Journal
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
In the mid-nineties, an ex-pat Aussie lifeguard residing in Hawaii named Andy Cochran started to develop a new type of swim fin. His aim was to produce a fin for ocean lifeguards that was comfortable enough for prolonged use, powerful, and suitable for a wide range of users. He shaped a positive mould from a wooden block and then had the first prototypes produced in Australia before bringing them back to Hawaii to be tested by Mark...
Last weekend we joined the wonderful team from Surfers Against Sewage at Somersault Festival in North Devon for a weekend of mud, music and...
For many families, school summer holidays involve going away somewhere and spending a week or so together making memories and enjoying each others...
A few weeks before Claire arrived in the UK from California, a large package arrived at the Otter Workshop addressed to her. When we opened it...
It's often been said when trying to describe the sensation of getting barrelled that "time slows down in the tube". We think that time slows down...
A few weeks ago Chris arrived at the workshop to spend a week helping us machine timber in preparation for a "Make-Your-Own" wooden surfboard course, with part of his final degree project in his car. It was a circular 3D map of the beach and point at Godrevy, the National Trust beach just down the coast from us. We knew that he'd been working on a series of these 3D landscapes throughout his third year on the Contemporary Craft BA(hons)...
It's not a race to complete the list of daily tasks involved in making your own wooden surfboard with us here, but you'd never have known that if you...
Last Friday, it was grey and raining in Cornwall. In the true spirit of all the best British summer festivals and events, whilst the rest of the...
Last weekend a very special event happened in Wales, and we were lucky enough to be involved. Every year on a remote farm in Ceredigion, West...
We're not quite sure how we're going to top this one; having kept it a secret for the past few months, we're now incredibly proud to announce that...
We have a date for your diary folks; on Friday, June 12th, the workshop will be open late and we are inviting anyone and everyone who is interested in what we do here at Otter Surfboards to come along after work from 6pm onwards and join us for a bbq, a few beers, and wooden surfboard chat.
The maxim "Measure Twice and Cut Once" is heard so often in the Otter Surfboards workshop that we thought we'd go ahead and paint it on the wall (at...
Kurt arrived at the workshop on Monday morning, having driven his pick-up truck half way across Europe from Switzerland to come and spend a week...
It’s lovely catching up with friends who have built surfboards with us in the past – that’s why we throw our “AGM” celebration every...
Earlier this year the guys over at Wavelength Magazine sat James down in their "Hot Seat" to ask him some questions about how Otter Surfboards came...
Every surfer around here is worn out at the moment, and in a really good way. April has been a bumper month for waves, with back-to-back swells, sunshine and more than our fair share of offshore winds - and there’s still another week left! It means that lots of surfers in the southwest have been surfing on “the either side”, getting their waves early in the morning or paddling out straight after work to surf until the sun sets into the...
This week we've had Alan and a whole lot of sunshine in the workshop with us. Whilst the beach at the bottom of the hill has been intermittently...
On one of the walls of our workshop, between the rack that holds wooden surfboards in various stages of completion (from half-done to old-faithfuls...
We feel very fortunate that our workshop is located where it is, not only because of its proximity to the beach and our homes, but because of the...
