Roy Stuart Original Sim update

Well finally gotten round to working a bit more on my Roy Stuart Sim, starting to take shape now and starting to get quite excited about getting it in the water!


Have glued the frame together and now ready to be trimmed ready to lay the top planks. Was a bit concerned about bending the rocker into it as per Roy Stuart's instruction so glued the frame together on the rocker table, using my current Sim to get the nose rocker and planning on shaping trail rocker later, though it will be very small, going to be a planning machine. So far though I'm enjoying the process of making this board.


Hopefully I'll get the to planks sawn this weekend then start glueing next week.

GoPro Wrist Strap

It was during a glorious October session down Caswell, that I decided I needed a GoPro camera. It wasn't a particularly big swell, waist height at best  but with no wind and long period the water was resembled a mirror reflecting back the orange sky as the sun was setting and I cruised along on some slowly breaking pealers. It was one of those moments that make you so glad that you surf, that you love a sport that puts you in really beautiful places at really beautiful times. It was at that moment that I thought it such a shame that I couldn't capture a glimpse of this moment, that I didn't have something I could look back on when I was old and arthritic and remind myself that I used to partake in something beautiful. My own little version of Greenoughs Crystal Voyager. It would be nice to think that a GoPro system could help me out.

As great as it is to see myself styling on my longboard with the help of the GoPro sticky nose mount my real intention was to capture the scenery flying past, the waves breaking and to not look like a coal miner in a wetsuit with the help of the GoPro headstrap mount.

After a couple of failed efforts at making a simple wrist strap, with horrendous results, so decided to go all out and make a decent hash of it.

The basic frame of the strap was constructed from a couple of strips of balsa wood, glued and taped around a thermos flask, which roughly resembled my forearm.

For the section that would hold the mount I reinforced with a few more strips of balsa.

This was done then sanded flat while the rough edges and corners were sanded smooth.

The construction was then fibre-glassed with a few layers of cloth and epoxy to make it bullet-proof.

An old damaged wetsuit was then cut up to wrap around the strap, this was done while the strap was being hot coated.

With the GoPro mount attached the whole construction was then sewn to the sleeve of an old wetsuit.

Finally a broken leash was salvaged to and stitched on and she's ready to go.

With the camera attached and leant back (complete with the floaty backdoor just in case) it is angled to face forward when you're arm is held at a comfortable stance. Only thing left is to get some footage together!

UPDATE: Some footage of the wrist strap in action (a bit dodgy but I'm getting to grips with it slowly!)

The UFO - Unidentified Floating Object

Been playing around with the design of my solid paulownia bodyboard with my latest version. Rather than tapering the rails up and confining the concave to the central third of the board I've extended the concave all the way to the rails. This has the effect of making the rails sharper and more refined. My intention being to keep more hold in the rail without compromising on speed, indeed the seeing as the base is now somewhat less cluttered drag should be even less allowing for even more speed. 


Only had a chance for a brief surf on some stormy high tide waves but initial impressions are that this is board has a cracking turn of speed and I'm not sure whether it's just because this board is shorter than I've been using of late but it seemed to cope better with steeper take-offs. Will need some more testing until I can say this board is more manoeuvrable than previous efforts but it's looking good so far.


Went for a gloss resin finish on this board rather than just oiling it. Last time I go for this option though because while it looks lovely and shiny it was a right pain in the arse to coat and polish. To make matters worse one miss-timed wave resulted on me and the board getting dashed on the rocks and scuffing my lovely shiny finish within 10 minutes of getting it in the water. Live and learn I guess.