Glide Surfboards - The Real Deal

Very few people live and breathe surfboards, some people, like me, enjoy geeking out on interesting lines and concaves, fin placements etc but to live them every day and to have the passion to create and innovate, now that is a rare thing...

Paul Smith makes the sort of boards that I would geek out on and he also happens to be one of the people the lives and breathes foam and fibre glass. Apart from a good mask & resperator I wanted to see what keeps someone interested every day.

Glide Surfboards is located just outside Cork in Ireland and they make boards that...well I have seen boards of all kinds, short long, modern, retro. It seems to me that there is no particular genre except that they all look pretty amazing.

Paul has agreed to tell us a bit more about what drives him to create very nice surfboards indeed.

SB: Hey Paul, thanks for your time, how and when did Glide come into being?

Paul: I was a surf instructor in Devon and I started to spray paint a few boards for another instructor so I got to mess around with a few tools then. When I left that job I got bored living in Southampton so I blew my credit card on materials and tools rented a garage off a nice old lady there amongst the blocks of flats I made my first few boards.

SB: You seem to make all sorts of boards, which are the most interesting from a building perspective?

Paul: I love making any type of board, but longboards are my main passion though tweaking a short board is cool.

SB: Whats you catchment area, where do most of your boards get surfed?

Paul: Ireland mainly but I've got boards all over uk, Europe and as far away as Australia and NZ.

SB: I really like the look of the coffin dodger, what wouyld one those set me back with full extras?

Paul: the coffin dodger tips it's hat to the Hypto Crypto in poly construction with stringer they are €525

Though I do them also in poly flex foam with carbon rails (no stringer) as well.

SB: Ireland seems to be on everyone's radar for big wave surfing. Are there good places to get normal sized waves?

Paul: Oh yeah there's great waves big a small all over this beautiful island.

SB: Is there anyone that you take inspiration from as regards to board building?

Paul: luckily I've had the chance to watch and work with a few top shapers and glassers I've worked with rich pavel this is where I get my inspiration on fishes you can't go wrong with a speed dialler! I love Californian logs with pinched out rails I got the chance to work with Zeph Carrigg one of the best all round shapers and glassers around I learnt a lot from making boards with him.

SB: Can you remeber the first board that you shaped? Have you still got it?

No, but the guy who has it knows that I want it so maybe someday it will come back I still have number 5 and 10 which were new designs that I tried.

SB: Thanks again to Paul, I got him at a very busy time indeed and managed to squeeze this quick one out of him. Paul is someone who really knows his stuff and if you live in the area or not, call or email him for a chat on building a board for you.

Why not try and resist the 'off-the-shelf' Slater model and support your local shaper. They are not a charity, they, like Paul, build actual, real, very good surfboards for you.

May you all be eternally blessed with clean, off-shore nuggets.