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Dayze
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When I started this magazine I had three terms in my head and they were Dirtbag, Minimalism and Social Activism (although after further thought it could be antisocial activism, but I’ll explain later). Contrary to popular belief a Dirtbag is not just some filthy homeless person dressing in rags. The dictionary definition (because we are shooting for clarity here) is “A person who is committed to a given (usually extreme) lifestyle to the point of abandoning employment and other societal norms in order to pursue said lifestyle.”
In context of Dayze magazine this is basically someone whose principle goal in life is to go surfing as much as physically possible. In the modern day and age, it is much harder to drop out of society and do nothing but surf. This magazine is aimed at all dirtbags from those van nomads, to the 50/50s (a new term I am coining) people who work there arses out at atleast 2 jobs in order to make enough money to travel and surf for as long as possible. Even the modern age dirtbag those who work 9-5 but still are out there surfing in the dark, morning and night. Dirtbag is not an exclusive term, like many things there are
different extremes of the movement.This leads me nicely to my second term, Minimalism. A minimalist is not necessarily a dude sitting in an empty room wearing all black and berating people for consuming. Also its not not that either but that’s not the minimalism I’m looking at. Minimalism is uncluttering your life, not just of possessions but all of lifes complications in order to live a freer existence. This kind of living is essential to the dirtbag lifestyle, the less things you have to worry about the more time you have for surfing. Whether that is the one extreme of selling everything and living out of a
van or camping in the bush and living cheap and dirty in order to surf all day every day, or by simply living in a smaller house with a mortgage you can afford so you aren’t stretched and stressed out of your mind, which then leave time, money and sanity so you can surf as much as possible. The final term this magazine was birthed around is Social Activism, which again another dictionary definition, “an intentional action with the goal of bringing about social change.” Now this is the tricky part, because in essence we are trying to avoid society and its constructs.
We are not necessarily actively trying to change society, hence my earlier mention of possibly terming it “Antisocial Activism”. This is probably an apter description because it does annoy people in conventional society although that is not a goal of the movement. In its way it is, like surfing, selfish. However, the true surf community (externally at least) is an antisocial society in that it shuns normal society but has a strong and tightnit family of its own. Hopefully you are still with me this far, and I think if you understand then this magazine is for you. On a more pressing point, this was a pretty long introduction, so stop reading this shit and go surfing.
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B y B an expected
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-11 T W the
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o m g e n e r frictionless fortune
-21 N e w S l e d s a tale of two surfboards
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Custom Made Hand Planes Recycled Timber - Hand Made - Naturally Sealed For barrel seekers! www.dfindesigns.com.au/shop 5
Byron Bay an unexpected expected journey
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Although I am only twenty nine I have been a surfer for over twenty years and a surf traveller for at least fifteen. I have been all over the world and met countless people, however like most Australians my movements in my own country has been very limited. One place has come up in many discussions, whether it be crusty old surf locals or drunk British backpackers. Byron
Bay.
A traveller’s mecca, place of surf and sun, chill vibes great waves and the left over 70’s hippie collective, or so I was told. These stories have made Byron a must visit place for me and recently I finally managed to cross it off my list. What I saw when I got there was not exactly what I was expecting. In my mind, before this last trip, if you asked me what Byron
Bay had instore for a surf traveller I saw a small town, nestled in a bushy headleand surrounded by perfect warm waves. A place full of artists, shapers, surfers and hippies, doing not much work and spending their time surfing or creating in between. Now this all may have been true at one day and age, I think that time was probably about 30 years ago. Another of those little signs that again makes me think that I was born into the wrong generation but that’s a whole other barrel of monkeys. When you pull off the highway and head in to Byron Bay you get a brief time where you are driving on a quieter road through the roll-
A place full
ing green hills of the hinterland. This moment of zen and peace is very short lived as a moment later, you come to a round about and a big flash new hospital. Now I have nothing against hospitals, I have found a use for their emergency departments on countless occasions, it was just so unexpected. After the hospital the road goes back to single lane each way and continues rolling through the hills. Shortly after you come across a large industrial estate, again nothing wrong with this but just another massively unexpected. The bonus of this industrial estate is that it is the home of North Coast Surfboards, the talented gentlemen that make Takayama boards in Australia, among some other amazing creations.
of artists & shapers,
hippies & surfers
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I fell in love Now this alone is enough of a reason for any surfboard lover to stop, but even extra amazing was the fact that I had a brand new custom log ready and waiting for me. This was definitely a great start to a trip, how could it not be. It is possible the early tone of this article has come off a little negative, that was never my intention. The whole point of this article is for me to try and explain the unexpectedness of my journey into Byron and how preconceptions can really change your idea and experiences of a place. All I had before I went was a lot of stories from other people. Essentially I had other people’s experiences preloaded before I even had any of my own. This is something I try to avoid, in my earlier days of study I went quite in depth in the area of social stereotypes and since then
a lot in
Byron I have always tried to go into situations more open minded and neutral so that nothing colours my experience or expectations of a person or place. With Byron for some reason I could not shake these preconceptions. Thinking on it now I suppose if I told you every day for ten years that the ocean is blue (of course someone who hasn’t seen the ocean before) and on the day you turned up it was, green or sandy brown or even grey and stormy. None of these other outcomes are necessarily bad things, quite the opposite you could quite possibly prefer the ocean to be any of these other colours but they would not be
what you expected. These expectations can then affect the way you experience a place. This was very much my trip to Byron, I had the total opposite to a bad time, but it took me a while to readjust me thinking of the place I was in. Byron Bay is actually a pretty nice place to visit, I don’t want to colour your perceptions but I do feel I need to have my own description for posterity. For me, Byron was like a scaled down Gold Coast crossed with Ackland St in St Kilda all surrounded by beautiful beaches and national park. The crowds and traffic were a bit crazy but when you can only travel in school holidays you have to put up with some things. Surfing with whales and dolphins everyday more than made up for any annoyance at traffic jams. I struggle to believe how some of
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the locals can see the whales as such a common place thing. I have surfed most of my life and anytime you share the ocean with its true locals it is an amazing experience. I fell in love a lot in Byron as well, yes I have a girlfriend but she understands. In fact, I think she fell in love more than I did. I am talking about surfboards of course, not people. With the exception of a select few I really prefer surfboards over people any day of the week. There were some amazing boards around the Byron area, one grey 6 channel single fin still haunts my dreams at night.I always love going in to surf shops all over the world, it is one of those things that transcends culture and other social barriers. The singular love for the surf and the equipment used to share the power of the ocean brings people together.
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I think Byron in its own weird way has kind of done this as well, there are people there from all over Australia and the world. People like myself and my girlfriend staying in a tent and doing it on the cheap right up to people who have multi million-dollar holiday houses. There are so many different types of people there but they all come together in one spot and blend together over the love of such a wonderful place.
SwitchStance creativity out of the water
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Tom Wegener the frictionless fortune
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As a Victorian you get used to dealing with cold weather and not so many people. The climate is harsher and as a result your body gets very used to these temperatures. Noosa, even in late September for a wayward Mexican, was hot. Wandering around shops in the mid-afternoon sun, with two panting dogs and a thousand people all cramming the streets made it even more so. It was during this near melt down that a wondrous thing happened; I met Tom Wegener. The modern day master of frictionless surfing. If you ask my girlfriend I have been talking about making an Alaia for months and months, possibly almost since I met her. For me to meet Tom, was a dream come true, although I thought it was such a remote possibility that it wasn’t actually a dream.
As we were in Noosa and me having an inherit love of surf shops and all things surfing, naturally I had to visit Noosa Longboards. I knew Tom shaped a few boards for the shop but I didn’t realise that he actually spends a few hours every week talking to customers. I’m not normally one to get star struck or anything, but this definitely took me by surprise. I have a passion for working in my shed and making things with my hands, I love to know how things are made and it was this curiosity that led to the meeting. Over hearing and joining in on a conversation about a composite cork nose rider, then led
Modern day
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frictionless surf ing
on to other things. Eventually, I told him that I had been planning to make an Alaia for quite some time. He says straight away, “Hey, come round to my shed and we can make one together.” “I would love to, I said, however the drive from Victoria might be a bit of a stretch.” He then told me where to get the best blanks and how to get started and what to finish it with. I think if I didn’t panic a little and leave I could still be there talking to him about the finer points of finless board shaping and surfing. It is amazing how one small thing can change your perspective on the rest of the day, despite the heat, the hordes of people, then endless questions about my dogs (if you have an Aussie Shepherd you’ll understand, and no his eyes are not broken!) not to mention
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Alaias are the high probability that they could shit in the street at any moment. Was all eclipsed by the joy of meeting a surfing idol. I was happy to deal with all of it because I had had a moment of luck and been able however briefly to discuss boards with a true master. For those of you who don’t know, here is some information about Tom Wegener. He has been shaping boards in Australia from his small shed in Cooroy in Queensland. Tom was still turning out more traditional foam and fibreglass surfboards, but he had the dream to make surfboards and shaping more sustainable. After a visit to the Bishop Museum in Hawaii and seeing some of the old Hawaiian surf craft he was inspired and upon returning home Tom started making replicas of the Alaias. About the
inherently difficult
same time, he was making hollow wood boards from paulownia and sealed with linseed oil, the alaias are much simpler being shaped from a simple paulownia board. Before long he had a cult following on his finless boards, with surfers such as Rob Machado, Tom Curren, David Rastovich, Dan Malloy and Mike Stewart. As a result of his experimentation, he was making amazing boards and bringing modern surfers back to the roots of the sport. In 2009, he was awarded Shaper of the Year by Surfer magazine. Alaias, being only a thin timber board and having no fins, are inherently difficult to ride and are
to ride
outside the skill set of the everyday surfer. However, because of the lack of drag they are super fast and a whole heap of fun to ride. Enter the Seaglass Project, a collaboration between Wegener and Global Surf Industries, aiming to bring finless surfing to the masses. The results were the Tuna and the Albacore, one soft top and another Tufflite epoxy construction finless surfboards with more foam and float but the same speed and fun of a traditional Alaia. In 2011 the Seaglass Project won the Australian International Best Design Award for Sport and Leisure. This is all very impressive from the outside but my favorite things about Tom Wegener is that in a world that is always pushing for more and striving for more cutting edge, high performance surfing equipment, he was one of
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the few to look backwards. It is very easy to go with the flow and follow the standard formula for surfing as dictated by the mighty WSL. The hard thing to do is to do something different, so surf the unconventional. Though once you ride a finless board it maybe isn’t that hard any more because the are so fun that it brings joy back to your surfing. I was riding my 9’4 log the other day, finless of course, and a guy yelled at me “Hey buddy, you need to go get a fin for that thing!” Two weeks after that I was walking through the car park and I over heard a guy say to his friend, “that guy doesn’t have a fin in his board, weird.” Even in my small part of the world being different stands out and makes people notice, though they still resist the change. I mean that isn’t a bad thing, finless surfing definitely isn’t for everyone, but if
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you are too scared to change (and try something you might possibly love) because of what other people might think of you that is a sad thing. Growing up, I was always asked the question by my old man, “who is the best surfer in the water?” “The one having the most fun.” I will reflexively answer. I truly believe it and it is something that I still use a lot today, just ask my girlfriend!
Road Trippin a
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NewSleds a
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tale
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After a recent trip up north I came home with two new boards, one was planned the other not so much. These two boards leaving shape out of it, come from very different ends of the board shaping spectrum. One is a high end hand shaped custom the other an off the rack cheap overseas ‘pop out’. It is also the first non custom board I have bought in years. Now both these boards bring me a similar amount of fun in different conditions. It got me thinking about the old adage, “Good boards aren’t cheap. Cheap boards aren’t good.” And its relationship in regards to fun in the water. (I’m not sure I have the space in this article to get into the economic side of the argument.)
Now the first board I picked up was a custom Donald Takayama Model T. This board is the Rolls Royce of logs, anyone who longboards should know of or want to own one of these boards. With good reason, my first surf on this board I knew it was magic. It is super easy to trim, it turns on a dime and when you’re on the nose it feels as if you can hang there all day. Whenever you are riding a good board you never think about the board you just do what you want to do and the board goes with you. When you are riding a great board it is like this but also makes you feel you have supernatural abilities.
Good boards , aren’t cheap,
That is the Model T. I have only been longboarding for a few months but this thing seriously makes me feel like I could surf with the best. Apart from all my shit talking, when you get right down to it, this board is unbelievably fun to ride, and you finish every wave with a smile. That is the true essence of a great board, its ability to impart happiness with every wave. This was proven to me a few weeks ago surfing with my girlfriend, I was on another board having an average day and she was on the Model T having a blast. Towards the end of our session we swapped boards. I only had one wave on this thing and spent the whole wave camped on the nose. My previously average session was erased with one wave on the magic board.
, Cheap boards aren’t good!
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This board
Now I’m not going to lie, a Takayama is not cheap and I completely understand why, they are still hand made in Australia using the best materials you can get. I am definitely not going to argue with the results either. The thing I am trying to discover is how this relates to the cheaper end of the spectrum. I mean of course you can pick up second hand versions of expensive boards that will go amazing, but does out right cost equal the same amount of fun? Before this article I probably would have said yes. However, a $400 single fin may have changed my mind. Looking around in Byron I found a place called the Surfboard Warehouse, it being the kind of shop I like (one filled with surfboards) I went in. Initially, there
is
Magic!
wasn’t really much there that grabbed me. I probably should have explained at the start of this article that I am somewhat of a board snob or maybe due to my expensive and classic tastes in surfboards I could be called a board connoisseur (although that sounds equally snobby and possibly twice as wanky). I always order customs to get what I want and I always get boards that are Australian made with good blanks and glass. So for me a shop full of cheap Chinese pop outs was a bit like taking a five-star food critic to Maccas. There was however, one board that caught my eye, or should I say caught my girlfriends eye. She
pulled out a fat little 5’6, which at first glance was a little bit ugly, but at second glance contained a very interesting flume channel and a single fin box. It was also very cheap; it’s new price tag was cheaper than the wholesale price of my usual surfboard purchases. So we bought it, mainly because it was cheap and even if we didn’t like it getting rid of it wouldn’t be a hard job. After my first surf on this thing I was hooked. I’m pretty sure I rode it for two weeks straight! Paddling out with no expectations probably helps a lot but after a few waves to get it dialled I had this thing doing turns that I never would have expected it could do. Now I definitely admit that it doesn’t feel as nice as a Model T but I never expected it to, nor is that the comparison I am trying to make. After a good surf on this I am just as
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happy at the end. The lack of refinement in the board becomes a challenge when surfing it and successfully getting barrelled or pulling off a tight turn under the lip is so much more satisfying. Overall, these are two boards that no one would ever normally compare, one is a retro log and the other is a modern small wave single fin. Two very different boards, promoting two quite different styles of surfing, however two boards that provide a very similar amount of fun. In conclusion, I would have to say that you can have boards that are just as fun as each other regardless of price and build quality. I know that the Takayama I will be able to give to my grand children, where as the other one will be lucky to make a couple of
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years. I know also that the Takayama is keeping Aussie shapers in work and is a much more sustainable option than boards that are pumped out of China. Whatever other arguments you can make I not only understand but probably also completely agree with. The main point of this article however was a comparison of fun, the single most important element in surfing. Both of these boards in the right conditions are a whole heap of fun and when you get right down to it if a board isn’t fun its not worth having. Long story short after a long drive and a bit of cash I came home with two awesome boards that will provide me with many fun waves for years to come.
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S h o w U s Y o u r Q u i v e r Surfer: Tom Carroll Quiver: 20, give or take
For as long as I can remember I have been surrounded by surfboards. They fascinated me as a kid, my dad always had boards around the house. I have been surfing for pretty much my entire life and I do love having lots of boards. I don’t just collect them for the sake of it. I love the mechanics behind surfboards and finding out why this rail surfs like that and why those fins go better in whatever board. Still my collection is not just a whole heap of weird unridden boards, every board in my shed at home gets surfed. The number of boards in my shed is a fluid twenty something. Ever changing between moving the ones that don’t work, ordering new ones to do something better and the sad but inevitable day when the old (or not so old) snap.
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The next 5 boards are a small cross section of my quiver, I tried to capture the variety of my collection, as well as showcase some favourites. It was a hard decision to only pick 5 but I think the ones I picked will give you a good idea of the way I like to surf. Unlike many people I am not afraid to try something unconventional, I like to push myself and my equipment. Like everything looking back is a good way to move forward, so there are a few good single fins thrown into the modern mix of thrusters. It never hurts to do something crazy to test yourself, like riding a 9’4 log finless. I always say surfing is meant to be fun and I really think my quiver reflects the fun I have in the water.
Shaper: Southern Juice /Jim Pollock Dimensions:
Shaper/Model: Simon Anderson /Face Dancer Dimensions:
Shaper/Model: Campbell Bro’s Bonzer /Russ Short Dimensions:
Shaper/Model: Rousa /Hunter Dimensions:
Shaper/Model: Nettleton /Log Dimensions:
5’6 ish x 19ish x 2 3/4?
5’11” x 18 3/4” x 2 5/16”
6’0” x 19 3/4” x 2 3/8”
8’7” x 19 3/4” x 3 1/8”
9’4” x 23” x 3”
This board is a gem, got it cheap at a second-hand shop. Surfs tiny waves or up to about head high, so fast and turns really hard for a chunky board. Vee bottoms and hard rails are great for rail surfing! Plus, can’t beat a mid 80’s spray. Best $100 I’ve ever spent.
My first channel bottom, a board long dreamed of and finally got one. Such a drivey board, never had anything that bites and hooks so hard in the pocket. The channels really help this board in good waves, don’t think I’ve not made a section yet. Endless speed.
The most amazing thing about this is that this technology would have been available in the 70’s. Loves to be surfed on rail and prefers turns where you are upside down. One of my most fun boards. Only problem is I don’t get to ride it enough because it likes super clean days.
My big gun for when things get scary! I think this is my favourite board. A paddle and speed machine, heaps of hold off the bottom but really manoeuvrable for such a big board. Gives me the confidence to paddle into the waves I don’t want.
Never thought I’d have a longboard. This thing is a whole heap of fun. Super refined rails let it trim, which is great for nose riding and the fat arse gives it enough outline curve that you can still whip it off the bottom. I’ve recently found out it surfs great finless as well! 37
D Fin Designs Shirts The ultimate loggers apparel. Get yours now! www.dfindesigns.com.au/shop
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