Journal
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
We were delighted to welcome 10xEuropean Longboard Champion Ben Skinner into the workshop this week to get started designing a wooden big wave gun for him. Ben is himself a surfboard shaper as well as being the most successful British competitive surfer to date, and is collaborating with us and Surfers Against Sewage to design and build a surfboard for him to paddle into a wave of significant size off the British coast this coming...
The saying goes that it never rains, but it pours. Today feels like one of those days here because so many seeds that we have been planting over...
Let us introduce you, a little more formally, to The Island Hopper. At 7'4" it's the Otter Surfboard's "one board quiver" model, perfect for...
The last few weeks have delivered some really good waves here in the South West of the UK. In fact it's been a winter of note, which is why we've...
What're you doing next Saturday? We'll be going for a swim in the waves - you should come along too.
Every now and then you see the sort of weather chart that makes you want to drop everything and run to the coast. This weekend, bookended by bank holidays, is just one of those: A low pressure has been sat in the mid-North Atlantic all week and was as low as 950mb at one stage, pushing a good period groundswell towards the shores of Western Europe. There's also been a high over the North Sea which has been drawing in a steady easterly wind...
It's officially Spring, and that means that for many of us the prospect of being fully immersed in the sea rather than floating above it on a...
Abrasive paper has been around for a long, long, time. Back in the thirteenth century the Chinese, in amongst inventing all sorts of other clever...
Pilot cutters are the vessels that worked the coastline between the Isles of Scilly and Bristol during the latter part of the 19th Century. Their...
It's always great to get feedback from clients about the boards that we've shaped them, and particularly so when the feedback is accompanied by...
This week we're going to tell you about how we use walnut in our surfboards. You may have noticed how we use hardwood accent strips on the deck and bottom panels of our surfboards, partly to add strength to a board and also to break up the grain pattern of the western red cedar which is the dominant material used in our boards.
This past week has been a busy one in the workshop here at Otter surfboards, and it's been absolutely brilliant. We've been running another one of...
British like cricket: that was the over-arching theme when we set out to design and build a more performance orientated mal to sit at the...
Let us introduce you to the humble surform. Many of you may already be familiar with them, but we're going to take a closer look at this...
Stand tall and proud. Go out on a limb. Remember your roots. Drink plenty of water. Be content with your natural beauty. Enjoy the...
Next Monday, the 21st of January, is Blue Monday. The third Monday in January is deemed by many (although it's pseudo-science) to be "the most depressing day of the year", even though this has no basis in scientific fact and was actually devised as a publicity campaign for a travel company. Regardless of it's accuracy or origins though, there's no doubting that the end of January isn't the chirpiest time for many; Christmas and New Year,...
We're going to start our "Surfboard Focus" series of blogs this week (we'll be looking at one board every month or so), and because it's a Friday,...
Happy New Year! So the festive period is truly winding down now and things are getting back to normal, and that means that this weekend is the...
POST UPDATE: As of 2015 we have been using a Spanish grown and produced plywood made from FSC certified poplar. It is lightweight and traceable, so...
