Thomas Meyerhoffer...A Different Approach

Convention, we all conform in one way or another.

Some of us don't like to think so, but inherently we all want to be part of one club or another and at the same time we all want to be individual. Humans are not solitary beings, and in today's society we find ourselves needing to identify with someone before we even have a conversation with them.

What clothes are they wearing? What phone have they got? What car are they driving? But probably most importantly - what surfboard are they riding?

Have you ever heard of a shaper called Thomas Meyerhoffer, well you should have, especially if you like really nice things. Things that you want to touch. Things that you want to own and things that you want to surf. Okay, 'so what?' I can hear you saying, plenty of things look nice. What makes Meyerhoffer surfboards even more unique is that they are built with an emphasis on functionality first and they just happen to look enticing and different. The looks are essentially a by-product of the functionality.

For those that need a visual carrot, I introduce to you the 'Slip In'

Can you imagine how that would surf? Well I can imagine several different ways it would surf, every time I look at a Meyerhoffer board I try and work it out. I can't. There is no point. You will just have to try one, I promise you won't be disappointed. At this point in time I thought it might be a good time to ask some questions of one who knows a little bit more about these boards than I.

Thomas himself has agreed to spend some of his valuable time telling us more about his stunning creations.

SB: Hi Thomas, thanks very much for sparing us the time at Surf Bunker, where are you from originally and how did it all start for you?

Thomas: No problems at all. I was born and grew up in Sweden and it all started more than 30 years ago when I designed and built my first windsurfer board, back then they were called 'sinkers' because if you stopped they would sink! I built three or four of these and back then we would go on trips out to Hookipa in Hawaii which was one of the best places to wave sail. I didn't build any more boards then until I had educated myself as a designer and moved to California. My first job there was with a agency called IDEO and from there Jony Ive at Apple hired me, I was there for a while and when I left I started my own design studio, which I have now had for many years. That's when I could really surf more, it was not until I could live life a bit more on my own terms, build my life around surfing, that I started to become interested in building my own surfboards.

SB: When was the transition for you between wave sailing and surfing?

Thomas: Well as I came from the windsurfing background, but the only reason for this was because I liked the feeling of being on the wave and wanted the more personal experience of just surfing. When I say personal, compared to windsurfing, you are more in tune with the simplicity of the fact it's just you and the board and the wave. You have to be more in tune with the wave, and you have to be part of the wave and understand what happens, compared to windsurfing where you always have the sail that means you can get away if you don’t like the way things are going. Because I came from that background and the background of design I thought, I am going to use the tools I have to design my own boards. I used to ride a longboard and I wondered if there was any way I could change the shape of the board to accentuate the pieces I liked, which of course was the glide, but also the pivoting and the nose-riding and the sequencing of how you position the board in different parts of the wave when you surf, and if you can exaggerate that expression by changing the shape of the board.

SB: Out of the Meyerhoffer quiver do you have a favourite board?

Thomas: The original board is still in the line-up and I think that is a great, great board that represents where it all started but it has been refined a little bit here and there over the 7 years. Then there is the XYZ which is lighter and faster, it's more active and reactive, it is a little bit more difficult to ride but gives you more opportunities too. Randy Rarick, famous shaper and triple crown organizer actually rides an XYZ, so the XYZ is definitely one favourite. Then we have the Slip In, which is a modern version of the single fin. I like single fins and the Slip In has been tweaked a lot to give a more modern experience. Another go-to short board for me is the Super Normal, which is a small to medium wave board and is easy to paddle and responds very quickly and you can use it in any kind of conditions. These are some of my favourites.

SB: Your new Netflex Technology seems to be a compromise between performance and sustainability, is that the main idea?

Thomas: Yes it is, obviously sustainability is really important to us. I used to work with a distributor called GSI for a while and part of the decision to end that arrangement was to look at a more sustainable approach to building boards. I am not making surfboards to sell a lot of them, I want to make boards that people can enjoy the experience on. That's why I make surfboards. Obviously being in partnership with them to start with gave me huge exposure overseas and now I have good contacts all over the world. That is something that it's very hard for a local shaper to do.

Today we are shaping boards as a much smaller entity where we really are just focusing on creating the boards we want to ride and the boards that we think other people will want to ride to have that experience. We have been careful to be respectful of more sustainable products and use recycled EPS, mixing that with carbon fibre components to give a little more performance.

SB: I know you are a busy man, how much of your time does surfing take up?

Thomas: For me surfing is part of my life and it creates a space for me to be and to think as regards to my other work, so I design my life around surfing. With that comes the opportunity to travel and meet all sorts of people who share the same interests, like Bob McTavish, Ryan Burch and loads of other nice people. I don't really go and surf everyday, but I surf whenever I want and whenever it's good. I might skip a week of surf at home to travel and surf where the waves are good. That's what's important to me, surfing good waves and discovering waves that have not been ridden yet.

SB: Can you remember your first surfboard?

Thomas: Yes, I had a Joel Tudor, Donald Takayama high performance longboard, his boards I still look at and follow. It's interesting to watch and see what he was doing whether he was working a lot with rocker in different places, or something else, and you know everything was just so finely tuned. I really like his boards.

SB: Can you remember how it made you feel the first time you caught a wave?

Thomas: No I can't, there have been too many between then and now (laughs). It might not be so much the first wave, but the first time you feel the feeling of surfing a wave. I can't remember what it was but obviously that made a huge impression, and from then on I was on a constant quest to feel that or more. That is exactly why I started to develop these boards.

SB: Where can we get our hands on your boards now?

Thomas: Straight off the Meyerhoffer website, you can contact me and we will ship them to you. I have some boards going to Australia, Europe and all over the world.

SB: Thanks so much to Thomas for sparing us the time so answer these few questions and enlighten us a little more.

It is rarely that I speak to someone with so much passion and drive as Thomas, and as much as I try and remain impartial I think that really we should all try something different now and again. I have had the luxury of testing one of the original Mayerhoffer longboards and found that it made me think about how I surfed. The board was a breath of fresh air in a lot of different ways. Thomas' move from GSI to be able to provide a more sustainable outlook is applaudable,  and to the point of scaling down so that he can have more intimate contact with the people that ride his boards, well that is just inspiring.

It is after all quality, not quantity.