Tag Archives: Viking surfboards

Product Review

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.

North Pinellas, Sunsets

Unreal Conditions

I got a suggestion to write something today, so that’s what I’m doing. Littler or zero post editing, just a big, cluster of words and ideas crammed into a post. Sorry if something is offensive, it isn’t intended to be that way. There may also be ideas that are or aren’t entirely my own. Read at your own risk. Also, don’t forget to check out the gallery at the end.

Pulling up to the coast today I was greeted by Mr. Rocktoff. It was a great way to pull up to the beach. He said something like, it’s looking good, or it’s gotten better. We had checked the surf earlier this morning only to see waves we probably wouldn’t have surfed even if it was summer, well, maybe in the summer. I was stoking, ready to get into the water. He was suiting up as I was pulling up. By the time I got out of my car with camera in hand to snap a few pictures he was already headed for the water. I wanted to take a few shots before getting into the water with him, although I was stoked to go play with him in the fun and playful looking surf. The waves were just lining up perfectly. It looked about as good as it gets. I told Sunny when I was jumping in, it looks like The Cafe during a summer hurricane. He pulled up not long after. And the fact of the matter is that we didn’t get any hurricane days nearly as good as it was today within the past one or two years. Today was that good.

It was hard to tell from the beach with long intervals between sets just how good it was. I should also mention the swell change happening right then and there. When I left my house the nearshore Egmont buoy looked almost identical to what it was earlier in the morning. It was something like 4 feet at 6 seconds in the morning. When I left my house the size dropped to about three and a quarter, with an extension of the period to a 7 second period. What I didn’t realize when we were jumping in the water, right about when I was pulling up, was that the buoy had just jumped from a 6 and 7 second period to a 11 and 12 second period. Those longer period swells are ideal. We were watching the swell jump up right before our eyes; it’s one of the best sights we can ask for on the gulf. What we can expect when that happens is for the quality of the surf to be especially superb. As the swell dredges on we usually see quality deteriorate. That means we were catching it at the very best time we could have been. I could see something had happened standing there looking at it, but there was no indicator that this would be happening right then and there, around 3pm today. I took pictures of about three or four good waves, and I was out there. The legend squad of Dave, Greg, Ron, and Sunny were fully ready to get the waves of the Fall, and I was right there with them.

Starting my session off with the 4/3 wetsuit and a longboard turned out to be the right choice. When I got out there and started seeing the waves hitting the side of the t-groin and lining up down the beach, I knew this was something special.

Those big tall waves standing up with glassy faces will make your skin tingle. They can also make your blood boil. I surfed for a few waves, and after catching great waves, riding them all the way down the coast, I jumped out to chat. While chatting in the parking lot I switched over to my shortboard. I got back into the water, and was having trouble with the crowd and finding a good wave. The crowd was pretty dense sitting right at the top of the point between the groin and the caution, rocks sign. I was sitting down a little ways, maybe second peak, trying to find the ones that bowl up, lining up better for shortboards. It seemed like as soon as I jumped in the water on my shortboard another stand up paddleboarder arrived at the peak making it even more of struggle to find waves. I really think those stand up paddleboards are just big heaping piles of dog shit. They shouldn’t be in the water with real surfboards, especially on good days like today. What also confuses me is how someone on the causeway can open up a “surf shop.” They carry both surf boards and stand up paddleboards. That guys is pretty clearly just trying to make a buck. When you throw stand up paddleboards and surfboards together they just don’t mix. Anyone who actually surfs and cares about surfing, real surfing, would recognize that. They should instead focus their efforts on being a surf shop, not a “surf shop.” Maybe some of these people purporting to be surf shops can actually put some effort into supporting things like my website that actually support a surfing community and the surfers in it. It’s just too frustrating when a big giant board jumps into the lineup, and doesn’t have the courtesy of letting someone ride a wave their wave the way it’s supposed to be ridden, without interference.

These noobs were trying to rule the peak. At the time, I was on my shortboard. I saw one of the older guys getting frustrated by this experience. Him and I have been surfing this place for 15 years, for year when this place saw zero surfer. When he started to get frustrated I started to get frustrated. I decided to get my log. I paddled out to these guys and let them know. Hey dude, “this is my wave, and your not going to catch any more waves.” He said something like “don’t be afraid.” I replied, “I’m not, that’s why I’m here.” I said, “It sounds like you are.” I continued, “I’m just here telling you; this is my wave and you’re not going to catch any more.” Of course, I’m didn’t mean it in an aggressive or hostile way, simply a you think you’re going to rule the peak, well, watch this, it’s my turn. While I felt continual pressure to stop and sit on the inside, I kept making my way to the outside to sit with them. They still got a few, but way less.

To be perfectly honest, this isn’t the usual tone of this break. That’s not what Honeymoon Island is like, and I certainly didn’t want it to be like that. Sometimes, it just turns out that way when you’re pressured into a corner.

We ended up exchanging names. I told Logan and his friend about my website, we shook hands, a pound. We found our places in the lineup and the hostility level dropped as these noobs and I de-escelated the high density attraction of first peak. The swell started to become less consistent an hour or two before dark, as the tide was changing. The surf mellowed out some. Surfers started dropping from the lineup. Then, as we got closer to sunset (but not right during sunset), the surf really started to turn back on, and glass off even more with more slack winds than anytime during the day. Just perfectly clean, perfectly green chest high lines.

The last few surfers and I were struggling to get out of the water. It’s hard to get out when it’s just so perfect. What will be left for the morning? Will it be anywhere as near as good as today? These are the questions running through our minds as we find ourselves in the last bit of sunlight of the evening, surfing until it’s almost too hard to see the next wave coming. What a great day of surfing today. If you didn’t surf today, you just missed out on the best day we’ve had in a very long time!

How to Surf

Surf Wax: You’re using too much, one bar per summer.

Surf wax is sort of a necessity. You need surf wax for almost all surfboards. What many people fail to recognize is, surf wax doesn’t need to be “bumpy.” It doesn’t need to be coated on so thick that there are big clumps on your board. In an effort to try to understand what’s actually an effective amount of surf wax, I’m challenging myself to surf the entire summer using just one bar of surf wax. One bar of surf wax should be more than enough for the entire summer, even with an active summer, surfing every single tropical swell.

I recently spoke to Reily at Honeymoon Island before going out into the lineup. I noticed that he’s one of those surfers who ritualistically coats his surfboard with surf wax, ensuring there are mounds of surf wax on it. I told him, “You’re using too much!” He said, “Oh, I just feel like I’m slipping off, and I need more wax.” The surfboard in question is very long and very thick, and coated with layers of heavy fiberglass. It will be a real challenge to swing around. Your hip movements will want to move faster than the board will let you turn. These quick movement will cause him to slip off his board no matter how much surf wax he’s got on his board, which leads him to believe there isn’t enough on there.

This summer, in an attempt to limit my surf wax usage, I’m taking one bar of surf wax, and only using it as much as is absolutely necessary. The goal is to use only one bar of surf wax or less over the entire summer. The link to this page will be put on the homepage of www.SurfingtheGulf.com, and will be updated throughout the summer with the progress. Follow along as the summer progresses. The link will have the date of most recent update on it.

May 30th, 2018:
As a starting point, the water is just about 80 degrees nearing mid to late Spring. Tropical Storm Alberto just passed us by leaving fun surf in its wake. Before Alberto, I cleared two surfboards of old surf wax, and put a starting coat on top, which left me with a large amount of surf wax for the rest of the summer.

June 23, 2018:
There’s been two swells between the last video and this video.  There’s been a tropical storm and a cold front between that first waxing and the one today. In total there were six days worth of surf, three for Alberto and three for the June cold front. Today there was just enough  wind to put a small wave on the beach. Before making the trip down to the beach I took a moment to re-wax my longboard surfboard in the areas where the wax had rubbed off.  The main area on the  board that needed waxing was just behind the center of the board where I lay on the board, and the places where I put my feet while riding the surfboard.  I didn’t need to put wax anywhere else. It took about two minutes to put a solid layer of surf wax over the bare spots. After today there should still be a solid amount of wax that should last into the next swell, and of the bar of wax, there’s still more than half left.

Alberto
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3

Cold Front
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3

For best resolution view on desktop/laptop.

July 30, 2018:

This update covers a little more than the month of July. There were two major surf events on the gulf from the last update. There was a quick blast of swell in late June for just a day. It was really a surprise considering no-one was anticipating the surf coming up.  In July a cold front low that sucked up a bunch of tropical moisture generated surf for days. In addition to the 5 or more days of surf, the low had two really solid sized days of unusually larger surf. Surf in the summer isn’t usually big unless there’s a big hurricane spinning around. That unusual couple days got me to pull out the short-board and rip a few gnarly turns. In order for me to use this smaller thinner board that’s really more of a winter board, I needed to remove the cold water wax and put some warm water wax on it. This waxing has brought my wax supply to dangerously low levels (see image below). While I didn’t really need to use this board, and while I could have surfed the red board with the convex bottom, it’s a significant challenge to surf the red board well in bigger surf.  Now that I’ve surfed the real short-board I’m reminded of how much better it feels to be able to carve through the water with complete precision. During this event I pulled double sessions, surfing for somewhere close to 6 hours each day.  In total this update includes wax usage from a total of 6 days with two extra long days.

June Front
A surprise swell at the end of June.

Cold Front Low
Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4 Part 1, Part 2
Day 5