Journal
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
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 circulars. We love one particular postcard in particular; it’s one of our own postcards and it’s been stuck to Martin’s fridge door in Glasgow for almost exactly five years. Martin picked it up at the London Surf Film Festival in 2013 (this year’s festival has just wrapped) where we were lucky...
“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...
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...
June, July and August have been busy months so far here in the workshop, with “business as usual” colliding with the culmination of various...
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 birthday that they have now just celebrated with us by spending a week together making a pair of surfboards.
Sometimes, and completely coincidentally, we have an “International Week” here at the workshop when all of the participants on a wooden surfboard...
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...
Everybody who joins us to make their own surfboard has an interesting story; Tim’s is one that none of us could quite get our heads around though.
Attending a course to make a wooden surfboard is, for many of our customers, the culmination of many months or even years of day-dreaming and either...
The community of surfers who have passed through our workshop over the years is a beautifully broad spectrum representing the 21st Century surfer. Over the course of their week spent making and shaping a wooden surfboard conversations often touch on how a person came across us, and why they ultimately chose to spend a week of their holiday with us in the workshop rather than ordering a custom surfboard or buying “off-the-rack”. These...
Spending a week making a wooden surfboard here at Otter is, for most people, going to be a step away from their day-to-day. The differences between...
Our August Bank Holiday workshop had a little bit of everything in it, and as such was a fantastic representation of what makes our “Make Your...
It feels somewhat counterintuitive to drive away from Cornwall and head up to London in the middle of August, but last weekend that's exactly what we...
Chris and Rikke drove from Denmark to make their own surfboards with us last week. They took their time and made a road trip out of it, spending some...
The week of June 19th-23rd was the ideal time to be in Cornwall as the southwest basked in a heatwave that included the hottest June day since 1976, and there was a lovely pulse of swell at the start of the week. Keijo, Rich and Tim spent this week in Cornwall, and although they were in the workshop for a lot of the time gluing, planing and sanding the wooden surfboards that they were making, there was a good four hours usable daylight on either...
Mike and Peter travelled from Guernsey to join us at the workshop the week before last; it was the last week of Peter’s school Easter holidays,...
Ordinarily, it’s only James who keeps a pencil tucked behind his ear. This past week though, all three workshoppers arrived with the same habit; a...
One of the questions that we always ask anybody who joins us to make their own wooden surfboard, is where they think they’ll have their first...
