1st place in Grand Legends division at the East Coast Surfing Association Contest in Cape Hatteras, NC.

You have been an inspiration for so many, not just in surfing, but in so many aspects of life. Thank you for all you have done.

Florida Today article: Crippling disease won’t slow surfer

Well, that time a year again, the half-way mark to the January show.  It was great seeing familiar faces and new ones.

This Expo brought with it the energy of surfing literaly; we had the finest waves we have not seen in two years: Friday morning it was glassy, overhead, with plenty of time to paddle out.  I resisted the temptation to look at the waves Saturday morning, and headed for the Surf Expo.

Back to the show.  Body Glove International has teamed up with American Wave Machines, Inc  to bring Body Glove Waves, surfing machines you can definetly surf on. Great for teaching beginners and bringing surf everywhere, which means inland. But what tickled me the most was seeing a picture of a friend of mine in the brochure, Lauren McLean. I’m going to have to ask her for an autograph next time I see her.

I also picked up a “Republica De Costa Rica” pasaporte to Witch’s Rock Surf Camp which has a beachfront hotel in Tamarindo, Costa Rica . They have a surf school, surf shop, restaurant, and bar at the hotel and provide complete services from boat rides to non-accessible-by-vehicle places to surf.

And for those of you people who cannot live without your cell phone and have to be attached to you 24 x7, they have a vaccum seal container…I got to see an Ipod getting dropped into and floating in a fish tank.

Hope to see you all at the January Expo. I’m getting very excited about seeing these legends shape!

See you in the water

Jeff Haney wins 2009 Fl Shape Off

 

 

 

Old Guys Rule and Young Guys still rock:
Big thumbs up to Jeff Haney overall winner of the Florida Shape Off, scoring one for the Old School camp, and to the first runner up, Pete Daly, young shaper from Daytona

Actually a congrats to all the shapers: Glenn Klugel, Pat Madden, Chris Birch and Pierce Meyer. As both Ricky Carrol and Juan Rodgriquez said before they declared a winner, not only shaping the boards in the time and space allotted is extremely difficult, so is judging them. Even though both judges had eyed and felt the blanks already shaped throughout both days of the contest, and Ricky started measuring the short boards an hour before Pierce Meyer (last contestant) finished his long board, it still took them a good thirty minutes to award the winning board. What made it more challenging was the fact that even though all the shapers did a top-knotch job, they had two totally different styles of boards to judge. They picked a winning short board and a winning long board, and then chose the one that came the closest to replicating the parent board.

Ricky Carroll expressed great admiration for the job the “New School” shapers had done, as some of them had never shaped or even seen the style of longboard that they were asked to replicate. Heck, they were years from being a gleam in their parents’ eyes when that board came out! “They did a fantastic job. That’s why it’s so hard to pick the best out of all.” This is the reason the Florida Shape Off only has 1 winner and 1 runner up; to pick a 3rd, 4th, 5th and 6th place would be nearly impossible. To answer an attendee’s question as to what happens with the losing board, there is no such thing. All the blanks shaped are being done so by the best in the industry; in our minds they are all winners, especially for donating their time and talent to the cause of highlighting the unknown heroes of surfing that make surfing possible: the shapers.

Still, this is a contest, and only one of these magnificent pieces of work can be chosen as the winner. Interestingly enough, both the winner and runner up ran into a little trouble when shaping their blanks; Jeff Haney actually had big trouble when he dropped his planer, bending the blades, which he didn’t notice until he made passes with it, looked down and saw the Grand Canyon streaking along the bottom of the board. (Read about Day 2 on the blog) He was more surprised than anyone that he had actually won. And Pete Daly had started shaping and noticed that the template provided “wasn’t right.” In all the commotion, it was left behind, so he proceeded without one, also shrugging his shoulders at the possibility of winning.

So Jeff Haney gets to keep the trophy until next year, when it will get passed on to the winner of the 2010 Florida Shape Off! Till then …catch you in the water!

Check out photos from the 2009 contest

Rick Piper has 12 new paintings that he premiered Saturday at the show that took place in his gallery/studio. (Thanks, Tom Neilson for sending me the link). It looks like 5 of them have already been sold; so very nice of Rick to have a page of them so we can enjoy!

12 new paintings by Rick Piper

Surfing Magazine.com is featuring the “Month of the Shaper” by posting one interview per day with contributing craftsmen.  Check out the interviews of our own local heroes: Rich Price and Ricky Carroll.

Cocoa Beach – Space Coast – Brevard County

Reducing Red Tide and other Harmful Algal blooms through Coastal Wastewater Reform

Peter J. Barile, PhD will be holding a talk on reducing Red Tide and other harmful algal blooms through Coastal Water Reform this Tuesday, November 18th starting at 6:00 pm at the Cocoa Beach Public Library.

Next weekend, March 8th and 9th at Lori Wilson Park. Entry forms available at Cape Surf at 7008 N Atlantic Ave. in Cape Canaveral.

March 1 – Noon till ????
Everyone is invited to come out, surf, eat and have a good time! The Cocoa Beach Surf Museum will have a potluck lunch as a fund raiser/membership drive at Patrick AFB pavilion at picnic tables.

Orlando , FL — Inspired by Ricky Carroll’s recent victory at the Tribute to the Masters Shape-off at the Sacred Craft Consumer Surfboard Expo this past October, Paul Eaton is
sponsoring the 1st Annual Florida Shape-Off at the upcoming 2008 Surf Expo in Orlando . As a tribute to craftsman Robert Strickland, each shaper will be given an Ice 9 blank and two hours inside of Ricky Carroll’s portable shaping booth located at booth 1871S inside the Expo to replicate the Con Rail Model.
“We believe the shapers are the true unsung heroes of the
surfing industry and we wanted to place the face and name together so
people can see who is putting the soul in their boards,” said Paul Eaton.
The shapers and scheduled times that they will be shaping are:
–Friday, January 11th: Tom Neilson at 10 AM, Stu Sharpe at 12:15
PM, Bill Eberwein at 2:30 PM
–Saturday, January 12th: Dave “Davo” Dedrick 10 AM, Juan Rodriguez at 12:30 PM, George Robinson at 2:30 pm.
Special thanks to judges Ricky Carroll, Skip Savage and Bud Gardner who will award the first place trophy on Saturday evening. The winning board will be donated to the Cocoa Beach Surf Museum . The other boards will be donated to charity.

“This contest is not saying who is the best shaper,” Paul Eaton clearly states, “just who is
the most precise at copying the board.”
All of the shapers involved are magnificent artists and craftsmen, well worthy of recognition in the surfing industry.