Feelflows Surfboards – Under the Radar

Sometimes in life you discover things that seem to good to be true. You know, when your natural reaction is not to tell anyone. No, it is your secret and if you tell anyone it might evaporate just like a mirage on the horizon. Well here is a leap of faith right here as I am about to let this little secret out into the global ether.

I first heard of Feelflows surfboards from my brother who lives in little Portuguese surf town called Figuera da Foz. He let me into the secret enclave and I have told one other person about it since then, they immediately ordered a board, received it, surfed it and loved it.

Sometimes when you expect too much of something you are often let down by the reality, well not in this case. My friend, after having purchased the surfboard described above recently visited me as part of a surf trip. I was able to bring reality into the equation on a quick test session and boy oh boy, believe the hype...

I reached out to Pedro and asked if he might be interested in talking to us about the hows / whens / whats and whys of these almost mythical creations. To my absolute pleasure he said he had time for a quick chat and this is how it went down.

SB: Hey Pedro, thanks for your time, where were you born / grow up and when did you first start getting into surfing and shaping boards?

Pedro: First of all thank you for this invitation and for the interest in my work. I was born in Lisbon, and because my father works in the fine paper industry we kept moving around the country to wherever they were putting up a new paper mill. When I was around 15, we moved to Figueira da Foz, a little coastal city that hosts one of the biggest paper mills in Europe and a couple of world class surfing peaks.

There's really not much to Figueira apart from this blessed ocean front, so surfing was a natural way of making the most of it.

Later on, I moved north to Porto to take my degree in architecture and after that I spent some years studying and working in London. Through this period I surfed very little and I must say that it was only by the age of 25, when I was done with London and returned to Portugal, that I got really addicted to surfing and the ocean.

I started to shape boards around 2010. Me along with a couple of friends had started a blog on alternative surf culture, inspired by all the revival that was going on in Cali and Australia. We would spend hours watching every video there was to watch of Tudor, Knost and all the other fellows. Then Tyler Warren showed up trashing everything in a 5 feet Soap Bar and we decided we needed to have one of those. The few people who even knew what that was were asking a grand for it, so we decided to reshape an old, fat and trashed longboard we had lying in the garage.

We shot the all process and the video went viral but the surprising thing was that the board turned out really fun. From there to start shaping my own boards, then my friends boards, to getting the first orders was a really fast process.

SB: Is there anyone that you look up to in the shaping world to draw inspiration from?

Pedro: I mostly love people that are looking back to the history of surfboard evolution as a whole and are willing to truly understand the concept behind each design, bringing them into the light of present knowledge and confronting it, not just reproducing it. In that sense, I find the work of Ryan Lovelace and his insight into the displacement hull outstanding! but there are others: Ellis Ericson pin tails are a reference, Pavel fishes, everything coming from Tyler Warren is always inspiring and I could go on and on...

SB: It says on your website all your craft are 100% made by hand, do you see the board through 100% of the process personally?

Pedro: It is interesting you mention that. Until now I've been building the boards personally all the way through: design concept, hand shaping, lamination and sanding. That gives you absolute control over the final product but most of all, it gives you an understanding of the possibilities and limitations of the techniques involved in the process.

I'm currently undergoing a structural change in my workflow. Due to the increasing volume of orders I need to outsource some of the construction stages. I now want to focus more on the board design and further developing my shaping skills. The good thing is, once you know a craft from the inside out, you're in a much better position to communicate with your collaborators and get the job done just the way you want it.

SB: Having touched, felt and surfed one of your boards there is no denying the superb quality that is one step above. Is it difficult to keep standards so high?

Pedro: I won’t say it is easy and I struggle to push the standards up. I'm never satisfied and sometimes lose my sleep over it, so it is very reassuring to hear compliments like yours.
I was recently traveling through California and it was very rewarding to see that my boards could pair up with those of the people I praise.

SB: The Candy Bar with the nose scoop looks like it is super fun to me, how much would that cost me with full extras and shipped to Peniche?

Pedro: Well...full extras meaning: pigmented and polished, fiberglass leash loop and fixed fins it would go up to 700 euros. If you consider that a set of good quality twin fins would cost you €100 it is not such an outrageous value. You can always have all the fun without the bling for just 490€.

SB: Who do you sell most of you boards to? Portugal, Europe or Worldwide?

Pedro: Portugal and Europe. Shipping a board overseas is too much of a bureaucratic piece of work and one that I don't have the logistic structure to endure yet. Moreover, I don't want to loose touch with what keeps me moving... the love for crafting and designing. I prefer keeping it small and not be buried in paperwork.

SB: All the boards in the Feelflows quiver look amazing. Do you have a favourite model?

Pedro: I surf the Candybar most of the time. I just love the effortless ability it has to develop speed and you can surf it in nearly every condition. You would expect a shaper to have huge quiver but in fact people are always buying my personal used boards... I let them go saying to myself that I can always built a new one but weeks go by, customers’ orders pile up, and I end up in the line-up with the trashiest board of them all!

SB: How do you look back what that fist board you shaped and have you still got it?

Pedro: Yes I still got it. I stopped surfing it only very recently not to destroy it any further. The funny thing is I've been playing around with that design -"the Split"- only to come back to the original formula... I guess it was beginners’ luck but it worked out great. Of course that everything has been fine tuned since then, but all the essential design features remain the same.

SB: Thanks a lot to Pedro for his time and I think I will have to be adding a 5'6 Candybar to my Christmas list, at 490 euro all in, that is a steal. It seems clear that Perdro is one of those people who likes everything to be just right otherwise he is not happy with it which means when you order a board from him you know it will have been meticulously checked and re-checked so you get what you order.

Feelflows boards are the real deal and having touched, seen and surfed one I can testify to that which is why I am trusting you, reader, not to tell too many people. Thanks for listening.