Journal
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
At the end of last year, James’ dad Andrew turned sixty. We’d been developing, slowly but surely, our range of flat-water exploration stand-up paddleboards ready for release this summer, and James’ mum wanted to surprise her husband with a special gift; sending him on a surprise stand-up paddleboard workshop course with his son was the perfect present. Andrew started paddleboarding when he and Trudy first moved to Cornwall and lived in...
The first wooden surfboard that James made has just celebrated its tenth birthday, and it’s still going strong! Whiz is a 5’10” classic twin...
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...
Everybody loves getting a postcard through the mail, particularly in the age of e-mails when most of what lands on our doormats is bills and...
“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 achievements and spend a weekend talking and surfing wooden surfboards. It goes without saying that not all of them can join us (our workshoppers are spread far and wide around the globe these days), but every year the pile of positive RSVPs is a little higher and the group who meet at the workshop...
Summing up all of the steps and processes involved in one of our week-long wooden surfboard workshop courses can be a challenge - how does one go...
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...
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, Ally’s family gave him the gift of making a wooden surfboard here knowing that they were giving him the multi-faceted present of a new surfboard, a making experience, and a week in Cornwall with his friend James. The workshop’s date was open ended, and we waited for Ally to book a week off from...
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...
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 of Friday June 22nd. We’ve been wondering how we’re going to match last year’s event when we had over two hundred of you join us to hear talks from Chris Hines MBE and Sam Bleakley, enjoy a few beers and hot dogs, and check out our workshop and wooden surfboards, and now we’re excited to...
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...
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...
