Wooden works of art

These wonderful looking fins are the work of Roberto Gastelumendi who began working with wood in the 1990s. Over the years he developed and perfected techniques for wood selection, structure, and creative design. He has been fortunate to learn from some of the Bay Area’s most knowledgeable artisans.
At Gastboards, we have always had a profound appreciation of wood and its possibilities, both functional and aesthetic. As part of our commitment to sustainability and good stewardship, we work primarily with recycled woods. With these materials we seek to create objects of value and beauty.

www.gastboards.com

The Byron Bay Surf Festival

Lots of new things being added in the countdown to the festival. 

So check it out : www.byronbaysurffestival.com/program

25 DAYS AND COUNTING - BYRON BAY SURF FESTIVAL 

The Byron Bay Surf Festival looms near. With less than a month until the opening, the full program is online, locked in and bursting with good cheer. Many new events and festival trimmings have been added this year, especially in the realm of music, art and exhibition.

Big music news to announce this week is that our favorite surf-muso Donavon Frankenreiter will be lifting the new Seaview Stage (at Main Beach). Festival partner Sanuk and Low Pressure Sound System present "A Collective of Life Minded Musicians", spearheaded by Donavon and special guests with a one off jam session by Ash Grunwald, Shannon Sol Carol & Oj Newcomb (Band of Frequencies), Dave Rastovich, Scotty Owen (The Living End), Terepai Richmond (The Whitlams), Vinnie LaDuce (Mt. Warning). These legendary musos are playing to raise awareness, inspiration and continued support for local environmental and educational not-for-profit organizations Take 3, Seabird Rescue Centre, and the Burra Jurra Indigenous Surf Program. This comes as an incredibly rare occasion; a colourful mix of surf culture icons and musical talents performing at a FREE family friendly open-air venue surrounded by sustainable brands like Banks in the Tipi Pop-Up Block, next to gourmet food partners Santos Organics, Loving Earth, Chia Co and Allpress Espresso. Across the road, long time sponsors the Beach Hotel and Corona Extra will continue musical entertainment throughout the festival nights.

More big announcements this week include the much-anticipated Australian premiere of the Californian produced 'Expencive Porno Movie' shot entirely on 16mm film in true 70's retro style, showing at the local Community Centre during the festival. This will be an exciting fringe venue, which also hosts a 'GoPro tech-tips' seminar by GoPro guru Nigel Raynard of Unique Images Australia as well as the GoPro photo comp final presented by pro photographer Willem Ungermann who will also host a GoPro beach day for the grommets.

On the crafty side of the spectrum, the festival is hosting a variety of special workshops; Handplane Shaping by Grown Surfboards, Board Bag Making and Indigo Dye by Byron Bay Board Bags and a very exclusive Wooden Fin Shaping workshop by master craftsman and Itako historian Nobuhito 'Nobby' Ohkawa who is travelling all the way from Japan for this event. In fact, this year the festival hosts quite a large contingent from Japan, as well as from the USA.

 This is obvious also within the infamous Art Photography Show with well-known Japanese artists Iki Yasuo, Hi-Dutch, Kei Otsuka, Kuni Takanami and Yoge Kensuke Yoshida featuring alongside Australian up and coming artists Kasper Raglus, Kye D'arcy, Josh Rufford and renowned American artists Andy Davis, Heather Brown, Matthew Allen and The Captain Surfs of Hawaii. The stART-me-up youth art show and sustainable craft workshops by Meet Make Create is open for kids to do their own recycled/up-cycled art and includes awesome fun prizes donated by local businesses such as a Hot Air Balloon ride up for grabs and groovy surf gear. Local youth are also represented on the music stage. Nearby, major sponsors Golden Breed and Uppercut Deluxe will also be putting on special displays with plenty of historical, vintage surfboards, 50's cars and bikes. Exhibits well worth spending time with!

With so much choice and variety of things to do, feel, smell, see, surf and create; the Byron Bay Surf Festival plans to keep you busy and entertained all weekend. The Friday night opening film 'Beyond the Surface', the Saturday markets with Tipi Pop-Up Block and infamous Corona Party Wave dash for cash at Wategos Beach, besides surfing and demo events on Sunday will be full of sunny merriment. Almost everything is free, outdoors and fun. For the few ticketed events at the Byron Community Centre and Beach Hotel, get in quickly because they will sure sell fast.

Keep an eye on the ever-mounting program at www.byronbaysurffestival.com, be sure to lock in any flights, friends or accommodations soon and we look forward to sea-ing you there!

Eco Challenge 2014

"At this years event there will be a Wooden Surfboard Challenge (WSC), sponsored by Tom Wegener Surfboards. This is one of the most primitive and one of the most natural experiences any person can have surfing. Not too mention one of the fastest.

WSC will primarily be an experiment session. This format is open to all people irrespective of age or gender on all styles of timber boards in any format; stand up or prone. The winner of this session will be judged by the amount of "stoke" they display in the ocean and from their surfing experience."

Register Now and Secure Your Place!

www.surfriderecochallenge.com

Jordan's HSC project

Young Jordan Reynolds wanted to do something different for his HSC, and so with his love of surfing he decided to test himself out with building a board.It is Paulownia bagged over EPS and he has done a great job. Here is his project ...

It has been great to help out a young guy who wants to test himself and achieve something like this. And the result is first class. I am sure he has started on a journey that will keep him busy for a while now.

Quentin's new board

Quentin  Delion sent me these shots of his latest project and because his english is not good he said he would let the pictures tell the story. It is a 5' 8" x 20 3/4" x 2 1/2" board with no resin finish.

" I bought a surfboard in New Zealand 6 years ago . I loved this surfboard but I never fix any ding .
So I took out the fiberglass fto use the foam."

He has done a great job and built a very nice board.

 He is a very good wood worker as you will see with some of his other projects on his blog http://quentindelion.tumblr.com

Looking for wood ?

If you are looking for a supplier of Paulownia , then Stuart Bywater in Brisbane could be the guy to help you out. Stuart has been running board building classes and supplying the Paulownia and Cedar for the courses , so he is more than happy to help you out as well.

"We have a constant  supply of Paulownia timber on hand "
"We can supply you with boards and panels of paulownia 2.4m and 3 meter lengths."

200mm x 8mm rough sawn
200mm x 6mm dressed 2 faces
195mm x 6mm dressed all edges
585mm x 6mm panels
"I can also supply other solid sections by request."

Best to contact me at timber@bywaterdesign.com.au

Grain and the 4th Annual Surf Re evolution

 

An explanation of the event:

We think of the boards we build as an emblem of “re-evolution”. To us, that’s the act of reaching back into the legacy of surfboard design, finding an inspiration, and applying new thinking or new materials to jump over the intervening years, decades or millennia to create something surfers can love today.
Because we’re not alone in revering re-evolution, Grain will again invite some very special friends to help us with our third annual celebration of this idea. It’ll be a party and think-fest to remember, split between the beach – for board demos and sunshine – and the shop – for sharing music, art, films, food, drink, and thoughts about surfboard design and construction. You just gotta be there.

Attached is a poster you can share. We're excited to have Jon Wegener, Ed from Enjoy Handplanes here for the event, Pierce and Petra from Misfit Productions showing their new film, What the Sea Gives Me. We'll have lots of hands on activities and demonstrations, local food, beer from our friends at Dogfish Head Craft Brew, and more.
Here's a link to the page on our site, http://www.grainsurfboards.com/buzz/surf-re-evolution-event/

Paddle out for Geoff Moase today

It was a sad weekend with Geoff's funeral yesterday and his paddle out today.A big thanks to Peter Strum for the shots below.

Geoff's son Jack leads us down the beach

Paddle out for Geoff Moase this Sunday

A paddle out for Geoff is planned for this Sunday 21st September at Tallebudgera Beach, meeting at 8:30am out the front of the surf club.

Byron Bay Surf Festival - 6 weeks to go !

Spring has arrived and the Byron Bay Surf Festival, beginning October 24th, is budding with exciting new announcements. With a traditional opening ceremony by the Arakwal Bundjalung people followed by a free outdoor screening/Australian premiere of the Beyond the Surface film and raging launch party by NZ blues rock band Bonjah at the Beach Hotel, the festival kicks off with a BANG.

Saturday 25th absorbs the seaside with a beautiful, rambling market hub bursting with surf-inspired creative initiatives, ideas, arts, music, workshops, demos and delicious edibles. Some of the highlights include health and wellbeing seminars such as that of raw chef/nutritionist Samantha Gowing, surf injury expert/physiotherapist Ryan Huxley and Yoga sage Geoff Brooks. Selected stalls will showcase some of the best and most innovative brands in surfing such as the newly launched Banks brand, international labels like Sanuk, Moonjelly and Free People. Additionally, there will be an entire arena on the northern end of the festival site dedicated to charities, sustainability and gift clothing initiatives such as Smile, Hippy Tree, Kiss Max and Toms. Down the way will be many small local and international artisan and surfboard shaper stalls to browse upon, design workshops, large surf culture art show and also a special retro/rockabilly area, 50's cars and bikes hosted by Uppercut Deluxe. Here you will also find a special Golden Breed surf history display with surfboard evaluation area. Sublime tastes will be found throughout the market hub with an array of local cooked, cut, raw or organic cuisines by the likes of AllPress Espresso, The Chia Co, Santos Organics and Loving Earth just to name a few. With two music stages onsite, there will be plenty of sweet tunes to listen, alternatively you might like to tune into some of the mind tweaking all-day presentations in the popular ‘Surf Literature Lounge’ featuring speakers, stories, far reaching ideas and chaired discussions by experts, writers, publishers and surf legends such as Tom & Nick Carroll, Brad Gerlach, Duct Tape surfer Pascale Honore or giant wave photographer Russell Ord.

 

At night, keep your eyes open for key events in town. Some of these include a presentation by freesurfer and activist Lauren Hill on ‘Third World Girls, social justice and surfing’ discussing seedlings of surf culture around the world, a special GoPro youth comp hosted by renown photographer Willem Ungermann, a last screening of the GoPro surf shorts film comp finalists, feature film premiere yet to be announced and even more music acts into the night.

For Sunday 26th, Wategos beach hosts its annual surf swap meet with shapers from all around the world, surf demo sessions and quirky surf-off-sessions. The infamous Corona Party Wave $1000 dash for cash event will round this off as a memorable and fun day by the ocean. This is the day to get wet, to be inspired by surfing, shaping and to simply chill out… until yet more nighttime festivities begin with indie rockers Griswolds at the Beach Hotel after party.

 

Get amped and keep your eyes out for the latest program at www.byronbaysurffestival.com

New foam alternative

If you are looking to build a board with a very small carbon foot print then this could be a big step forward.

www.biomblanks.com