Fans of the wooden surfboard certainly have their own special little place in the surf community. Grant Newby of Currumbin, Australia, is one of those people. After building eight versions of his Fish Fry, he recognized there was a growing interest in the boards but a general lack of knowledge in how to make them. He’d started a popular blog where people from all over the world could share their experiments with wood board making, simply for the love of it all. And this is how the Wooden Surfboard Meet was eventually born. Feeling a need for creative minds and board builders to get together in one place, it was the perfect event for this unique community within the surfing world.
“It’s for somebody to bring a board along to the gathering and put it on the ground and say well mate, that’s my effort and I’m proud of what I’ve done,” Newby says. “Because there’s an awful lot of soul searching going into building your first board. Before they’re through building the first one, most people are already planning the next one. It’s a real journey and a challenge for most people. Ther are so many things to learn and consider.”
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In 2014 I was invited to the Wooden Surfboard Meet in Currumbin. The people I met there were absolutely amazing and it inspired me to bring the exact same experience back to Europe. Soon, a small gathering was organized in Ireland in 2015. That event helped us realize the community was in need of making it event bigger, uniting all the European enthusiasts. There are heaps of people in the old continent building wooden surfboards, with labels and unknown individuals pushing the environmental side of surfboard construction.
There are many different ways and methods of building wooden surboards, each of them with its own challenges. And this is possibly the best part of this wooden surfboard movement; by sharing our experiences, this group of people from all over the world are pushing the limits of surfboard construction. More importantly, it can change the global community’s outlook on surfboard construction and our responsibility to the environment. Grant Newby himself is the perfect example of this, having experimented with a vacuum bagging technique using paulownia skins over EPS, eliminating his need for fiberglass. It was such a good technique that Firewire bought the rights to the idea and started their own range of boards thanks to Grant.Advertisement
So the European Wooden Surfboard Meet is all set. Playa de Berria is a 2.2km long beach with reliable surf and. It’s a 30 minutes drive from Santander Airport (Cantabria) and 1 hour from Bilbao Airport (Euskadi).
Bring your boards, Alaias, hand planes, bodyboards, surfies or whatever you have been building and having fun on as long as it is made of wood or eco-friendly materials. Just lay them out in the park, find a spot to have a picnic lunch and meet other like-minded wooden board builders, craftsmen, and enthusiasts. There will be people from all walks of life just stoked to be riding something they have designed and built themselves, plenty of people who have lots of questions, stories, and ideas to share just like you. Check out what others are up to, swap boards and go for a surf.
Friday 25th night meeting: we will meet on Friday night at the beach park next to Berria Surf School to introduce all the participants with a bbq, sharing some beers, and music under the stars.
Saturday 26th beach day: there is no better plan than not having a plan. Everyone will be surfing early in the morning before meeting at the beach park in Berria Surf School.
Note: Check out Australia’s 2009-Currumbin and 2017-Byron Bay Wooden Surfboard Days
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