The Muffin Man - Jeremy Ferrara

It was the year after my son was born that I finally bit the bullet and made the most important decision of my life. I was going to make a 2km trip that would change the way I looked at surfboards. Forever.

Some chapters and incidents in your life, you can recall with vivid clarity, the special and the shocking alike. I would like to partake in the remembrance of one such occasion so special that I almost pity those that have not seen the light as I have.

I am not talking about religion. I am talking about having a surfboard handcrafted to a standard and with such individuality that almost a decade down the road it is still my beloved teacher's pet.

Nothing can replicate the feeling of getting a new surfboard made for you. A friend sent me a picture of him and his new board and I thought that might explain exactly how he feels. I believe his girlfriend is just out of shot, sleeping on the floor.

Composing this article has taken a long time, a lot of thought and also a lot of back-burnering of important stuff. I really want to try and get across the importance of spending your money wisely, buying a board that you will love and cherish forever and remembering that you are not and never will be a pro. Unless of course you are.

The best analogy I can think of would be like taking the red pill for a handmade custom or take the blue pill, forget it all and go back to buying buy off the shelf with the brainwashed masses.

Back to the Muffin Man and the 2km journey that would change the way I viewed the surfing world.

It all began with a pocket full of cash, a car, some mates and a mission to get a new longboard. A nice board. I did not know what I wanted or needed and to cut a long story short I believed the hype at the time, all the industry techno talk.

I ended up in a surf shop getting talked into buying a Karl Schaefer Bonga Perkins 2 signature series 9'1", it had a firewire type epoxy construction, a nice shape and it was light.

It was also about 800 Euros. It was the worst decision that I made that turned into the best thing that ever happened. The slick surf salesman in the shop spun me a load of rubbish. I believe 'almost unbreakable' was mentioned. Well that is exactly what happened.

It was a 'head and a half day' in the south west of France about three weeks later when one board became two pieces of driftwood. Bummed I was, to put it lightly.

Exiting the water with two pieces of a board is one of the more horrible things, the realization that you either have lost a good mate or that at the very least it is going to cost you $$. That is when I met Jeremy Ferrara.  He had seen the entire thing from the beach and just happened to be testing a new variation of a model he shapes, the Muffin.

At the time this was an unfamiliar shape, it was a 6'0 that was super wide and quite thick, it had a pin tail, a brace of keel fins and dual stringers all wrapped in Volan. Basically, beauty personified. He handed it to me and asked if I wanted to give it a try. I did just that.

The thing was fast, it was very fast. It paddled like a long board but was way more maneuverable. It didn't mind size, it had bite even on steep take offs and there was no skipping out as can happen with some twins. Did I mention it also looked great. My mind was beginning to open up to what could be possible.

I thanked Jeremy, said the board was magic and he casually said he could shape me one if I wanted, that I should at least drop by his house/shaping bay for a beer. I said, thanks and went back to my life and worries of snapped boards. But that surf changed me and the seed had been planted, one that would change my life forever.

Jeremy has most recently got back in the shaping bay after a 4-5 year pause and is creating some new shapes that look simply amazing, here is a short clip of him 'testing' a Mirelle 9'6" family model. (I just happened to have purchased one of these too and I can tell you they are astonishing.)

Back to the Muffin Man and my drive. Like many of you I find it hard to part with cash however, I find I am able to bend my own rules somewhat when foam and fibreglass are being crafted into a wave riding vehicle. It was not always this way, I can mark the spot when the change happened. Right after my first meeting and order placement at Ferrara Surfboards.

After 2 months of annoying my wife with wondering what sort of board I could get shaped by Jeremy, and having one way conversations about fin placements and setups, I finally got ordered to drive the 2kms to Ferrara Surfboards and have a chat to see how much a board might cost. I came back that day with my tail between my legs, having just ordered the board that changed the way I looked at boards. I was however, in a bit of trouble.

Once my domestic situation had been pacified with promises of financial (and other forms of) servitude for the foreseeable future, I could then approach the subject without the fear of imminent reprisal. I tentatively mentioned my first visit to the shaping bay and gaze at my unfinished blank. Jeremy had insisted on me being involved in the process as much as possible but having the 'hands-on-skills' of a baboon, that consisted of watching nodding and listening. At each meeting I would see the board in a different state of production and was explained about the hows and whys, beers where opened, old surf movies discussed. In short, I had a nice time.

10 weeks later and I was paddling out for my first surf on my Muffin. It had a custom resin tint, multiple fin setups, extra thick S Glass, oversized square tail, displacement hull and 50/50 rails. I looked amazing. I felt like a rock star. I paddled and took off on my first wave and ate shit. My second wave was the same. Why? I could not surf it.

The problem was of course with me, it was such a different board to anything I had ridden before I had to feel my way like a blind man, making mistake after mistake and learning from them. There was always room for improvement and whole process from then until now is still going on. It is a board with such depth and personality that it still keeps you guessing. To use a tired metaphor 'It's about the journey', the learning and above all else for me it's about trying to figure things out and have fun at the same time.

That was almost a decade ago and many boards have come and gone in that time but my most cherished still remains and she still gets surfed just to remind me of how it all started. She is one of the family so much so that if I come back from a surf looking sad or troubled my wife's first question is 'Whats up? Is the Muffin alright?' She knows what it would do to me if something unmentionable happened to her. Some boards are not just fibreglass and foam but I like to think the collection of feelings that you have had together.

Enough of the hippy dippy stuff now. My point is, if you can experience something like this and be involved in the whole processes from start to finish at the same financial cost then why go for the cheap (and mostly inferior) consumer fix of 'off-the-shelf'.

Surfboards for me are like an addiction, but not so much for the board on the shelf, more for the board I know can be made for me.

I get excited now when I meet shapers and they talk about their boards because I can imagine whats possible.  That's all it comes down to really. That and having the most amount of fun possible.