Category Archives: Product Review
Boardshorts and Surf Wax
Here before you on this very website your going to read about two products that were recently on my list of things to buy. I want to tell you about my experience. Honestly, not the best buying experience. There’s no sense of consistency. First we’ll talk about two brands boardshorts your probably familiar with Hurley and O’neill. Then I’ll talk about the surf wax acquisition experience.
New boardshorts are one of the special experiences in life, up there with new sandals, an epic ride, and good sex. Who’s to tell me any different. Sometimes we get boardshorts and they’re perfect, they fit, the stiching is good, we like the material, and the pattern looks sick. This was kind of a half and half experience. I got boardshorts from three different brands. Some issues have arisen over the course of a few weeks of use. Fortunately, there was surf this past week so I’ve had the opportunity to field test, and wash and dry the shorts. The first issue is with the Hurley shorts. What kind of company makes board shorts, but only puts the elastic band in the pocket that holds your keys only in some of the boardshorts? Seriously, who’s the dumb ass that ever thought it was a good idea to take out the elastic band from some of the boardshorts and not the others? We can get back to the topic of key holder material being changed from elastic to something more durable, but that’s not here nor there. It seems dumb what Hurley did. Inconsistent at best. I was looking forward to telling you about how the O’neill shorts were perfect, how they were the other side of the coin, a company that seemed to have their shit together. Unfortunately, they just aren’t that company. The boardshorts I got from O’neill have been okay. I questioned the way they have their label branded on their shorts. It seemed like it would be okay. I was wrong. Yesterday while volunteering the label on O’neill shorts just started peeling off. I peeled it off about half way. It was a sticker they put on your shorts that would damage your shorts when it came off. C’mon guys. Seriously? Oh well. I like them enough to just keep them and egnor the small amount of damage from taking the sticker off. Camo boardshorts are sick. I have a pair of Quiksilver shorts that I got with the batch. The Quiksilver ones seem pretty good. I guess I don’t really have anything bad to say about them. I feel like the products I’ve gotten from Quiksilver have generally been good. I like their wetsuit that I had for many years. I might just get a 4/3 from them, as I’m defenitely in need of a new one, the Billabong one I have is falling apart at the seems. The Quiksilver boardshorts so far have only been a little bit more stiff, probably more prone to cause a rash while surfing in them. I haven’t been wearing them as much as they others for that reason, and because I have more of the other ones. So… not the ideal boardshorts because of these flaws. I’m more than please to have new boardshorts though to be honest. I’ve been using the same couple pairs for forever, and I’m confident these will be nice and last a long time. All three brands are worth recommending simply for the fact that they are manufacturing boardshorts (a specific kind of baithing suit designed to be in rough water).
On to surf wax. The surf wax experience was disturbing. What is it about company that charge you out the ass for things that are disgustingly inexpensive? Surf wax. One litte bar of wax. Wanna know how much Amazon wanted on the first page that comes in when you type “surf wax?” They wanted almost 6 dollars for one bar of wax. They’re charging about 2.50 for cold water wax, and about 3 for warm water wax. Why is that? It’s because they’re scam artists. The price isn’t based on any legitimate thing. They are charging you whatever they want to charge you for it. Otherwise, why would surf wax be more expensive in the tropical/warm variant versus the cold water variant? Seems dumb. I did decide to get wax from them at least for the short term. I have a beach about 15 minutes from where I live and the closest surf shop is 45 minutes to an hour away. It looks like with Amazon your paying for your delivery whether or not Amazon is telling you you are. Local surf shops are typically around the 2 dollar range on surf wax. Come to think of it, there is a tourist shop that offers 2 dollar bars of warm water wax for the skimboards they sell about 30 minutes away. They are actually kind of on the way to Sand Key in Clearwater. Unfortunately, surf shops and companies that support surfing can’t really survive and thrive around here despite offering products that cater to all the activities around here. They sell sunglasses, clothes, shoes, etc. yet they can’t seem to compete with larger companies like amazon, or malls, or target and walmart. It complicates things when companies have complete and utter control of something. If you were in a country that was completely in control of everything and there was no private property or ownership, don’t you think people would be unhappy, potentially overturn whatever force is in power if they could? Yet companies go on as that entity in our country. The “government” is just the secondary force in power in some sense. Granted government is oversight, but it’s often to keep other things from getting too powerful. Companies seem to be defacto government. It’s complicated, subject to situation, inconsistent at best.
I built new surfboard racks!
It only took two or three hours to build, remove old ones, and install these! The cost was next to nothing! I’m rounding up to the dollar so I don’t have to go look at exact prices:
Wood: 1 10 foot 2×4 = 5 dollars
3 2×3 beams = 75 cents each
Cutting = free
Nails = 8 dollars for a huge box
You could even get cheaper lumber, I went with nicer looking wood.
It’s a easy do it yourself surf board rack. Screw nails to 2×4 pieces. Then, mount racks to the wall. Done.
Jumpin Puddles For Cheap Shit
Surfboards can be made of a lot of differeng materials. Everything a surfboard is made of is created from scratch a chemical makeup that varies from one board to the next. From the foam used, to the foam hard coat, to the plastic fins and fin plugs, its all just a bunch of chemically concocted materials.
Again, I’m seeing a wonderful example of getting screwed by the man. Why is one of the most well known and most expensive surfboards one the market such a piece of trash?
This surfboard is almost brand new. It has pressure dings from light use, and a small crack up near the nose which of course I fixed right away with epoxy. Only a short time after purchasing it it’s now starting to change color into a yucky yellow down near the tail on one side. The issue is on the side with the puddle jumper wording. It’s sort of hard to see, because it’s disguised by the grey coloring they added to the tail. There aren’t any damage issues in the area that could be causing this. It’s purely a manufacturers defect.
Lost really needs to work on getting better leadership. It’s really not a well made board.
Costa Del Mar Makes Trash
While I know that smearing a companies reputation is not a good thing to be doing, the reality is, there’s a lot of crap being made and sold in just about every store you can go to today. To review the sunglasses I’ve had for more than 5 years now would be easy for me, so that’s what I’ll do. I’ll give you a quick review of my two models of Costa Del Mar sunglasses. These are really all I’ve had, so I can’t make a comparison to other sunglass companies. It’s just a review of the obvious good and bad, and unfortunately what I’m suggesting is for you to try a different company. Costa Del Mar is a South Florida based company.
I have two different types of their sunglasses. I have them with glass lenses and with plastic lenses. The glass ones were close to 200 bucks brand new. The plastic ones were 130-150 dollars, somewhere around there. These should be nice pairs. Additionally, I used to have a pair of Costa sunglasses that eventually went missing. They were one of the original models, back when the construction of the glasses was different. I’ve used them for many years. On a more positive note, the glass lens has held up over the years.
These two models of sunglasses have both given me a variety of issues. Despite having a lifetime warranty, as the company has always had, I’m just living with their issues now after learning that the company isn’t able to make any significant fix to the crap they sell. The company appears to have no interest in remedying the problems. The problems don’t make them completely unusable. I’ll just use them the way they are.
Problems:
The rubbery grip along the nose repeatedly comes off. I tried gluing it on with super glue. Don’t try that, it’s too hard to get the glue off the plastic if you don’t put it on perfectly, and it doesn’t do a good job of holding on the rubber. I’m currently using the glass pair without the rubber around the nose. I can still use them like that. The rubber fell off on both pairs.
The lenses on the plastic ones have lines across them. What’s unbelievable is the fact that I sent them in for warranty. They sent me them back only to have the exact same thing happen to the lenses not long after despite me not even using the glasses. Whatever it is they are doing to manufacture these things, they don’t appear to have any interest in fixing.
I really just wouldn’t even trust the company with your money. I can’t give you any advice on what sunglass company you should go with, sorry about that. If you’re wearing sunglasses though, you should definitely try to get polarized sunglasses. It makes a difference.
Getting Screwed By Catalyst, Lost, FCS 2, and Corporate America
Well, shit. You assholes just don’t know how to make something that works. Why is it that you claim these fin plugs will work with FCS I or FCS II fins? When I went to put these FCS I fins in my board I couldn’t. Can you guess why? The fin plugs for FCS II fins don’t come with the little screws you need to put FCS I one fins in. Some “local” came into the shop and said, trust this guy. What you should probably do is, don’t trust those guys. He steered me in the direction of some big fins that nobody probably wants to buy. So I’m switching out my fins. I guess I need to go see if I can buy some screws from the hardware store because these companies have decided to decieve me and screw me out of 10 little stainless steel screws that should come with my surfboard.
Apparently they’re called socket screws, and your local hardware store will probably have a thruster set of stainless stell screws for about 5 bucks.
The Quiver
The surfboards you ride make an unbelievable difference in what your surfing looks like. The set your looking at here are the boards I use to surf the gulf. On the far left I’ve got a Viking longboard. It’s 9’3 and coyld easily be my most used board. Considering that fact that the surf on the gulf is probably among the worst and least consistent surf in the world, this is a go to for the small, almost non-existent sloppy chop we see regularly. Next is my Martin high performance shortboard. This is the one I ride when I want to move some water and get verticle. For a high performance board it works pretty good despite being somewhat unbalanced (more elongated concave on one side). I honestly don’t expect a hand shaped board from a guy who couldn’t have made more than 50 lifetime boards to be perfectly cut out of a machine. It does what I need it to do when I need to do it, and since the bigger surf this board is ideal for comes so infrequently, it should last many years. Next is the Lost. It needs no explanation. The puddle jumper is a fun little board for quick cutbacks in the pocket and can be layed back on the rail for a snap like maneuver on the right waves. Don’t expect it to put out much water when the surf is big. I bought this about 5 sizes too big. I probably should be surfing this in a 5’8. It was planned as a substitute for the 9’3, however is nothing more than a big clunky, slightly more buoyant, shortboard. It’s probably going to be my number one all around board. The Torq is the next board. This one is about the same amount of foam as the Lost with a different, more old-school shape. It’s a pop out from China probably (the Lost is made in Thailand). The Torq is noticeably lower quality. It fell over and split down the side, a low quality build. Yhe design is really flat. It doesn’t flow down the wave like any normal board should. With the pin tail you might think it could get up in the pocket, but it doesn’t really seem to. It’s still a brand new board, and may be worth a surfing in the small stuff on occasion. Last is the Martin tesin tint. Dylan Martin made this custom for the gulf (like the other one). I asked for a board that would be a high performance good wave board, and got this. It’s a mushburger wave board with a convex bottom (opposite of normal boards which are concave). It can’t do bottom turns. If I stay on top of it it rockets out of the whitewater. It also feels really good and loose off the lip. It’s super fun in small surf.
This set of boards are the boards I’ve been able to and wanted to get my hands on over the years. They have treated me well. I’d be stokes to see what set of boards you’ve got laying around your garage or in your storage room. Send in a picture of your quiver. You could even write a blurb about how they work. Inquiring minds want to know. Send pictures and info to editor@surfingthegulf.com.