Sadly I’ve had more bad surfboards than I’ve had good ones.
Sometimes you can get a second hand board from a mate and it will feel just right, other times you’ll spend half a month’s salary on a weapon you’ve been eyeing up in your local for a while, which looks and feels amazing under your arm, but surfs horribly.
Basically buying a board is a simple, yet complex procedure. But there is one way to get something close to a magic board – getting one made for you.
Ordering a custom surfboard is a unique pleasure in which only a surfer knows the feeling. Golfers don’t get bespoke clubs and I’ve never heard of a weekend warrior tennis player getting a racket crafted for their body type and athletic ability.
Getting a custom made surfboard is a ritual which should be cherished, yet you can get it wrong. I wrote about how to buy your first surfboard here and a lot of that advice translates to getting your first custom board, but speaking from hard earned experience there are a few tips you should follow:
Don’t Lie to The Doctor
Despite what’s trending or cool, you have to be honest with the shaper. Fortunately for my first custom board order back when I was a muscled up 18 year old with the flexibility of a brick, the shaper had also been fixing my boards and assumably repeatedly repairing a knee ding on the stringer, led him to see through my teenage bravado and decided that I was essentially a kook who needed more volume to enable me to get in the wave earlier and speed up my pop up.
He then created the most ugly board I’ve ever seen, a 6’2 with a wide nose and flat rocker, something unheard of in 2003, which I had to pay for. I remember my Uni housemate literally laughing when I brought it back. However…
The first surf was absolutely magic. I was catching more waves than my mate, was pulling into mini tubes at my local where I had never stood out before and even got a nod and a ‘yew’ from one of the North Fistral Pro’s from that era. That board changed how I felt about surfing. It felt less like hard work and enabled me to progress, whilst having fun. I still have it at my Dad’s house in a rack now.
It was the way beyond yellow one not the Al Merrick
Be firm
If you really want a particular shape, don’t let the shaper talk you out of it and into their latest work of art. Listen to their well justified advice, but if you know what you want stick to your guns.
Another custom I ordered the shaper initially just said a straight up no, he didn’t want to put his name on it, but I’d been surfing a similar board for a couple of years so knew exactly what I was looking for. This thing looked like a knee board so I understand why he didn’t want his logo standing out on there but he begrudgingly crafted this creation and when it got in the surf, again, it was magic.
Yes this little kneeboard-looking-thing was the magic board
Don’t reinvent the wheel
On the flip side of this, if something works, let it work “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” sort of vibes. As my confidence and skill grew with the aforementioned board, it felt like it was coming to the end of its magic and was time for a replacement. Instead of asking the shaper to create the same thing, I let the ego get a word in and asked for a little less volume, slightly pulled in tail, etc. The board came out and it felt wrong under the arm. Whilst running down some stairs for my first surf I smashed the tail and had to retreat and get it fixed. Once the bodged solo-res repair dried, I went for round 2.
Sadly I sold the board 2 weeks later for about half of what I paid for it.
This is the reincarnation of the original weapon, sadly not the same
Go to South Africa
All of the above info is helpful, but after decades of surfing and traveling, I’m yet to find a place on the planet better than South Africa to buy a custom surfboard.
The crew on our South Africa Surf Trips, always end up getting a couple of freshies. New boards off the rack are cheaper than in Bali and there are world class shapers grafting away every day. This lad fulfilled a dream of his when he got a hand crafted single fin by the J Bay Legend Mike Meyer, who even let him get involved in the process:
Most of the Rider’s who have just finished the South Africa Road Trip, also treated themselves to new custom surfboard shaped by the absolute legend himself Graham Smith of Smth Shapes in Durban (Jordy Smith’s Dad), which cost around £350 per board and took three days. Yes three days to make 7 beautiful custom sleds. What a G.
Ticket to Ride Ambassador Jimmy got so caught up in the spree he bought two customs, crafted to suit his unique physique and surfing style and they both cost him less than buying one off the rack back home in the Netherlands.
2 for 1 why not?
So if you want to get yourself a couple of new custom boards for the price of one, join us in South Africa in January