New Shaping room

I have just finished making my new shaping room for designing kayaks and surf boards. Super high tech with all sorts of nifty dust collectors, and also controlled lighting for symmetry etc. I'm really stoked.

So of course, the first thing I did was shape myself some new boards. A 5'8" Fish with a flat tail (2" thick and ultra low rocker). I used 4oz glass with a 12 oz lap (rails) so its super light.

Then I had local airbrush artist Philemon do a cool graphic for me - something really wild. What I want to do is start offering boatds with really neat graphics, and this guy rocks. Carbon boards are very strong - much stronger then glass, but they are also heavier. Some people want light boards, and so I'm now offering that too. Cheaper than Carbon, but still very strong rails (the main abuse of river boards is the rails), these boards are light. Philemon then comes in and will do an awesome airbrush graphic (prices vary according to what you want, but its about $100 to $350 depending on the complexity).

I asked him for a pimp... I said PIMP my board out so its just rad as can be... and he went to town (see the picture below).

I'm also using a new fin system based on the Dragorossi fins (with 3 D adjustment). The main reason is strength - the rocks on the river are destroying fins (the FCS fins) and this is a much stronger system, and FCS fins plug right into them.

I have to mtell you... this board rocks. its soooo fast and nervous. Amazing. Super fast response, and it holds an edge like nothing else I've ridden. i was getting to places on the wave I have rarely been, and at speeds that were unreal, driving through so hard and fast. I was able to generate more power and energy than ever before and be far more explosive on lip turs because of it. Simply fantastic. I'm really getting the shapes needed to optimise river surfing dialed in.

This is a better view of the shaping room.... as you can see the shadows etc that are played across the board is awesome =- makes keeping kayaks and boards easy to keep symetrical.

This is a new board I'm working on for dragorossi... prototype number 6 already... for 2007.