiven for coming to the conclusion that women's...
The Fine Art of Trim “Ponce DeLeon sailed the ocean in search of The Fountain of Youth, when all he had to do was jump over the side of his...
