Journal
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
The latest news and stories from our workshop, and beyond.
We drank a lot of tea during our May “Make Your Own” wooden surfboard workshop the week before last. Marcus and David were with us building and shaping their own boards – David made an 8’0” Pieces of Eight, whilst Marcus made the first “workshopper” version of an (as-yet unnamed) 7’9” classic down-railed gun that we’ll be launching later this year – and Marcus, being a true Yorkshireman, arrived on Monday morning...
Two weeks ago, whilst the surfing population of southwest England stared in frustration at the small, wind-blown, waves lapping on their shores,...
Last Wednesday James took on the drive from Cornwall up to London, pushing his way through West London traffic at rush hour to arrive at...
Our first “Make Your Own” workshop week of 2016 has just finished up, and it was a great way to kick off this year’s series of courses. We...
Our final workshop of 2015 has just wrapped up, and it was a great week to finish the year on. Every single one of the “Make-Your-Own” wooden...
Ordinarily, the people who join us to build their own wooden surfboard over the course of a workshop week have a fairly similar understanding of the intricacies of surfboard design; they all own surfboards and, to some extent, have picked them up, examined them and know the various features and their functions. Last week we had two people in the workshop with us who sit on the extreme ends of that spectrum of surfboard design knowledge and it...
Last Saturday, Michael woke up with no idea what he would be doing for the next week; a few months previously his wife had told him that she was...
Our Annual Gathering of Makers is our chance to say thank you; an opportunity for us to invite everyone who has supported us these past few years by...
The British summer holidays are bellyboard season; that time of year when old plywood boards are pulled out of the backs of sheds and garages, dusted...
July was a good and busy month for wooden surfboard workshops here at Otter, and at the very end of the month we welcomed Marc Koska to the...
Last weekend we joined the wonderful team from Surfers Against Sewage at Somersault Festival in North Devon for a weekend of mud, music and making. We’d been invited along to run a series of bodysurfing handplane making workshops over the three days of the festival as part of SAS’s programme of events, and James was also presenting a daily talk for their Ocean Lectures series alongside speakers including big wave surfer Andrew...
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 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...
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 autumn to try and get as many workshoppers in one place at the same time to share their experiences with one another. Sometimes the making bug bites and building just one wooden surf craft with us isn’t enough, so whether those who have shaped handplanes or bellyboards return to build a full-size...
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...
The first workshop week of our 2015 programme ran this week, and it was wonderful to welcome a friend from just down the coast into the workshop....
Sometimes a great swell coincides with a busy week of work, and there's nothing much that you can do about it. It's a great problem to be faced...
