Shapers & Boards

The easiest way to introduce Garry McNeil Concepts to you would be to say the name Dave Rastovitch. Yes, Garry is responsible for shaping Dave's boards, and is light years ahead of the game when it comes to both design and construction.

A friend of mine that still resides on the gusty, cold and often swell redundant island of my birth (UK) posted on social media that he is looking for a new board. His geographical location was not far from Ellie's so I explained that I would give my left gentleman's part for one of her boards. That's how good they are.

Today, two shapers who work using his designs and who are professed students of his work are Daniel 'Tomo' Thompson and asymmetric guru, Ryan Burch. While Tomo is trying to bring these designs to the masses, Burch prefers an ongoing experimental approach which incorporates asymmetric design. <br /><br />

For someone like me with a surfboard fetish 9ft 6 inches long, it is very distracting and time consuming just looking at and salivating over surfboards. It is then, with some fanfare...

The best board I have ever had made for me, the journey to it, what made it great and a lot of reasons to get a surfboard shaped. For you.

Tom Dodge-Harrison is a shaper that specializes in surfboards that have to perform and survive. He makes boards for big waves called Guns that are for riding the monster Irish slabs in the depths of winter.

It is a brave new world in which the surfboard shaper has to exist. Gone are the days of being a grumpy old man in a shed smashing together some fibre ...

Should your first surfboard be a malibu and why it does and does not suit the requirements of a debutante surfer.

The most copied and tweeked shape in the surf world. The Fish . A short ditty about how underrated fishes are as surfboards and about what board you choose to surf depends solely on what you intend to do on that wave.

Meeting up with Maurice for a chat was an experience in itself, I have only managed to capture a fraction of what we were talking about. Maurice is not someone that you can have a quick chat with as I found out. We covered everything from the WSL using sustainable surfboards to Tom Curran and his magic MC board to his more present involvement in the big wave tour with Ross Clarke-Jones.