Rich Blundell grew up in New England, Boston. In 1981, he repaired an old wooden surfboard and caught the bug for surfboard engineering. A while after he fixed that first board, he became curious about the construction of sustainable, wooden boards. “There were several established techniques for board building. I had a go at it, but it wasn’t perfect; the problem is how you build the rails, so I invented the strip and feather method. It’s flexible and light and it fills all the gaps between the strips of wood at once – it solves loads of problems in one go.”
“They must be pretty heavy?” I query. “It weighs about a third more than a foam board. But duck-diving (swimming under broken waves to get further out) under waves is so easy, because the wood has great momentum. Plus they catch and power through messy breaks really easily, unlike foam boards.”
For those not in the know, English surf is often messy. So in the UK, wooden boards with this magic ability to harness that power and turn it into forward motion are exciting news. Their use isn’t limited to the UK though, they’re also common in Hawaii and Australia and growing into a global phenomenon.
“Unlike Balsa wood, Cedar has a proper cell structure, so it’s got a really visible grain,” explains Rich with infectious excitement, “when you put a layer of fiberglass over it, the cells in the grain just glow…”
You can build one of Rich’s boards yourself. When you visit his site and make a donation Rich plants one cedar tree for each dollar you donate, then he sends you a pdf template for building a board from a range of different styles: fish-tails, guns and long-boards. You’ll need a good workshop, but there’s no sorcery. The most important things are a bench saw and a router. Failing the completeness of your garage, your local university or college almost certainly has these tools in their woodshop.
“If you had all the wood stocked up, you could build one in a week,” Rich says, “…as a basement hobbyist maybe a month. If you bought the wood for a 9ft board it’s about £50, but you can often get it free.”
Rich is currently seeking people who know their way round a workshop to start making wooden boards with him. He’s going to teach people his technique and informally provide surf instruction on the side. He’s building a board live at the Wood Festival later this year, and again at the Truck Festival in Oxfordshire on the 20th July.
‘What interests you about surfing?’ I ask. “I’m into the phenomenology of it – thinking about the lived experience. It’s intense, sensuous and contemplative being immersed in that medium. You’re at the interface of the sky, the sea and the land; such a dynamic place. I had attention problems at college but surfing is so different. Your back is to the land and you’re intensely focused on that horizon.”
Rich is looking for joiners and surf enthusiasts to team up with to take his work further and he’s putting together a documentary about how surf culture might answer some of tomorrow’s big questions. Have a look at his thriving website, www.grainsurf.com, and forum, or email him with any questions you have.
