On Dec 2-15, 2021 I traveled to my home state of CA for a few reasons. One was to escape New York flatness. A second was to see my family and friends. I normally go back 1-2 times a year, but that had been stalled for obvious reasons. My trip to Nicaragua in November was my first air travel since the pandemic started, and it went pretty smoothly in terms of Covid protocols. This gave me the confidence to fly again. Without the PCR testing, a domestic flight seemed even easier. And it was. The third reason was that after years of building a business I finally have all these incredible boards. In fact one of the motivating factors in starting CSC was to figure out a way to make investments in surfboards into a research project and tax write off. That’s not the sole motivation of course. First and foremost I love watching people unlock their potential in the surf. But these things are interrelated. I realized that in order to unlock my own potential I needed to experiment with new boards and expand my quiver. If I don’t practice what I preach myself, then I truly am an ill-fated sophist.
On the trip to Nicaragua I brought an all twin fin quiver, but this time I wanted to mix it up even more. I knew I was additionally guaranteed all day long surf sessions in quality waves (winds in CA in December tend to be pretty darn favorable for all day surfing, and it’s also not too tidally fickle — you can find something that works on any tide). I couldn’t decide between a few different boards, and knowing that the pros travel with 6-12 boards, I googled, “What do the pros use to take their quivers on the world tour?” The search yielded the Dakine “Tour Regulator” board bag, which holds up to 8 boards. I also found a few options by Destination Surf and Creatures of Leisure. The former looked like overkill and the latter was sold out. Evo.com had a sale on the Dakine, so I went for it, and packed 7 boards, 3 wetsuits, 1 pair of boots, 1 squid lid, two towels, a yoga mat, a small Pelican case filled with useful surf tools (leash strings, fin keys, a flat head screw driver), an empty Ikea bag for lugging camera gear and water, a Pilgrim Surf + Supply wet/dry bag for stanky suits, and 3 leashes. Most of the boards were in their own individual sock or bag, and I used the wetsuits to pad the tails and noses. I usually never use packing material that does not also double as a useful surf product when I’m on the road. My theory is that if the Airlines truly want to crush your boards there is no kind of packing that can withstand that. There is bad packing, however, and that is leaving boards loose in the bag and not taking any precautions to pad their more sensitive areas. I packed an entirely separate suit case for fins, wax, and camera gear. The bag was still 100 lbs when I got to the counter. It’s a good thing my roundtrip fare was $200! They didn’t count boards, just charged me $200 for an overweight bag. I always use carts in the airport, which is actually why I opt out of the wheeled bags. I find they’re way more expensive and still more difficult to lug than just plopping the thing on a cart. Said plopping is not necessarily a piece of cake with the shitty carts you pay for in America. People definitely look at me like I’m a complete lunatic when I’m wheeling around the coffin bag, taking it off the cart to get into the air train or elevator, and then putting it back on again. And it turns out it got me into a spot of bother at the rental car center in SFO. Fox (never rent from them) is now off site and their shuttle drivers refused to accommodate my boards. After 4 tries and one hour wasted I walked upstairs to Thrifty and rented a Jeep Compass. I dealt with Fox later in the day and fortunately did receive a full refund. When I got to my Jeep I unpacked all the boards. I folded down the back seats (Jeeps are great with this) and put them in a way where they all fit well. This allowed me to roll up the bag and smash it in where there was room. I left the bag at my friend Shea’s in SF for the whole trip so that I didn’t have to lug it around everywhere.
Rental car stuffed with boards, water, leashes, and the Pelican case stuffed with surf tools.
None of the boards were dinged upon arrival. I brought three boards by Charles Mencel: 6’6” twin pin 4 channel gun (red), 5’9” rounded squash thruster (red), 5’3” asymmetrically finned fish (light yellow); and four boards by Jose Barahona: 6’1” (orange) and 5’6” (green) Tiburones/Potentias — big fish/shortboard with three fin boxes and a double wing swallow tails, a 5’11” rounded pin with 5 fin boxes (sunset/dawn airbrush), and a 5’8” modern twin fin with one wing and a round tail (polka dots). I store a 7’10” triple stringer glassed on single fin pin swallow tail Haut Surfboards gun that used to belong to my dad down there. I also had access to an 8’0” Haut Surfboards egg or mini longboard. Both of these boards shined in the test.
5’ll” Barahona next to the 5’3” Mencel with the 6’6” Mencel and 6’1” Barahona behind them.
My first few surfs were in SF without a camera. SF is having somewhat of a thievery renaissance during the pandemic. I was warned to bring as little as possible with me to the beach. Shea recommended I put stickers on my rental car. I took her advice. Knock wood, no one fucked with my glass, and maybe use that advice when you’re renting a car in northern CA. I stayed in SF for two days then with more swell on the way and a desire to use my camera I headed down to the Monterey Bay to reunite with my home zone and my surf homies from childhood, Andrew Dolan, Heath and Luke Braddock, and my brother, Andrew Mattison (who like me no longer lives there but was going to be in town for a few weeks). We are the “original grom crew” of our local beach. The generation before us started in high school, as did the two generation before then. We were the first kids to be rolling around in the sand there as wee tykes, cutting our teeth on the shorepound on boogie boards, and overhearing copious amounts of foul language at the fire pit. There hasn’t been a generation after us, until now. Heath, Luke, and Andrew Dolan all have kids learning to surf in the area. Whether they turn out to be a crew like we are, however, will depend on whether they really take to surfing. I wanted all of us to try out these boards, and I had always planned to leave a few there after figuring out which ones are best for my surfing. These are the 5’3” asym fin fish, the 5’8” twin pin, the 5’9” squash tail, and the 6’6” gun. I also love the 6’1” but I have one exactly like it in 6’0” in NY. Both that and the 5’11” also looked so damn good under Andrew Dolan’s feet, I could not not leave them with him. As for the 5’6”, I have never seen anyone surf it better than Heath or Luke Braddock, so I left that one there with them. The absolute all around winner for me, however, is the 5’3” Mencel asym fish. I made a little video just of my waves on it describing what makes it so special to me:
As I note in the video, I rode it both with an upright standard modern twin fin and a keel on the toe side. I kept the same Album quad set up (well half of a quad set up) on my heel side the whole time. I liked it both ways, but felt it really come alive with the keel. It was a touch more squirrelly, but also a touch faster, which is great. For me native speed is a key factor in a magic board. This means that while you can pump to make it go even faster, it has a ton of speed just on its own when you get to your feet. You don’t have to do much but drop in to get it going. Another factor is maneuverability or how easy it is to figure out how a board wants to be turned off the tail. This is a factor with strange subtleties and high variability based upon the weight and style of the rider. For example, the 7’10” Haut Single fin gun is easier for me to figure out and overall more suited to my surfing than the 5’11” rounded pin is. That 5’11” has seen a bunch of good surf on both coasts but I’ve never really felt complete magic on it. It’s always felt a little hard for me to push. When I saw Andrew Dolan surfing it I knew it had to be his. At 6’1” 175 the board sings under his feet in a way that it doesn’t for me at 5’6” 145.
Andrew Dolan surfing the sunset/dawn 5’11” how it ought to be surfed.
Andrew also gelled really well with the 6’1” Tiburon/Potentia.
I always find that boards in this standard shortboard/step up range are hard for me to really jive with or find the magic. I seem to be in my happy zone on fishes and weird boards under 5’6” and on floatier equipment over 6’0”. Again, I love the 6’1” that Andrew is riding above — the orange — but have its duplicate and wanted to cut down on the weight of the bag for the ride home. The 5’8” polka dot board is complete magic, and it makes me think that if I’m going to ride that standard kind of size something a little chunky and weird works better for me. But then the 5’9” Mencel with knifey rails and three fins was working on one of the hollower days. It definitely wants the waves to have juice — it is not a grovel stick — which means that in a sense it doesn’t have as much native speed as I normally desire, but it does have all the control one wants and needs in vertical, tubing waves. The 5’6” Barahona with the green airbrush is similar in this sense. I have had a few magic sessions on that board, but it’s just slightly too low volume to be a consistent go-to here in NY. Again, I’d rather be on a fish or an asym. So I gave that to the Braddocks to test out and immediately knew it was staying with them. They both have a much more aggressive shortboard approach than I do, albeit smooth as hell still, and they have the good fortune of getting to surf waves with juice more often than not. Basically my rule with giving the boards away was seeing which ones they surfed better than I ever will. Heath did just that on the 5’6”.
The first air this board has ever experienced by Heath Braddock.
Heath rocking up with his own quiver test.
I was heartened when after coming in from his first session on the 5’6” Heath said, “It’s not like a normal fish. It really needs a more vertical wall.” It was one of those experiences where I had my reality confirmed by someone who’s surfing I truly respect. That was always my feeling: that it was “sticky” when the wave was weak. We get a lot of weak waves on the east coast, so my opportunities to make this (and other more standard boards) shine out here seem to be pretty limited. As I said before, true fishes seem to work well both in weak and powerful surf, so when the former is what’s mostly on offer, it makes sense for me — for the surfer I am, with the approach to waves that I have — to rely on fishes and bigger boards. The 6’6” continues to be a dream in bigger surf or anything with a rip current. It was raining the days I surfed it, so there’s not a ton of footage, but you’ll see in the trip vids below.
And last is about the big boards. You just can’t go wrong with extra foam. Big waves, small waves, foam is your friend. There’s rarely a board that’s “too big”, especially if you don’t abuse your paddling privileges. There are obvious reasons why I have an especial attachment to my dad’s old 7’10”, which was actually shaped for him to surf Hawaii. In fact my first board was a very similarly shaped 7’2”, but that one was a thruster and only had one stringer. It also wasn’t airbrushed yellow, but instead was yellowish brown from sun damage. Speaking of which, that is how Dolan’s 8’0” Haut is colored these days, and that board turned out to be a life saver for my brother and for the new guy at the beach Allie Liddle, who I gave some community coaching on a few days after my students had bailed. Andrew (Mattison) hadn’t surfed in 9 months and was worried he’d be hopelessly out of shape, but he was pulling into tubes and cranking top turns on that thing. Allie was riding a board too small for his ability level, and so I smoothed out his surfing by making him ride the tank.
The waves were fun pretty much the whole trip, and all the trip objectives were accomplished, including a trip to see my last existing grandparent in Pacific Grove (Capt. F.G. Satterthwaite, my maternal grandfather), and a check in on the family heirlooms at the storage unit (still intact behind temperature controlled locked doors). It was epic to link with my original crew. We have text feeds going now on both iMessage and WhatsApp, and I’m getting daily wave reports (it’s still pumping, although it was a little slow last week, but “a little slow” there is like “best day ever” here). I also got to shower merch on the crew, so I have some solid CSC representation going on next time I’m in town.
Luke Braddock repping CSC with his little ones all around.
And if you want to see the trip from start to finish check out the YouTube vids below. They’re in chronological order and you can see us all riding the different boards. When I got to SFO for the flight home my bag was 60 lbs lighter and I didn’t have to pay extra since surfboards (not overweight ones) are free to take on the plane to/from California (since it’s the official state sport). Crazy to think that three boards added up to 60 lbs when they’re not individually 20 lbs! Who knows?! I have some new trips planned for 2022 and some new boards on their way from Jose. I’m also definitely going to get Charles Mencel to make me a few different asymmetrical boards in larger sizes for CSC crew to partake in. Enjoy the vids!